http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4515&Itemid=254
Indonesia's Islamic Thugs and Street Theatre
Written by A. Lin Neumann
Friday, 18 May 2012
Islamic Defenders shout down a nation
The Islamists who shut down the star’s performance in Jakarta expose deep
problems in the country
To this old rock and roller, Lady Gaga is so much rehashed packaging —
decent looks, music I can’t distinguish from most current pop and a veneer of
outrageousness that sells records and concert tickets and leads legions of
people to identify themselves as her “Little Monsters.”
Fair enough. Madonna did it, Michael Jackson did it and now Stefani
Joanne Angelina Germanotta, 26, from New York City, does it as Lady Gaga.
That’s show business. But the current flap over her June 3 concert in
Indonesia, which apparently won’t happen because the National Police caved in
to the even greater outrageousness of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI),
exposes deep problems in the country.
Lady Gaga may be the current queen of the pop music world but the FPI
acts as king of an entire country simply on the basis of threats and bluster.
It makes me think Lady Gaga and the FPI have something in common — they are
both masters of grand theater.
Gaga, of course, knows she is play-acting for profit and that her strut
is nothing more than a bid for fame and money. We are not so sure about FPI
leader Habib Rizieq. Is he a sinister jester playing with fire in order to gain
influence and fame? Or is the FPI really bent on turning Indonesia away from
the path of modernity and toward a darker Islamist theocracy in which a tiny
minority dictates the norms of what they call “culture” and the government
simply cowers in fear?
Having set themselves up as a kind of shadow dictatorship able to wield
enormous influence and defy the law at will simply through the threat of mob
violence, the FPI represents a threat to the fabric of a country that in many
ways is the envy of the world for its enormous potential, huge domestic market
and tolerant traditions. If you are looking for “threats” to Indonesia, then
lawless thugs seemingly backed by the police are a greater peril than a legion
of self-promoting pop singers.
If you don’t like Lady Gaga, don’t listen to her music. But if you don’t
like the FPI, they can be a lot harder to turn off.
This current episode put me in mind of the experience a friend of mine
had with the FPI. A small businesswoman, let’s call her Rosi, opened a new hair
salon in a small city in East Java and quickly ran into trouble.
Emboldened by an edict against beauty treatments from the East Java
chapter of the Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI), the local FPI took to
protesting at the salon, throwing rocks, calling the owner — who was seen as an
outsider — a whore and threatening her with death. The staff of the small
business was terrified and the shop almost shut down until Rosi got fed up.
She took to confronting the thugs and threatening them back, daring them
to touch her. She finally went to a lawyer and did what many people have done
when faced with the FPI: she negotiated a cash “settlement.”
“It did not cost that much and now they leave us alone,” she said. Her
staff has been told to give cigarettes and soft drinks to the FPI street toughs
who hang around the neighborhood.
It is sad to think that in order to conduct a legal business, Rosi had to
give money to the FPI, but that is the reality for many people when confronted
with this form of lawlessness.
As of this writing, we do not know if the Lady Gaga show will push
through. There are apparently “negotiations” under way between the promoters
and the police, and the “little monsters” may yet have their moment with the
star.
What is clear is that one master showman, Habib Rizieq, and his own
monsters are able at will to go after businesses, terrorize churches, harass
women and oppress those who disagree with them all because they claim to speak
for Indonesia in the name of one interpretation of Islam.
What needs to happen next is for the leaders of the police and the
government to tell the FPI that their show is over. A nation thrives under the
rule of law and the FPI has gone far past street theater to the point where it
has become the threat.
(A. Lin Neumann, one of the founding editors of Asia Sentinel, is the
host of BeritaSatu TV’s “Insight Indonesia.” This appeared in The Jakarta
Globe.)
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