http://www.welt.de/z/plog/blog.php/the_free_west/the_free_wests_weblog/2006/02/25/daughter_of_islam_wsj
Daughter of Islam (WSJ)
An interesting article for you to read in the Wall
Street Journal about a prominent Muslim woman, Ms.
Yenny Wahid, who tries to make an important difference
in her native country Indonesia. She speaks out
against terror and the hijacking of her religion by
ideologues.
COMMENTARY: THE WEEKEND INTERVIEW
Yenny Wahid
Daughter of Islam
By NANCY DE WOLF SMITH
February 25, 2006; Page A10
WASHINGTON -- Yenny Wahid has a smile that could melt
a Hershey bar at 100 yards. Her sunny disposition is
all the more remarkable because Ms. Wahid is on what
may be the world's most difficult mission right now:
She's a prominent Muslim (and a woman at that) who
speaks out against terror and the hijacking of her
religion by ideologues who twist it to their own
political ends.
After 9/11, many Americans assume that the radical
Islamic agenda is to destroy the U.S. The reality is
that attacks on Western targets are designed to
function as brutal propaganda coups that will attract
recruits to the cause of violent revolution. The main
goal of ideologues like Osama bin Laden is to topple
the governments of Muslim countries, including, most
famously, the Wahabi royal regime of Saudi Arabia. But
the real strategic plum, Ms. Wahid says, would be her
native Indonesia and its 220 million citizens -- with
the largest Muslim population on earth.
"We are the ultimate target," she told me in
Washington during a trip to the U.S. earlier this
month. "The real battle for the hearts and minds of
Muslims is happening in Indonesia, not anywhere else.
And that's why the world should focus on Indonesia and
help."
Think of it as a potential domino whose fall would be
felt far beyond Asia. "It's big enough to destabilize
the region," Ms. Wahid notes. But "imagine if
Indonesia became a hotbed for terrorism, or a source
for people to get martyrs from. We've got enough
people to provide an army of terrorists if we're not
careful."
At present, Ms. Wahid calls that a "worst-case,
doomsday scenario," and she is probably correct, given
Indonesia's history of moderate, syncretic Islam, with
elements from the region's Hindu and Buddhist past.
While there have been demonstrations there over the
Danish cartoons that lampooned the prophet Muhammad,
they have generally involved a only few hundred
people. By contrast, Ms. Wahid points out, a December
rally she helped organize under the banner of "Islam
for Peace" attracted some 12,000 marchers.
* * *
At the head of that crowd, riding in a wheelchair
alongside Ms. Wahid, was her father, Abdurrahman
Wahid, the respected and beloved Islamic scholar who
headed Indonesia's largest Muslim cultural
organization, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), before becoming
the first president of newly democratic Indonesia from
1999 to 2001. In a seminal article for this newspaper
-- "Right Islam vs. Wrong Islam" -- Mr. Wahid wrote on
Dec. 30 that "a terrible danger threatens humanity" in
the form of "an extreme and perverse ideology" that
grossly distorts the true meaning of the religion. He
called on fellow Muslims to end the "complicity of
silence" about terrorism and other acts of intolerance
which characterize the radicals' behavior.
At 31, Yenny Wahid -- her real name is Zannuba -- is
trying to follow her father's example and defend the
values their faith teaches. Educated in Indonesia, she
got a Master's degree in public administration from
Harvard's Kennedy School of Government in 2002. Her
ease in Western surroundings is apparent not merely
from the snappy cream-colored pantsuit she was wearing
when we met but also from her elegantly accented
English.
She is active in the NU's political wing, the National
Awakening Party, and an adviser to Indonesian
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The job most dear
to her heart, however, is running the Wahid Foundation
-- named after her father -- which works to promote,
in the words of its Web site (at
www.wahidinstitute.org), "democratic reform, religious
pluralism, multiculturalism and tolerance amongst
Muslims" and reflects "a universal Islam [that]
desires justice and prosperity for all."
The key word may be prosperity. Indonesia, which was
on its way to Asian Tigerhood until the currency
crisis of 1997-98, has not recovered from the economic
meltdown that coincided with the fall of the Suharto
dictatorship. The country is a democracy now, but a
struggling one to which few investors have returned.
It also has a free press, among the friskiest in Asia.
Yet the new openness has also paved the way for vocal
opponents of Indonesia's traditional secular approach
to government -- voices previously suppressed -- and
they are gaining ground.
It is still politically incorrect to call for an
Islamic state; and the mainstream press, along with
the vast majority of Indonesians, vigorously supports
efforts to fight and arrest terrorists such as the
ones who perpetrated the Bali and Marriott hotel
bombings of 2002 and 2003. Even so, Ms. Wahid says,
the fear of being labeled un-Islamic has become
intimidating to many moderate political candidates.
Radicals who want to install an Islamic regime --
those who dream of violence while many ordinary
religious conservatives still do not -- also are
operating in an economic milieu not unlike the one
communists exploited in poor countries a generation
ago.
Poverty and a lack of education make millions of
Indonesians desperate, and easy, targets, Ms. Wahid
says. "After the fall of Suharto, people expected
democracy would solve all their problems. But of
course it takes a long time for things to fall into
their right places, and people are not patient. They
want a quick answer. So there is this sense of
democracy-fatigue in Indonesia. And my fear is if
people are willing to entertain the idea of Islam, and
an Islamic state, as an alternative solution to
governing, because they are so frustrated by the level
of corruption . . . we'd be in big trouble."
Ms. Wahid is not imagining things. She points to other
examples: "This is exactly the issue that just
happened in Palestine. Because Hamas managed to
portray themselves as the clean party. We do have
parties like that as well [in Indonesia], like Hamas."
Well-financed radicals have already infiltrated at
least some of Indonesia's traditional religious
boarding schools, or pesantren. For poor rural
families especially, these schools -- called madrassas
in other Muslim countries -- are the only way to see
that their sons get decent food and clothing. Yet even
the majority of pesantren that teach a moderate form
of Islam turn out young clerics who find it difficult
to make a living in the outside world. This is one
reason, Ms. Wahid believes, that Indonesia's mosques
have become a potent trouble zone.
"The market for these preachers is quite limited, and
you get to be the top preacher by being the preacher
with a sexy message. A sexy message can be very
inflammatory: 'Christians are the ones that created
all these problems for you guys -- kill them!' Friday
prayer is an obligation for men, so it has become a
very effective medium to propagandize with preachings
that are just very, very hateful toward non-Muslims."
Like her famous father and other influential clerics
in Indonesia, Ms. Wahid is trying to hold the line
against this trend. Their task, as she sees it, is to
remind Indonesians of the true teachings of Islam and
its sacred texts. "One thing for sure is that
[radicals] have a very distorted view of what religion
should be," she says. "Killing people meaning glory?
It's lunacy. We do discuss these things, we hold
conferences, for instance on the word 'jihad' and how
it's been used and abused throughout history. The
prophet Muhammad said the greatest jihad is against
yourself, how to make yourself a better person. It's
not . . . running to kill people."
For a true definition of martyrdom, she points to the
sacrifice of Riyanto, a young man dispatched with
other members of the Nahdlatul Ulama youth militia
during Christmas several years ago to guard churches
threatened with attacks. When he discovered a bomb
outside a church, he tried to throw it out of the way
of the crowds and was killed when it blew up. Ms.
Wahid and others mark the anniversary of his death
every year. "We always tell this message: This is the
real case of martyrdom. That's the way to defend
religion, not by killing others but by defending
others' rights to practice their religion."
As uplifting as her story is, Ms. Wahid cannot speak
to Indonesians with the same authority as her father,
whose power to influence public opinion derives in
part from his credentials as an Islamic scholar.
However, Abdurrahman Wahid is 65, blind and frail. The
NU organization where he remains a towering figure may
have 40 million members, but there are power struggles
under way inside the group, and no guarantee that its
future leaders will be as wise and outspoken as he has
been.
Ms. Wahid is doing what she can to help a new
generation follow in her father's footsteps, through
the Wahid Foundation. It involves "trying to . . .
identify these young leaders, young clerics with
same-minded beliefs, and connect them with one another
and provide them with something, a house, so that they
can come out and speak. An army of able, dedicated
young men who can talk in a unified message of
tolerant and peaceful Islam."
That's an ambitious project, and Ms. Wahid says
Indonesia cannot prepare for the future without help.
It needs foreign investors "willing to take the risk,"
and more contact with the West on every level --
including contact as rudimentary as instruction in
English that will enable people to pull themselves out
of poverty. The Wahid Foundation, for instance, has a
program that tries to arrange micro-loans in rural
communities.
She's not surprised when I point out that calling for
foreign investment in a country with Indonesia's
financial reputation is a tall order. "This is a
difficult period for us," she admits, "but this is a
win-win situation for all. We have all these
resources, we have a population of 220 million, a big
market. As for rule of law . . . we're trying to
simplify the bureaucracy, the red tape and there have
been many corruption cases brought to court. The
wheels of justice are starting."
Given the threat posed by Islamic fundamentalism,
ignoring Indonesia could quickly become a lose-lose
situation. If for no other reason, she says, "the
world has an interest in making Indonesia a stable
country politically and economically so that people do
not entertain this idea that an Islamic state is a
solution to their problems. When people are hungry,
when people are poor, they can do drastic things."
One could argue that by openly resisting the ideology
of Islamic extremists, Ms. Wahid herself is taking a
drastic step, albeit one born of courage, not
desperation. When I asked her where she got the
strength to speak the truth at a time when many prefer
to remain silent, she beamed and said: "This is the
real thing that defines people of faith. I have faith
in God. That's enough for my father, and enough for
myself."
Ms. Smith is a member of the Journal's editorial board.
___________________________________________________________
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