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The Free West's Weblog
Daughter of Islam (WSJ)
An interesting article for you to read in
the Wall Street Journal about a
prominent Muslim women, 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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