My Friend the Fanatic
Jun 13th, 2008, in Society, by PatungSadanand Dhume’s My Friend the Fanatic – Travels with an Indonesian Islamist.
My Friend the Fanatic – Travels with an Indonesian Islamist tells the story of Indian journalist Sadanand Dhume’s journey across Indonesia and his meetings with political, cultural, and religious figures in 2004, and is written from the standpoint that the country is being torn between two forces, globalisation and Islamisation, with the latter being seen as the stronger.
Fanatic Islamist
The “Fanatic/Indonesian Islamist” of the title is one Herry Nurdi (who has cropped up on this site once before – for his railings against sodomising Christian evangelists on campuses), Dhume’s paid travelling companion (he helps arrange access to interesting people and places), one time editor of the Muslim fundamentalist rag Sabili, and prolific author, with his published works showing a pre-occupation with Jews, conspiracy theories and George Bush, and including:
Sabili style.
- Belajar Islam dari Yahudi (“Learning Islam from Jews” – seems to be a critique of the Orientalist approach to Islam)
- Mossad (Behind every conspiracy)
- Kebangkitan Freemason dan Zionis di Indonesia (“The Rise/Resurgence of Freemasonry & Zionism in Indonesia”)
- Jejak Freemason dan Zionis di Indonesia (“Acts of Freemasons & Zionists in Indonesia”)
- Lobi Zionis & Rezim Bush (“The Zionist Lobby & the Bush Regime”)
Although it seems Herry’s works are rather thin volumes and there is a suggestion in the book that they involve some amount of copy-paste.
Herry is therefore firmly on the lunatic fringe, although an important question that the book brings up is whether people like Herry really are the “lunatic fringe”, or to what extent their views are shared more widely among Indonesians.
On Herry and his type, and remembering that it is 2004, before or during the election, Dhume recounts the loathing such people seemed to have for Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono – Herry has secret information that the Yudhoyono presidential campaign is powered by a “Christianity motor”, an Indonesian Christian (military)/American (and no doubt Jew) plot, and he even puts about a story that SBY’s mother was once a member of Gerwani, the practically satanic (in New Order propaganda terms) communist womens’ movement, and to advance his career SBY had disowned his mother and, er, gotten a replacement mother – one nasty attempt at a below the belt blow. (Herry and co. seem to have preferred General Wiranto, because at least his wife covered herself head to toe, unlike, say, Amien Rais’ spouse, who only wore a headscarf, and a colourful one at that.)
Sadanand Dhume
But, and it is an important but, Dhume’s portrait of Herry is told with some empathy and there clearly developed a friendship between the two of them, the devout Muslim and Islamist, and the atheist son of polytheists. Herry does not come across, usually, as the raving lunatic that the foregoing suggests but as an ordinary person with his share of contradictions, and he often seems quite likeable and reasonable.
People & Places
Dhume hears sort-of sexy singer/dancer Inul Daratista proclaim that she and her entire family are religious fanatics; hangs out with the avant-garde author Djenar Maesa Ayu and literary man Richard Oh in posh, degenerate Jakarta clubs; goes on a road trip across western Java with flabby Din Syamsuddin and an entourage of annoying young people; meets toothy Abu Bakar Bashir in his jail cell.
In Makassar the hard men of the Preparatory Committee for the Application of Sharia Law are interviewed; still in South Sulawesi he journeys to the district of Bulukumba (if Tangerang in Banten has “sharia lite”, Bulukumba can claim the heavier version); while a chapter on Batam begins with an almost moving, snippet-like description of the lives of two types of “Batam girls”, those who work in the factories, and those who work in the bars; …and plenty else besides.
Islam
What isn’t likely to endear this book to a lot of its target audience, i.e educated westerners, is the author’s evident disdain for at least some aspects of the Islam religion-culture, and one might not be able to help but think of V.S. Naipaul (Dhume brings the subject up himself), given that both Dhume and Naipaul are Indian writers who made good abroad, and with both, when they happened upon Indonesia, taking a fairly dim view of orthodox Islam’s gradual but, so it seems, quickening obliteration of the older cultural mix in the country, with I suspect in both authors’ cases this approach arising not from any real affinity for say, Javanese culture, but instead more from, again, a dislike of orthodox/Arabist Islam.
The jilbab (headscarf) issue comes up repeatedly, and unflatteringly:
…the cheaply earned moral smugness of the jilbab.
And
…shorthand in my mind for some education and little imagination
Visits to several Islamic schools are made, they being Gontor, Ngruki, one in Bulukumba, and the impression one gets is of people spending so much of their energy building more and more mosques, then walking to the mosques, going through the prescribed motions in them, and walking back from them, many times a day. Meanwhile the peoples of comparable nations like Vietnam, China and India are said to be beavering away learning science and building factories.
Preacher-entrepreneur AA Gym is interviewed, at a time before he disgraced himself by taking Alfarini Eridani for another wife, and comes across as a charlatan, if a not unlikeable one – if only people would look after their qolbu (hearts/souls), AA says, not just their brains,
everything is getting better
At Parangtritis beach, Yogyakarta, what to Dhume might be some of the last followers of Ratu Kidul, gather before
globalisation and Islamisation drive them to extinction
Boys at Gontor school say they have never seen Reog dances because the spectacle is to be avoided, it’s
mystic
Herry is one who embodies this
shrinking from their own culture
But perhaps to people like Herry, whether they think about it in these terms or not, Islam is simply a preferable, more complete, more appealing culture to what existed previously (and Islam is culture). Fine, but another, opposed view, what you might find in this book and in other places…, is a legitimate value judgement about culture-religion as well.
PKS
The overall message of the book is that Islamist political and cultural forces are gaining the upper hand in Indonesia, most starkly seen in the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated Justice Party (PKS) – the PKS is mentioned again and again, Dhume I think has the same “problem” as this site sometimes has – an over pre-occupation with what is still a fairly minor party.
It is said that South Sulawesi is a “stronghold” of the PKS, however it would be far more accurate to say that the province is a stronghold of Golkar, – and then it might be useful to examine to what extent Islamism has penetrated the ostensibly non-Islamist parties, but this aspect of political developments is not explored – it’s PKS this and that.
Amien Rais is said to have only placed fourth in the 2004 election “despite being backed by the PKS” – as if the support of the town-based university crowd of the PKS was ever going to get him anywhere near winning, ever going to win him votes in the Javanese parts of Java where the numbers are, and then, party backing is of little importance anyway in high turnout elections, that are essentially about personalities, which candidate is more manly, handsome, murah senyum, has the better PR machine, more funds, etc.
But a minor complaint. And the aspects of the book detailed here represent only small parts of the whole and, partly because it generally gels with my own views, and because it is a highly well written and entertaining read, My Friend the Fanatic is more than recommended. Available for pre-order at Amazon.
143 Comments on “My Friend the Fanatic”
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janma says:
It’s always fun to see the White Man concede, especially Anglo-Celts.
Why?! Why?!
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Berlian Biru says:
Isn’t there another famous mosque also built on the ruins of the birthplace of another religion? It’s on a rock and has a big dome.
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You got that right berlian…. there is. In jerusalem, and also the hagia sofia was a cathedral or church and now? but at least they didn’t pull it down.
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Achmad Sudarsono says:
I’m feeling a little bit hurt and ignored. When he said “big rocks,” and “dome,” I thought he was talking about my… well, maybe not.
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Mad, he didn’t say ‘Big Rocks’… he said ‘Big Dome’…… still fit the bill?
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Both are big — in the metaphoric sense, as in “Big Fella,” that thing they say in the barbarian game of “footy”.
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Shloka says:
Berlian Biru,
The Hagia Sophia wasn’t built on the site of Jesus’s supposed birthplace or even John the Baptist’s supposed birthplace, was it? The Babri Mosque was built after pulling down a temple marking a Hindu God’s birthplace. And mosques were pulled down or converted en masse to Cathedrals during the Spanish Reconquista too.
Actually Islam does give basic respect( at least in theory) to People of the Book- Jews and Christians. Even famous Muslim apologist Reza Aslan concedes that Islam is “brutal to polytheists.” Prophet Mohammed(PBUH) broke 360 idols in Mecca. So you can well imagine how the devout Muslim conquerors behaved when they saw hundreds of pagan idols in Temples, and what they did to those idols, temples and idolaters…
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Tom Wright says:
This is a fine book, one whose conclusions I don’t always agree with, but nevertheless one that is considered and well written. Full disclosure: I’m a friend of Mr. Dhume’s with whom I’ve had many heated debates about the subjects of this book. I have never found him condescending over our disagreements, in fact quite the opposite.
Neither can he be squeezed in to a quasi-intellectual racial-literary stereotype of the high caste Indian. Mr. Dhume is no Naipaul, who spent only a few months in Indonesia, and whose writings on this country – to my mind – are among his weakest. Mr. Dhume spent years in Indonesia reporting and writing this book.
My view is that he shows great affection for Indonesia on many pages (the Parangtritis chapters, for instance) and doesn’t spend whole chapters denegrating Indonesia’s culture (as Naipaul does when he writes whole chapters on India’s defecatory habits.) Others (The Australian review) have taken issue with his portrayl of what wearing the “jilbab” might or might not mean. These kinds of criticisms are text specific and therefore valid in the world of book reviewing.
Commenting on a book one has not read is a different matter. Take issue with its contents, but please read it first before comparing anything to Naipaul.
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Halo Mr. Toms,
By your last name it sounds like you are probably a Bule. I notice in your comments above that your silence on the 400 years of Indonesia’s colonization by the White Man.
Interesting.
Achmad.
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@Shloka
“Berlian Biru,
The Hagia Sophia wasn’t built …”
It is not I but Janma who was referring to the Hagia Sofia.
Perhaps I was being too subtle for you, try googling “Dome, Rock, Jerusalem” and you will understand that to which I allude.
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@Berlian Biru,
Many thanks! I indeed didn’t understand, and I had some very vague knowledge on the topic. As someone currently interested in theology, I learnt quite a bit after googling it. Seems like a rather similar situation, and has been the site of similar unrest in the past and present. Of course, it wasn’t pulled down by Jews\ Christians, and as I’ve said before, it was certainly unjust to pull down a 300 year old mosque.
What probably makes the Dome of the Rock more important to the Muslims from the Babri Mosque is that, they’ve attached their religious story onto it, a.k.a., Prophet Mohammed(PBUH) ascended heaven from that spot. India, is of course a land the Prophet never visited.
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Given the things done to the Hindu temple by the Bangladeshi troops mentioned above and the dreadful desecration of the Buddhist statues in Afghanistan by the Taliban I’m sure you’d agree Shloka that the respectful treatment of the Dome on the Rock by the conquering Israeli soldiers in 1967 in Jerusalem is a tribute to the tolerance of Jews towards Islam and that it is a great pity that Muslims are not so tolerant of other religions’ places of worship.
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mirax says:
I’d be curious to know how muslim indonesians generally view the Borobudur and Prambanan monuments? Is there proud ownership or is there an indifference to the pre-islamic past? Quite a number of malaysian muslims are keen to be rid of ‘jahilliya’ influences in their culture and have ditched their own artforms and traditions in recent years.
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@ Berlian Biru,
Of course agree, but while Jews were driven out of Jerusalem in many waves by Romans, Christians and then Muslims,India’s temples were destroyed and plundered by solely Muslims. The Jews took more than a mosque from Muslims, they took away a piece of land( I won’t debate the justification of that), while Hindus gave Muslims a piece of land- Pakistan to make into a Muslim nation, while the rest of India remained secular. Anyways,I like Jews their scientific achievements are an asset to the world, and the democracy, human rights and healthcare Muslims enjoy in Israel is far superior to anything in the Middle East.
BTW, every religion, the Thai Buddhists, Israeli Jews, Christian West or Phillipines are far more tolerant of Muslims than Muslims are. A real pity.
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timdog says:
@mirax – Indonesia’s “classical” past was placed firmly at the heart of Indonesian identity by those who created it from the ether in the mid-20th Century. In fact, the principal footing of the very shaky foundations upon which Indonesia’s existence rests is “Majapahit”, an “Indianised” Hindu kingdom. Take that one away, and the whole place crumbles to the nothing it probably ought to be… Indonesia has far more need of it Indianised past to justify its present existence than Malaysia; for that reason Borobudur and Prambenan are looked upon very warmly by all but the loopiest members of the lunatic fringe.
It’s interesting that the “rescue” of Indonesia’s “classical” past was instituted by the British during their brief occupation of Java in the early 19th Century. They focused their studies on the Hindu and Buddhist elements, partly because they already had a firm background in the study of “Indian” culture thanks to their involvement in the Subcontinent (they also set up the now discredited concept of an political and military Indian “occupation” of SE Asia), but also because of an inevitable dismissive attitude to the existing “native” culture of the day, which was ostensibly “Islamic”…
And the history of Srivijaya, of which there was no direct folk memory, was “rescued” by European scholars in the early 20th Century…
The historical studies of these colonialists were put to work by Sukarno and his crew to form the dubious concept of “Indonesia” – is that ironic? I guess it might be…
Sukarno also profoundly understood that “Islam” would be a divisive, not a uniting, force in Indonesia if it was enshrined in the constitution and the national identity; this was another reason why the “classical” past was given such importance… -
Shloka, historical wrongs can’t be undone. You can speak about them of course, and seek some sort of reconciliation through an ‘acknowledgement’ or ‘apology’ from the ‘other side’ in as much as that exists (Timdog’s point in the other thread is very true – the people who committed the atrocities are not alive today) but the only real option for yourself as a people, a culture, a nation is to get over it – to forgive, to rebuild, not make the same mistake etc
It is right to speak out against intolerance that is going on currently, but please, do not get too sweeping and self-righteous about it. Isreal, India, Thailand, the Philippines do wrong too. Dont want to sound like your auntie lecturing you but political islam is not the same as all muslim people. If hinduism or catholicism sought to return to political power , their theocracy would be just as abhorrent and backward as today’s islamism.
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Thanks Tim, I recently read a critique of Raffles’s biased “orientalist” writings on the subject and know of the european involvement in unearthing the past. One of the reasons Raffles liked the hindu-buddhist old java was because of the caste system – all that order and sense of one’s proper place that an Englishman of that time valued. Esp one who had a mother who had married down and who’d suffered the humiliation of poverty in his youth. I still like Raffles, though!
I am relieved to hear that the pre-islamic past isnt disdained by most indonesians and hope the loonies are soundly thrashed.
Isnt Majapahit important also for preserving javanese dominance?
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mirax said:
Isnt Majapahit important also for preserving javanese dominance?
Shhhh! You’re not allowed to say that!
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It’s an oft-repeated line about the compatibility of British “class” and Indian “caste” and the role it played in the British dominance of India. They were, after all, the first overlords of the Subcontinent not either to spring from within or to come sweeping out of west and central Asia (re. your line on another thread, North India certainly was laid waste to – countless times, over and over, since the dawn of history)…
It has also been suggested that it was India’s inate colour-conciousness that allowed the local elites to accept the idea of British overlordship – a hard-wired deference to those with lighter skin tones overode religious or cultural prejudice…
Personally I think far, far too much can be read into all of this (if a historical theory fits extremely neatly, then that should probably be a warning sign!), but it may contain a glimmer of truth… -
Mirax,
Tim is maintaining our cover, but as a sister of the Asian revolution I feel we can let you in on the secret.
We should, because soon Singapore, like Australia will be a vassal state of Indonesia, once we’ve reverse engineered the technology of Borobudur and Prambanan:
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@ mirax,
If Hinduism, Buddhism and Catholicism wanted to establish a theocracy, we’d be very, very worried. But while Communism was(?) a definite worry, a theocracy seems unlikely, at least today. Iran, Saudi, Taliban- the only theocracies today are Muslim ones.
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Abdul Khalid al Jumhuri says:
Shloka,
I thought that he only reason that Taliban was accepted in Afghanistan is because it is somewhat giving an order to the total chaos they have in the midst of the warlords-le-opium-dependent economy. Saudi is, for the next decades, sheltered by the oil, and to a certain degrees so is Iran. When oil is dried up, or an alternative energy is invented in its replacement – rendering oil unnecessary, Iran and Saudi will become another Afghanistan. Theocracy is doomed to extinct. -
@ Abdul Khalid,
If oil was the only reason, then Russia and Venezuela would be Christian theocracies, as they do produce more oil than Shariah dominated parts of Nigeria. Shariah parts of Nigeria after all condemn unwed mothers like Amina Lawal and Safiyya Hussaini to death by stoning. And Jordan, with its very limited oil reserves, have enshrined protection to honor killers in its Penal Code. I sincerely hope that theocracies are doomed to extinction, and as soon as possible.
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@ Timdog,
While North India has indeed been laid to waste many, many times, at least since the rampaging Aryans destroyed the decaying Indus Valley civilization 3,500 years ago, India wasn’t always ruled by the fair skinned, and religious bigotry didn’t continue for millennia. Ghazni wasn’t a new phenomenon for the Indians, but iconoclast Emperors like Aurangzeb certainly were a previously unexperienced phenomenon. The Aryans, after skirmishes with the dark skinned Dravidians, adopted many of their beliefs and most the Hindu Gods and goddesses worshipped today are either Dravidian in origin like the Mother Goddesses or Shiva, or born in India, like Vishnu. The old Aryan Gods have become the stuff of mythologies even for Hindus.
Meanwhile many did rise up the ranks of caste. According to some sources, the Emperor Ashoka’s dynasty, the Mauryas were originally low caste. While many Indian Emperors patronised Buddhism, destruction of temples was a phenomenon India experienced for the first time with Muslims.
Of course, I acknowledge that caste consciousness may have played a part in colonization, although nations like Algeria which never had caste were also colonized by the Whites.
However, let someone suggest that some innate bigotry or intolerance in the Muslim faith is responsible for today’s state of Islam, and he\she is “part of the problem” and its all the fault of elements as diverse as historical disregard of the West for Islam,U.S., Jews even poor Gandhi.
I can tolerate your criticisms you know, and your criticism of the treatment of Dalits will not make me call for renewed atrocities on Dalits. Muslims are not children to be shielded from criticism. Isn’t it bad enough that Pak and other Muslim nations, there’s death sentence for blasphemy and the Late Khomeini said, “There are no jokes in Islam.” Do we now also have to pre censor the net in case it hurts high strung Muslims’ feelings?
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Shloka, I am afraid that once again, you have missed the point. It seems you are so fired-up, sweaty index finger twitching on the trigger of the Bharatmobile’s front-mounted machine gun, ready to unleash a barrage of fire at the first flicker of movement in the night vision without checking to confirm the target’s identity… Rather like a good ol’ boy from Mississippi who joins the marine corps to “kill a rag-head” and who lets loose a round of “friendly fire” in the deserts of Helmand: “Sarge, I done killed me an English guy; I thought he was an A-rab…”
Just for the record, I said:
Personally I think far, far too much can be read into all of this (if a historical theory fits extremely neatly, then that should probably be a warning sign!), but it may contain a glimmer of truth…
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@ Timdog,
I of course have again missed the point, just like Dewa, Lairedion, Aluang Anak Bayang regularly misses the point and eerily like the the fundie Muslims banning Ahmadiyyas, stoning women and apostates and dropping bombs on unsuspecting innocent people regularly miss the point that Islam actually means “PEACE”. Coincidence?
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Not at all Shloka, no coincidence whatsoever… it seems we agree on something… 😉
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@shloka:
I meant that the reason for the fundi crappy Wahabbi could still be jerking-off with their demented teaching and exporting it (and believe in the ancient barbaric theocracy concept) is because they float on oil and that the rest of the world taking it lightly how malicious their teachings are. Instead of growing up and start thinking how Islam as moral teaching should be relevant for the modern world, they keep jerking-off to the ancient teaching literally, and in addition, they kick, trampled, mock and kill those who disagree with them. Of course, in the name of God Almighty and all that crap. -
Hi,
I have been influenced by Bertrand Russell and his liberal philosophy and I feel that if Sadanand Dhume has a poor view of Orthodox Islam then he certainly has many reasons that support his opinions.
Islam encourages scholarship and thinking but the impression I have of the persons running the Arab states is that they are killing all free thought and dissent in order to preserve their version of Islam and also their power.
I was in Abu Dhabi in the UAE about 10 years back and I visited some book shops. There were no English language books available for purchase – not one. And I am sure that whatever books in Arabic were there had passed through the censors. This is not a way to encourage scholarship and free thinking.
Well anyway this is just my opinion and I am sure many people will have a lot of good things to say about Orthodox Islam also.
regards
Nikhil
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dewaratugedeanom says:
timdog
@mirax – Indonesia’s “classical” past was placed firmly at the heart of Indonesian identity by those who created it from the ether in the mid-20th Century. In fact, the principal footing of the very shaky foundations upon which Indonesia’s existence rests is “Majapahit”, an “Indianised” Hindu kingdom. Take that one away, and the whole place crumbles to the nothing it probably ought to be…
Still this subtle (or not so simple) but pervasive downplaying of Hindu influence, you can’t resist it, can you? Let me first remind you that Indianised Hinduism predates Majapahit by a long stretch of time and neither Borobodur nor Prambanan were Majapahit creations but were built under the Srivijaya-Palembang and Sailendra dynasties which both had already since the 6th century Hindu and Buddhist roots.
Also in Bali Hinduism and Buddhism were present long before Islam forced Majapahit out of Java and in the Bali of the pre-Majapahit era, Indian and Indo-Javanese conceptions, practices, titles and terms already pervaded many spheres of Old Balinese life and popular religion, mixed with the Old Indonesian, Austronesian spirit which migrated from the South-East Asian mainland via the Malay peninsula, lending modern Balinese culture its unique, incomparable quality.
I don’t know how many times and for how long you have visited Bali but – admitted its small size and relative few inhabitants compared to the rest of Indonesia – after you descended from the plane and witnessed the intensity and omnipresence of its Hindu culture jump in your face, continuously downplaying Majapahit or Indianised Hinduism in Indonesia seems like deliberately ignoring the elephant in the room.
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timdog,
Thanks in return. It’s always fun to see the White Man concede, especially Anglo-Celts.