The following is an opinion piece written in response to the news that one of the country’s largest Muslim organisations issued an edict forbidding the use of Facebook and similar social networking sites and any cellular phone conversations between unmarried members of opposite sexes. Of course the edict isn’t completely unreasonable…if the communications are for the express purpose of disseminating Islamic teachings, it’s okay.

A somewhat edited and toned down version is at the moment being considered for publication by The Jakarta Globe.

To the Wayback Machine, Mr. Peabody!
Patrick Guntensperger
Jakarta, Indonesia

When an aging, once potent and commanding authority begins to fear that the days of power and glory are coming to an end, it seems to be instinctive to make a pointless, futile gesture intended to demonstrate a continued grasp on the reigns of power. One sees that in primate behaviour when a weakening silverback gorilla unnecessarily goes about bullying younger potential rivals for dominance, before lapsing back into arthritic indolence. Perhaps it is the same instinct that has inspired the clerics of Nadlatul Ulama (NU) to issue their most recent pointless, futile edict.

The latest fatuous fatwa bans mobile phone communications between members of opposite sexes and the use of online social networks such as Facebook. If the Ulema was looking for a way to underscore its lack of relevance, its hopeless detachment from the people it supposedly serves, and its refusal to confront reality, it couldn’t have found a better one. This is Indonesia, and this is the 21st Century.

As usual, the ban reflects the Ulema’s obsession with sex. For some reason, the clerics believe that mobile phone contact between complementary sexes is likely to inspire adultery and premarital sex. Also as usual, they’ve got it backwards. Wouldn’t the restriction of electronic communication lead to more face-to-face communication? Wouldn’t it make more sense to encourage electronic communication in an effort to restrict the actual physical propinquity that is required for sexual relations?

Q: Why do religious fanatics want to ban having sex in an upright position?
A: It might lead to dancing.

Like many of the ill-thought-out proclamations made by those who are out of touch with the world, this edict will not be taken seriously. There are some things that simply cannot be commanded by anyone. In fact forbidding something in many cases actually encourages it. I forbid you to imagine a Las Vegas showgirl. There; gotcha!

Moreover, as noted earlier, this is Indonesia. One of the most salient cultural traits here is the inclination simply to disregard rules, regulations, or laws if they are even mildly inconvenient. Given the market penetration (am I still allowed to employ the word ‘penetration’? It won’t lead to lustful thoughts? Gotcha again!), of the banned forms of communication, does anyone seriously expect the edicts to have any impact on the behaviour of Indonesian Muslims?

Many authorities have learned the hard way that passing laws that won’t be obeyed serves only to diminish the power of that authority. The habit of disobedience of secular and clerical law is an easy one to acquire; all it takes is a few sorties into the world of disobedience for the tenuous nature of authority to become clear. Once the rules are broken even once, the next infraction becomes that much easier. Ask any Catholic who commits the sin of Onan, a Jew who tries bacon, or a Muslim who takes a drink. The second foray into the realm of the forbidden is much, much easier.

This is so because the authority that has declared something verboten is quickly seen to be lacking the resources to enforce compliance, so the threat of earthly punishment is recognized as nothing but bluster. Moreover, the threat of divine retribution is significantly diluted when the earthly authorities are shown to be impotent; if their threats are hollow and their reasoning flawed, can they really be authentic representatives of God?

Once these questions are posed regularly, the people, far from being cowed into compliance with absurd strictures, are setting foot on the most dangerous path of all…the path that leads to thinking for one’s self. The last thing the Ulemas want is for the faithful to start thinking independently, examining presuppositions, drawing their own conclusions; no religion can survive that kind of subversive behaviour. And yet their edicts will inevitably cause many adherents to do exactly those things. Just as the silverback’s gratuitously aggressive behaviour triggers rebellion in the simian pretenders to the clan’s leadership, pointless, futile fatwas from the established religious authorities will encourage sceptical examination of the entire religious edifice.

These edicts seem to be aimed specifically at the younger members of Indonesian society. It is they who have embraced electronic forms of communication and who are the growing market for Facebook and its brethren. Perhaps this is because the Ulemas find expressions of sexuality the greatest challenge to their authority, and healthy young people are prone to be profoundly interested in sexuality and all its glorious manifestations. In fact, in all of humanity, only clerics are more preoccupied with sex than are young people.

Since the very existence of the human race is evidence that sex cannot be eradicated, all the clerics can really hope to do is make one of humanity’s greatest treasures seem dirty.

Q: Is sex dirty?
A: Only if you’re doing it right.

The overzealous attempts to control the uncontrollable, to eradicate the ineradicable, to sully the beautiful will, if we’re fortunate, have some effect. These edicts may just encourage people to ignore further silly, reactionary fatwas, and they may encourage people, particularly young people to treat any statements, proclamations, or edicts coming from established authorities with the utmost scepticism.

If anyone has a natural duty to the community, or to society, or to God, if he should exist, surely it is the duty to use one’s brains and to reject imposed idiocy.

…enditem…

Although this ran in the May 8-10,2009 weekend print edition of The Jakarta Globe, it is unavailable online. One has to assume that the reason it is not accessible in electronic format is explained by the contents of the piece.

Reputation at the expense of truth
Patrick Guntensperger

Once again Indonesia’s Constitutional Court has handed down a decision that undermines one of the most fundamental principles of democracy: freedom of expression. By upholding the defamation section in the country’s Electronic Information and Transaction Law (ITE), the court has determined that saying something unpleasant about someone else is not just a breach of manners but a criminal offence.

“The government is allowed to limit or regulate the press so that its freedom does not violate human rights,” the panel of judges said. While it is refreshing that the highest court in Indonesia acknowledges human rights, there is a bewildering sense of confused priorities swirling about this latest assault on the country’s fragile cling to democratic governance. That hurting someone’s feelings is seen as a violation of human rights will come as a surprise to those in the country who have been the victims of genuine human rights violations.

In an earlier, similar decision, the Constitutional Court declared that an individual’s good name, dignity, and reputation were protected by law, the Constitution, and international statute. Apparently good names, dignity, and reputations in Indonesia are so tenuous that the courts are willing to sacrifice a fundamental democratic right to protect them.

Most people who understand the concept of those things the court wishes to defend so zealously would have thought that a reputation was earned, and that a good name was the result having done something to deserve it. Many of us would find it undignified to have a person charged with a criminal offence for calling us names. In this country it seems, you don’t earn a good name or reputation, it is a human right. That by definition means a right that you don’t have to earn, you are entitled to a good reputation and name simply by being born with human DNA and, even if you are an utterly contemptible and vile example of the species, you are entitled to have it defended.

Most democracies allow for the defamation of another, if the commentary passes one test: the test of truth. In most democracies (one could even argue, in all democracies) the truth is an absolute defence against a claim of libel, slander, or defamation. In Indonesia there is no provision for such a defence. One can be charged with defamation under several sections of the Criminal Code if one defames another…whether the accusations levelled are true is irrelevant.

In a democracy, criminal court is no place to deal with claims arising from statements made. If a person feels that he has been defamed, that person has every right to seek redress in civil court. And surely it is up to that person to decide whether he feels sufficiently damaged by the words of another to seek legal remedies. There are many here among us who feel that others have every right to say whatever they think, about whatever they want…even if it is about us and even if it is insulting or degrading. If they were to make false factual statements about us, we might seek redress in court, but otherwise the statements would stand.

Nevertheless in Indonesia, the government takes it upon itself to prosecute these matters –whether we want them settled in court or not – and truth isn’t at issue. So seriously does the Court take the possibility of someone experiencing hurt feelings that the ITE allows for a penalty of six years in prison for electronically transmitting or distributing data that might be seen as defamatory. Please note that six years is about one and a half years more time than Soeharto’s favourite son did as the result of his conviction for having had a Supreme Court justice murdered.

Does the Constitutional Court really care that much about your feelings or mine? Hardly. Does the court genuinely see defamation of the average citizen as being so serious that it needs to be treated with more severity than assassination for personal benefit? Of course not. There is very little question that this latest decision reflects a deliberate, concerted effort on the part of the judiciary – itself perceived to be among the most corrupt institutions in the country – to control the press of Indonesia.

It isn’t your dignity or mine, or your good name or my reputation that is being protected here. I personally find my dignity insulted by the presumption that someone ought to be jailed for saying what he thinks about me. No, it is your democratic right to hear or express opinions, your very liberty that is being curtailed by this decision.

And make no mistake about it. Those restrictions on your freedom are not incidental side-effects of a well-meant law. That is the straightforward theft of your right to hear and to express opinions. And that is precisely what the Constitutional Court intended when it handed down that decision.

…enditem…

Recently, Indonesia has seen Sya’aria inspired legislation enacted in face of protests that these laws marginalize religions other than Islam. Much of that protest is raised by the Balinese non-Muslim majority, but much also comes from the Christian minority in other parts of the archipelago, and is only the latest chapter in an ongoing story.

The friction between Christian and Muslim in Indonesia has frequently erupted into far more than mere loud doctrinal dispute. People die. Children are beheaded, homes burnt, mosques and churches destroyed, and dozens of devout are routinely injured in riots. These altercations are manifestly not over mere differences in personal beliefs.

Here in Indonesia, Christianity, on the one hand, is seen as Western and has evolved into a system of beliefs, while Islam, on the other, is seen as Eastern and remains a system of behaviours. For a Christian to be baffled by why Muslims seem so concerned with the religions and beliefs of others is to misunderstand the nature of Indonesia’s Islam.

It must be recognised that the raison d’etre for both religions was a need and a desire for social control. Religion developed as a mechanism, not for formulating spiritual beliefs, but rather for regulating society’s behaviour. In the tribal and largely nomadic Middle East during the late Neolithic period, there was a need to institutionalise rules of diet, procreation, social roles, and behaviour. The spiritual underpinnings of these societal regulations served as justification for their imposition as rules.

In the medieval period, the Renaissance, right up to the Enlightenment, Christianity was clearly a mechanism of social control. The religious leaders were determined to ensure that their religion was espoused by the people of their communities.

In that respect modern Islam, being 600 years younger than Christianity, is something like Christianity 600 years ago. Islam is a tool of social and political control; so long as the tenets are publicly espoused, the conventions observed, and the rites performed, devotion is assumed.

Westerners tend to be bemused, even baffled by attempts by Islam to impose religiously dictated regulations; Westerners see those as attempts to impose beliefs. In the West, the secular world is eliminating laws that enforce religious principles and naturally bridle at attempts to impose beliefs.

But, in reality, the imposition of Sya’aria inspired laws is not an attempt to impose Islamic beliefs. What Westerners need to understand is that it is not belief that is demanded; it is public behaviour that matters.

To a Christian Westerner, one can see oneself as a religious person as long as one has a heartfelt acceptance of Jesus as god. To the Westerner, religion is a personal, internal matter.

Alternatively, if a Muslim professes faith, gives alms, does the Hajj and the ritual prayers, and observes Ramadan, his obligations are met, and he can see himself as a religious Muslim. To the Muslim, religion is a public, external matter.

While Westerners see the imposition of religious values as presumptuous, Muslims would argue that unless they are shared by a community, they are worthless as values. Communal values, harmony, conformity…these are all virtues in Islam. To a Westerner, individual rights, autonomy, and freedom from societal constraint are the higher values.

Where Westerners frequently equate Muslim public declarations of devotion with religious fanaticism, Muslims often interpret the internalisation of Western religion as atheism. Because religion is a far more personal matter in the West, someone who exhorts the rest of society with his religious views is fanatical, and possibly deranged. Meanwhile, to a Muslim, a person who keeps his religious views private can be seen as dangerously sociopathic.

A Westerner is more likely to define himself by the constitution of his internal universe; a Muslim by his standing with respect to his community; the current manifestations of both Christianity and Islam reflects that fundamental dichotomy. The religions are different because they fulfill different needs in their faithful. They serve different purposes

Is it possible then to reconcile the two? Can two such contradictory worldviews ever coexist peacefully? Possibly. But not until the two sides recognise that the disputes are not about whether Jesus was divine or a merely a prophet, whether representations of the Prophet are sinful, or how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. They’re not even about whether Friday, Saturday, or Sunday is the Lord’s Day, or whether alcohol consumption, polygamy, or toilet paper is permissible.

The disputes are more about man’s view of man. Is he more important as an individual, or is his membership in a community or society the pivotal issue? Does a human being have moral obligations to others? To his immediate family? To his community? To the human race as a whole? Or merely to those who share his views? What are those obligations? To what extent must we control others’ ‘morality’?

When we start looking at these kinds of questions instead of petty doctrinal and dogmatic ones, there may be some hope for genuine dialogue.

There are two sides to the legacy Barack Hussein Obama has inherited from George Walker Bush. On the one hand, Obama owes his presidency to Bush; on the other hand that gift may be an exploding cigar.

It may be a somewhat cynical view that the sheer, blind ineptness of George W. Bush was Obama’s greatest asset in his march toward the presidency, but it took the most thoroughly despised president in United States history to create a political atmosphere in which it was possible for Obama to be elected. Even a century and a half after the country fought a civil war to rid itself of slavery, it took a paradigm shift of epic proportions before most Americans could actually envision themselves led by a person of color. That paradigm shift was only made thanks to the staggeringly awful leadership of Bush the Lesser.

That it was about time that the land of the free and the home of the brave made that paradigm shift is obvious; but it should never be forgotten just how challenging that alteration in national mindset was. Right up until the votes were being counted and it was looking like a landslide victory for Obama, pundits, me included, were asking whether, in the privacy of the voting booth, Americans would be capable of casting their vote for a relatively young, relatively liberal African American with a suspicious name. It is a tribute to the Democrats and to Obama himself that Americans finally put aside their suspicions and their fears of the very characteristics that set Obama apart from previous presidential nominees. It is also a tribute to the intense loathing and contempt that the country felt for Bush.

That loathing brought out a segment of the electorate that had never felt its own power before. Voters who had pretty much given up on the efficacy of their single vote were so enraged at their president that they cast their ballots from deep, seething anger. And that segment is now recognizing its power, so long latent; a power that comes from unified opposition to the status quo.

It is possible that this election might herald a resurgence of American interest in politics, in liberal causes, in doing the right thing. There is a chance that the world will once again see a grassroots movement of the previously disenfranchised to seize control of the West’s political agenda. If this comes about, it will be stronger, more coordinated, and more mature than the 1960’s version of political involvement by one-time underdogs. This time the revolution won’t be divided along generational lines; this time everyone, of any age, who is sick to death of politics for the few will be active. They will expect, no, they will demand a responsive government; they will not tolerate a royal White House, run for the privileged few on the backs of the majority.

Obama may indeed have reaped the whirlwind. The populace is wound up, revelling in its newfound power, spoiling for a fight. Obama will have to deliver.

Whatever its current degraded condition and reputation, there was a time when the United States of America was great; it was self-consciously created to be a ‘city on the hill’, a shining example of intellectually and morally mature civilization. Its constitution was founded on the intellectual liberal tradition of the Enlightenment and drafted as a monument to rational, non-traditional thinking. If this political resurgence holds, and here’s hoping it does, the people of America are going to demand no less from their leader. And they will hold his feet to the fire.

Can Obama deliver? We shall see. The people gave him their trust, they placed what’s left of their hope and their optimism in his hands, and they expect a lot. And they are in no mood for betrayal or for a president who says the right things but carries on business as usual. The people of the United States have been roused from the cynical apathy that was a legacy years of imperial presidencies, culminating in the worst, most venal one imaginable.

But Obama isn’t alone.

A new, more mature, politically active voting public will hold the President and Congress accountable. The people will demand responsiveness and simply not permit the abuses of power that characterized the Bush years. The people will scrutinize every act of President Obama and rise up if they scent betrayal of trust. The government of the United States, led by its chief administrator, will work for the good of the people, all the people, or the people will have something to say about it.

Barak Obama’s four year mandate will be spent making up for the last decade. It will be a time of healing the rift between the US and the rest of the world. It will be a time during which Obama will be forced at every step to earn the right to keep his job. If he can keep the people’s trust, he will be returned to office in four years to move the country forward.

If pulls that off, he will go down in history as the president who saved the country from itself. But the credit will not be his alone; it will belong to the people of the United States of America.

…enditem…

Welcome to this blog. I set it up both as an exercise in self-discipline and because, although I write regularly for a number of publications and occasionaly for many others, from time to time I can’t find an outlet for something I want to say. That’s often because my editors don’t want to be associated with my views on a given topic, but more often it’s because what I want to say doesn’t meet the content or format criteria of my usual clients or their publications. I hope this blog will give me a forum to express those thoughts without alienting my editors or readers.

As an exercise in self-discipline, I’ll try to post regularly and I’ll keep it open for as much open feedback as I can handle. I encourage lively, thoughtful discussion of the issues raised and my expressed views. Please feel free to weigh in if you have something to contribute; as long as it is backed up with some thought and reason.

Fundamentally, however, I believe in dialogue and open discussion of unpopular but intelligent views. My experience has always been that that no matter how honourable and sincere the publisher, there are always constraints upon what can be published. Those constraints are usually the result of financial considerations; one way or another publishers are paid on the basis of the popularity of what they publish. That’s fair, and that’s reasonable. It’s particularly fair and reasonable, given that this medium exists. Nobody can reasonably complain that there is no forum available for alternative or dissonant views. If you can’t get a newspaper, or magazine, or TV station, or me, to give you a platform…open your own blog.

Just to get things started, I’ll post a number of previously written, published and unpublished pieces, so that people can get a sense of what this blog will be all about. In the meantime, since I’m new to the game, please forgive any lapses in my blog management…I’m learning as I go.

Patrick Guntensperger