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A reader responds:
Regarding the porn laws: If nudity in all forms is forbidden how will
that apply to papuans in the hinterlands in their native dress/undress?
Do the Muslims intend to impose this law on these people? How? It seems
to me this will cause more trouble.
Sydney Morning Herald
Strict laws may trigger Indon 'backlash'
March 9, 2006 - 6:09PM
Islamic hardliners demanding the introduction of austere
sharia-style laws are pushing secular-minded Indonesians too far and
risk triggering a backlash and even "slaughter", one of the
country's leading intellectuals warned.
The editor of the respected Tempo newsmagazine, Bambang Harymurti,
likened the danger to the 1965 anti-communist bloodbath which some
say left up to one million people dead.
A fierce debate over sweeping anti-pornography and morality laws
that are backed by Islamic parties in the parliament have infuriated
the vast majority of moderate Indonesian Muslims.
There have even been threats of secession in mainly-Hindu Bali and
Christian-dominated Papua province.
Balinese leaders have warned bikini-clad foreign tourists could be
arrested if the laws are enforced.
Indonesia is the world's largest Muslim nation but has largely
shunned strict Islamic ways seen in the Middle East.
"People are angry, they are up to the neck, but they are afraid of
them because they are militant and they are numbering hundreds,
sometimes thousands," Harymurti said of the morality campaigners.
"But because they've created such bad will for a few years, when
suddenly the tables turn, people are more than ready to basically
slaughter."
Indonesia's parliament, which contains a large bloc of Islamic-based
MPs, is debating whether to amend the criminal code to outlaw
anything that could offend decency or "arouse lust" in children.
That includes husbands and wives kissing in public, unmarried
couples living together and homosexual sex, along with any flash of
thighs, navels, bottoms or breasts, punishable by up to 10 years in
jail and fines of more than $A100,000.
Other provinces like Aceh have moved to implement sharia laws, often
without the wide support of ordinary people.
But the proposed morality crackdown is drawing fire from Muslim
moderates, as well as most largely Hindu Balinese and Christian
Papuans, who have accused Islamic hardliners of attempting to impose
sharia law by stealth with the new bills.
Harymurti said radicals like the Islamic Defenders Front, whose
followers wore military-style camouflage and sometimes attacked
nightclubs and bars, had similarities with communist youth groups
crushed following the 1965 army coup which installed the dictator
Suharto.
"I told them you have to be careful, because the people are quite
angry with you right now," he said.
"They just need some snap before they really put you in your place.
"We don't want what happened in '65 to happen again in Indonesia, so
it is better that they stop taking these unilateral actions and
start to behave like a group in a civilised society."
The chairman of the parliamentary committee reviewing the laws has
promised changes to reflect concern in Bali and Papua.
Loose definitions of pornography may also be tightened following
reports of attacks by hardline Muslim vigilantes on working women
travelling alone at night in parts of Jakarta.
KABAR IRIAN ("Irian News") www.kabar-irian.com
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