Indonesia has been mercifully resistant to extremism—until now

FIRST came the fake news: a doctored video, making it look as if the governor of Jakarta, an ethnic-Chinese Christian, was disparaging the Koran. Next, mass protests flooding the city centre with outraged Muslims. Then came blasphemy charges that the police, under public pressure, eventually lodged against Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, usually known as Ahok. Before long a seemingly pedestrian election became a referendum on the role of Islam in Indonesian politics. Was it permissible for a Christian to hold the second-most prominent elected office in an overwhelmingly Muslim country?

On April 19th voters delivered their verdict: no. Ahok, once the clear front-runner, had won the first round of the election, in February, by a slim three percentage points. But supporters of the eliminated candidate appear to have plumped for Ahok’s remaining rival, Anies Baswedan, who won the second round by 58% to 42% (see article). Although Mr Baswedan praised Ahok in his victory speech, he had openly wooed the chauvinist vote during the campaign, for instance by joining rabble-rousing clerics for dawn prayers before a vituperative anti-Ahok rally. Plainly, the outcome is a defeat for tolerance, in a country that prides itself on it.

It is easy to forget, but Indonesia, not Egypt or Iran, much less Saudi Arabia, is the world’s most populous Muslim country. There are far more Muslims in South and South-East Asia than there are in the Middle East. And Muslims in Asia are traditionally much less doctrinaire than Middle Easterners.

Indonesia is a case in point: many local Muslims follow practices that would cause riots in Arabia, making offerings to saints and spirits, say, or worshipping at shrines shared with Hindus and Buddhists. Indonesia’s biggest Islamic organisation is Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), which embraces folksy forms of Islam and explicitly campaigns against extremism. Its wisecracking former leader, Abdurrahman Wahid, was the first president to be elected—albeit by parliament, not by popular vote—after the overthrow of Suharto, Indonesia’s dictator of 32 years. The next president was Megawati Sukarnoputri, a woman. No avowedly religious party has ever received more than 8% of the vote in parliamentary elections.

The call from Arabia

And yet for decades less tolerant forms of Islam have been seeping into the country. In fact, NU was founded in 1926 to resist the growing influence of puritanical Arabian preachers. To this day Gulf Arabs fund lots of mosques. Rabble-rousers are able to turn out big crowds to protest against perceived insults to Islam. The agitators portray traditional Indonesian Islam as rural and backward, implying that educated city-dwellers should follow a purer form of the religion. Politicians, even otherwise reasonable ones like Mr Baswedan, seldom resist the urge to cloak themselves in piety.

Joko Widodo, Indonesia’s president and Ahok’s predecessor as Jakarta’s governor, supported his embattled protégé in the election. But he was careful to be respectful of the protesters, meeting their leaders and offering only veiled criticism of their conduct. Local mores, it is often said, demand such reticence. But the other side felt no such obligation, brandishing signs with slogans like “Burn Christians, Jail Ahok”.

The governor’s race has given unscrupulous politicians a simple blueprint for winning office: stir up religious fervour by decrying real or invented insults to Islam. The opposition is likely to resort to such tactics in the next presidential election, due in 2019. If Mr Joko wants to keep his job, and preserve Indonesia’s plural society, he needs to speak out forcefully against zealotry, not treat it with kid gloves.