The book before the reader is a study on the development of the Muhammadiyah movement in Kotagede, a small town in the Special Region of Yogyakarta, Republic of Indonesia, over a period of approximately one hundred years from the early twentieth to the beginning of the twenty-first century. The Muhammadiyah, a modernist Islamic social and educational organization, was established in 1912 (1330 AH) by Kyai Haji Ahmad Dahlan (1868–1923), a preacher (khatib) of the Great Mosque of the Sultanate of Yogyakarta. The organization is celebrating its centennial anniversary in 2010 (1430 AH) according to the Islamic calendar.

In 1890, Dahlan went to Mecca for pilgrimage and was deeply impressed by the ideas of such modernist Islamic thinkers as Jamaladdin Al Afghani, Muhammad ‘Abduh and Muhammad Rashid Rida. He felt that the backwardness of the Javanese Muslims and their suffering under the Dutch colonial rule were rooted in the sorry state of Islam in Java, contaminated by syncretism and deviations (bid'ah). So, he began to advocate a return to the pristine teachings of the Qur'an and Hadith, and purification and reinvigoration of Islam through ijtihad (independent reasoning) over taqlid (blind obedience). He brought tajdid (reform) into a number of religious practices including the use of vernacular languages rather than Arabic in Friday sermons and religious propagation (pengajian) to make the teachings of Islam understandable to ordinary Muslims. He also introduced a modern school system for the education of Muslim children, for both boys and girls, in which religious and secular subjects were taught side-by-side. He urged the pious actions in Islamic philanthropy towards the poor and the needy of payment of religious taxes (zakat), contribution of sacrificial animals (qurban or korban), voluntary donations of money (infaq or infak and sadaqa or sadaka, sedakah), and institution building for educational and social welfare through permanent donation of property (waqaf or wakaf).

Over the past 100 years, the Muhammadiyah has grown nationally to be the second largest Islamic civil society organization in Indonesia, claiming some 30 million members and supporters. The largest is Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), a traditionalist organization, which claims around 40 million followers.

1. My stay at Harvard University, September 1981 to June 1982, as a visiting scholar of the Department of Anthropology and the Center for the Study of World Religions, has caused delay in the publication of this book for more than a year. I must apologize for this to the publisher and whomever else concerned.

2. At Harvard I was initiated into Qur'anic Arabic. I was also exposed to introductory courses in Islamic studies and comparative religion. My newly acquired knowledge, although still meagre, has enabled me to see my previous experience with the Muhammadiyah in Kotagede in a new perspective. I now realize a number of errors and shortcomings contained in this book. Most of them are of such nature that I took matters of universal significance in Islam and the Muslim world as something peculiar to the Muhammadiyah in Kotagede or Islam in Java. At the same time, I now feel assured of the basic soundness of my approach — to take Islam seriously as a religion.

3. I am encouraged by favourable comment on my original dissertation coming from a leading Indonesianist (McVey 1981). I am also heartened to observe growing interest among young Indonesian scholars in the empirical study of religious developments in Indonesia. Their contribution includes two recent sarjana theses by Kotagede students (Hazim 1977 and Charris 1979). Perhaps the “intellectual stagnation” I mentioned in the Preface applies only to Western or more precisely American scholarship which seems still enchanted by Geertzian paradigms.

4. I would also like to mention a brief but important contribution by H. Zaini Ahmad Noeh, a senior official of the Department of Religion. In his introduction to the Indonesian translation of Daniel Lev's Islamic Courts in Indonesia (Peradilan Agama di Indonesia, Jakarta: Intermasa, 1980), he emphasizes, among other things, the duality of penghulu officials in the indigenous Javanese polity as “kyai in the circle of priyayi, and also conversely priyayi in the circle of kyai” (ibid., p. 7).

It is a great honour indeed for me to be requested both by Dr Mitsuo Nakamura, the author of this book, and Drs H.J. Koesoemanto, the Executive Director of Gadjah Mada University Press, to write a few lines as foreword to this book.

This book, The Crescent Arises over the Banyan Tree, A Study of the Muhammadiyah Movement in a Central Javanese Town, is originally a dissertation submitted to Cornell University, U.S.A. in 1976. The “town” is “Kotagede” in Yogyakarta. The study covers a period of approximately 70 years, from 1900 to 1970. His approach is historical and ethnological. Kotagede was chosen as his field of study due to various considerations. The development of Muhammadiyah in Kotagede presents a number of paradoxes in view of the various opinions so far presented by the Western students on the history of modern Islamic movement in Indonesia in general and of Muhammadiyah in particular.

The first paradox is that Muhammadiyah, as an organized effort to cleanse Javanese Islam from admixtures of heterodox local customs and beliefs, gained strong support in the midst of a local community where these heterodox elements had long been deeply rooted in the form of the cult of royal glorification. Strong aspirations for orthodox Islamic reform emerged from among the population, which had been thoroughly imbued with extremely syncretic religious traditions.

The second paradox is the existence of a number of rich Javanese traders and craftmen in Kotagede prior to 1900, whose wealth, entrepreneurial skills and business networks were very much impressive. It has been a common assumption among the students of modern Javanese society that, as a result of the Dutch encroachment in the field of international and domestic trade activities in Java since the day of the Dutch East Indian Company and its employment of the Chinese as middlemen between the indigenous sector and European sector of the economy, indigenous Javanese trade and industry were stifled or at least reduced to the level of petty peddling and casual handicraft (D.H. Burger, The Structural Changes in Javanese Society: The Supra-Village Sphere, Ithaca, 1956).

ROYAL CEMETERY AND MARKET

The town of Kotagede was founded in the middle of the sixteenth century by Pamanahan Ki Gede Mataram, a captain of the king of Pajang, the first Islamized kingdom in south Central Java. Raffles narrates the beginning of the town, on the basis of indigenous chronicles available to him in the early nineteenth century, as follows:

Ki Gede Mataram died in 1584 and was buried in the courtyard of the mosque of the town. His son, who later became known by the title Panembahan Senapati Ingalaga, succeeded him. Senapati was called “Prince to the north of the market” (Ngabehi-lor-ing-pasar) while he was still young residing in the capital of Pajang. Senapati destroyed the kingdom of Pajang, established his own kingdom, Mataram, and made Kotagede the seat of his court (kraton) in 1587.

In the context of enormous social changes since the 1970s described in Chapter 8 — urbanization, diversification and globalization — the Muhammadiyah in Kotagede is faced with major challenges such as pluralism, “culture of poverty”, and “poverty of culture”. Also, the Muhammadiyah Kotagede is operating in the national context of post-Reformasi situation, which is impacted by democratization and decentralization. The future development of the Muhammadiyah movement will be dependent upon the results of how it deals with those challenges and make positive social contributions in the ever-changing environment.

THE CHALLENGE OF PLURALISM AND DEMOCRACY

Nationally, since the official acceptance of Pancasila as the basic framework of the state in the 1985 national congress, the Muhammadiyah has made it clear that it would not seek to establish an Islamic state but to endeavour to realize an Islamic society. Its current statute states that its aim is to realize an “excellent society”(masyarakat utama) according to the teachings of Islam. The concept of “excellent society” seems to imply two aspects: the Muhammadiyah itself and Indonesian society at large. The logic of the Muhammadiyah movement is to seek an excellent society for Indonesia at large through the excellence of the Muhammadiyah. In this context, the term “utama” (excellent) reminds us of the Budi Utomo (Excellent Work) — an organization formed by the Javanese youths as the first move for nationalist movement at the dawn of the twentieth century. K.H. Ahmad Dahlan, the founder of the Muhammadiyah, was, in fact, one of the original members of Budi Utomo. Moral connotation of the term “utama” is obvious. The Muhammadiyah strives to uplift individual morality, by which to realize an ideal society.

Now the realistic task of the Muhammadiyah is to define its position and role in Indonesian society whose political underpinning (Constitution) is pluralism in terms of the Five Principles or Pancasila. The national motto has been Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (Unity in Diversity). Furthermore, the political reforms achieved through the post-Soeharto legislation have strengthened institutional framework for democracy. In this situation, Muhammadiyah must show its excellence in cooperation as well as in competition with others. In other words, the basic reference point of the Muhammadiyah is not so much the Muslim community alone as the entire Indonesian society consisting of diverse cultures and religions.

Similar to other countries in Southeast Asia, Thailand has been affected by internal conflicts for much of the post-colonial era. The resurgence of violence in southern Thailand is the latest episode of an ongoing centre-periphery conflict that has its roots in the consolidation of the Thai state beginning in the early twentieth century. Contrary to the Philippines and Indonesia, however, Thailand has never seriously considered decentralization of state authority as a response to insurgent grievances. While other countries in South and Southeast Asia have recently experimented with autonomy arrangements as response to long-running separatist conflicts, the concept of autonomy has long been anathema to the Thai body politic.

There have, however, been periods of relaxed centralization, increased restraint by Thailand's security forces, and the expansion of political space for conflict-affected minority populations that have been instrumental in fostering a détente between the state and separatist insurgents, leading to significant periods of calm. In most cases, actually, Thailand's minority populations have been peacefully integrated into the nation-state, especially in regions where the extension of the state happened gradually, with limited intrusion into local communities. In the Thai context, the critical policy dialogue on the causes and responses to insurgency does not consider autonomy per se, but rather the degree to which centralization of authority is applied over time and the level of state coercion used to enforce this authority.

This chapter will analyze the historical ebb and flow of centralization and coercion by the Thai state in conflict-affected peripheral regions. In particular, why have some ethnic minorities been peacefully integrated into the state, while others have resisted state control for decades? We will use a simple model, designed for this analysis, to compare different state approaches for consolidating control in minority regions and corresponding patterns of resistance to state authority. The model will be used to compare the history of centre-periphery relations in Satun province (located at the western end of the border with Malaysia) and the northeastern region (usually referred to as Isaan), as a contrast to the conflict-affected southern border provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat.

Do government offers for autonomy reduce the momentum for secession in a context of protracted civil war? Or, do incomplete autonomy measures provide new encouragement to secessionist projects? How can an autonomy solution be realistically feasible when the state emerges victorious in a protracted internal war against an armed insurgency launched on behalf of an ethnic minority? I explore these three questions in relation to the experience of Sri Lanka which has had an ethnic minority armed insurgency for secession spread over two and a half decades, from the early 1980s to 2009. The civil war came to an end in May 2009 when the armed forces of the Sri Lankan state militarily defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which spearheaded the insurgency. Two factors concerning regional autonomy make the Sri Lankan case study interesting. The first is about the capacity/incapacity of the autonomy option to bring the conflict to an end when the civil war was raging. The second is the extent to which the government is willing to pursue the autonomy option after defeating the ethnic minority rebellion. This chapter explores the trajectories of the autonomy debate in Sri Lanka during and after the civil war.

Is regional autonomy a viable alternative to secession? The answer to this question emerged during the civil war has been a complex one. It had often been shaped by the ways in which the politics of the conflict was played out at the national, regional and global levels. Similarly, the secessionist project of the Tamil rebels and the limited autonomy offers made by governments have been two constitutive components of the protracted civil war. To elaborate on the point, the spread of the armed rebellion for secession in the Northern and Eastern provinces of the country compelled the governments of Sri Lanka to explore regional autonomy options. At the same time, half-hearted and minimalist autonomy offers by the government repeatedly reinforced the argument for secession.

The signing of an historic peace agreement on 15 August 2005 in Helsinki by the Indonesian government and the armed separatist Free Aceh Movement (Gerakan Acheh Merdeka, GAM) brought an end to one of the most enduring armed separatist conflicts in Asia. This agreement was strengthened by the introduction in July 2006 of a Law on Governing Aceh (LoGA), which incorporated many of the core components of the Helsinki agreement and conferred quasi-federal powers of “self-government” to Aceh within the Indonesian unitary state. Though Jakarta had in the past offered different forms of “special autonomy” to Aceh in an effort to win its would-be nemesis back to the Indonesian nationalist cause, this was the first time GAM had been persuaded to transform their militant movement into a political organization that could constructively engage with Indonesia's process of political development.

This chapter will consider the nexus between Jakarta's different offers of autonomy to Aceh and the growth and reduction of Acehnese separatist activity. It will examine how and why Jakarta's decision to grant Aceh self-government buttressed the Helsinki peace process when previous special autonomy packages had failed to abate hostilities between the warring parties. Finally, the chapter will consider what makes Aceh's self-governing status unique and assess the province's prospects for sustainable peace under the new system.

The central conclusion of the analysis is that the most critical variable in the resolution of the almost three-decade-old Aceh conflict was political will, or agency. This political will was certainly reinforced, if not to a great extent, created by particular circumstances such as the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and by the international pressure and assistance that followed the natural disaster. Yet natural disasters do not end human conflicts, and without political determination Jakarta and GAM would have been unable to broker a negotiated settlement and remain basically committed towards the long-term project of establishing the self-government of Aceh in Indonesia. Without political will, Jakarta would also have been unable to subordinate the Indonesian military (TNI)2 to civilian control at a time when its informal influence over central government decision-making was considerable, and when an unprecedented number of security forces personnel were engaged in counterinsurgency operations in the province.

For more than thirty years there have been a variety of “autonomous governments” in areas of Mindanao. Over the course of six national administrations, numerous regional administrations, and varying intensities of separatist armed conflict, there is general agreement that “autonomy” has not resolved the issues plaguing Muslim Mindanao. Explanations for such systematic failure must go beyond accusations of bad faith or incompetence. This paper examines the multifaceted incentives faced by factions on both sides — Mindanao Muslims and Manila elites — which shape forms of autonomy in Mindanao and limit their effectiveness in addressing grievances which drive separatist sentiment. It concludes with suggestions for ways forward that might satisfy both sides in the interaction.

The current period of armed conflict between Muslims in the Philippines and the central state in Manila has now lasted over thirty-five years. In 1968 two events occurred that stirred rebellion. In the “Jabidah massacre” Muslims who had been recruited into the military in order to invade Sabah were slain by their officers when the operation was shut down (one survived to tell the tale) (Dañguilan and Gloria 2000, pp. 2–23). In the same year, a “Muslim Independence Movement” (MIM) was organized by former Governor of Cotabato Province, Datu Udtog Matalam who was disappointed by his role within Manila-centric politics (Abinales 2000, pp. 140–41, 167–68). The movement acquired an armed component with the founding of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) in the early 1970s.

Reasons that have been adduced for the length of this confrontation range from the insincerity of the national government in addressing grievances, to the self-interest of the actors (the Armed Forces of the Philippines or the local warlords who profit from the war's continuance), to divisions within the Muslim community (within and among revolutionary movements, traditional leaders and elected politicians) whose inability to unite hampers the achievement of their goals. One attempt at resolving the conflict has involved instituting “autonomous governments” in areas of Mindanao, with new varieties being instituted in 1977, 1990, and 2001. While decentralization (ranging from increased autonomy for local governments to changing the nature of the Philippine state from a unitary one to a federation) has long been, and continues to be, a feature in discourses about governance in the Philippines, “autonomy” in Mindanao has been a special case — not available to the rest of the Philippines.

The conflict between the government of the Philippines and the Moro separatists in the southern Philippines has become one of the longest running, and most intractable, internal conflicts in Southeast Asia. This is so despite attempts by successive Philippine governments to negotiate some form of autonomy arrangements with the separatists. This paper briefly reviews the Philippines experiments with Muslim autonomy and addresses the question: why have the autonomy negotiations between the Philippine government and the Moros proved so intractable? It suggests that the answers lie primarily in three features of the Philippines situation: first, longstanding historical circumstances which have left a legacy of antipathy and distrust between important elements of the Muslim and Christian Filipino communities; secondly, a pattern of internal migration, encouraged by national governments throughout the twentieth century, which has changed the ethnic demography of Mindanao and Sulu, locking both sides into a position from which it has been difficult to progress to a settlement; and thirdly, the factionalization of Philippine Muslim society, which has made negotiation difficult.

THE LONG VIEW: A BRIEF HISTORY OF MORO SEPARATISM THE ORIGINS OF MORO IDENTITY

The origins of Moro identity

The basis for the Muslim claims to a separate identity, and arrangements for recognizing the special status of Philippine Muslims, have a long history. When the Spanish colonizers came to the Philippine islands in 1565 and encountered Islamic communities, they effectively resumed the crusades against those they identified as the “Moro”, using the Christianized “indios” as their footsoldiers. But although they defeated Muslim forces in the north, and encouraged Christianized Filipinos to settle on the northern and eastern coasts of Mindanao, the Spaniards never did achieve effective sovereignty over the Muslim (or over much of the tribal/lumad) communities in Mindanao and Sulu.

In 1898, following the Spanish-American War, the United States took possession of the islands of Mindanao and Sulu. Under American colonial rule, once “pacification” had been achieved a general policy of “benevolent assimilation” was extended to the Muslim population, though this was resisted by Muslim communities, as well as by some of the more enlightened American administrators.

Over recent decades a number of states in South and Southeast Asia have been troubled by armed separatist movements that have sought to create their own independent polity via physical separation from the parent state. Various forms of autonomy have been promoted by policy-makers and donors as the most democratic way of accommodating separatist insurgents in ethnically, religiously, politically and socially divided states. Despite this, remarkably few states in Asia have succeeded in winning over their aggrieved separatist minorities to the dominant nationalist cause. This situation has created a real dilemma for many states of how much freedom to grant nationalist minority groups without ceding control over their sovereign territories to separatists.

This central dilemma of conferring democratic freedoms to sub-state nationalists without compromising state sovereignty has been reflected in the policy choices of governments in South and Southeast Asia. On the one hand, some governments in the region have sought to divert secessionist demands through offers of autonomy and other forms of self-rule. On the other hand, policies of forced assimilation have frequently been employed in a bid to crush armed separatist movements militarily as a precursor to peace. In South and Southeast Asia, many national governments have pursued a dual-track persuasive-repressive policy approach aimed at compelling armed separatists to comply with unilateral offers of autonomy through state coercion and military conquest.

Resolving this dilemma of reconciling minority independence demands with state claims to sovereignty is by no means a simple or straightforward process. Even when parent states respond to secessionist challenges by deemphasizing a military approach and adopting ameliorative policies aimed at winning would-be separatists back into the broader national fold, separatist insurgents can, and sometimes do, attempt to garner political leverage for their nationalist cause through violent means. Autonomy can strengthen armed separatist movements if they use their increased access to state power and resources to mobilize in opposition to state authority (Cornell 2002, p. 252). For this reason, as John-Mary Kauzya points out, “the difference between decentralization and disintegration is very thin” (2005, p. 4). Striking the right balance between competing nationalistic agendas depends upon a basic level of consensus among the key political actors about the sort of autonomy formula to apply in the realignment of centre-periphery power relations (Horowitz 1981, pp. 166–67).

The little known North East region of India, which comprises seven federal units (referred to hereafter as “states”) and connects to the Indian mainland by a narrow 22 kilometre land corridor, has been a theatre of prolonged armed conflicts. Beginning with India's independence in 1947, several armed insurgent movements have emerged in each of these states with wide ranging demands. While some of the insurgencies have demanded outright secession from India, others have asked for greater self-governing rights, still others insist on the partitioning of existing states into new administrative units as also on various forms of autonomy to preserve their unique identity and gain greater control over their lives and resources. Most of these insurgencies, exploiting the prevalent alienation and grievances among the people against what they refer to as an “apathetic and distant” New Delhi, have spanned over decades without being resolved. Each of these insurgencies has also been accompanied by lesser known non-armed movements by ethnic groups, clamouring for greater administrative powers. These multiple movements have generated a specter of instability in the region, which has continued irrespective of the government's limited success at establishing peace and improving governance through the existing provisions for autonomy under the Indian constitution.

OFFICIAL APPROACH TOWARDS THE “EXCLUDED NORTHEAST”

The British, during their rule in India, annexed the Assam plains in 1826. It was the beginning of a process of domination over the North Eastern region, which culminated in the control over the Mizo Hills in 1890. All these areas formed parts of Assam Province of British India. Under the Government of India Act, 1935, the hill areas of Assam were divided into two categories — “excluded” and “partially excluded areas”. Areas such as Lushai Hills (now Mizoram), the Naga Hills (now Nagaland) and the North Cachar Hills (now part of Assam) were declared as “excluded areas”. No federal or provincial legislation extended to the districts automatically. Areas such as the Khasi and Jaintia Hills, the Garo Hills (now all part of the state of Meghalaya), and the Mikir Hills (in Assam) were declared as “partially excluded areas”. These areas were administered by the state government subject to the special powers of the Governor. In effect, the 1935 Constitution did not accord local self government or political autonomy to the hill tribes of the excluded and partially excluded areas to manage their local affairs”.

At first glance East Timor appears to be an awkward fit in a volume on armed separatism and autonomy. The reasons for this are quite straightforward, one stemming from the definition of separatism, the other reflecting the ultimate outcome of the conflict. The Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975 was a violation of international law and Jakarta's act of “integration” in 1976 was never recognized by the United Nations or the vast majority of member states. The resistance explicitly justified its use of arms in terms of the right to self-determination and the illegality of the Indonesian occupation. Hence, the twenty-four year occupation was technically never a case of separatism. Second, while both sides periodically made proposals for peace (including calls for autonomy), these were readily dismissed by the other party to the conflict. Viewing “integration” as final and irrevocable, Jakarta rightly suspected that the resistance's proposals for autonomy were disingenuous ploys to open the door to eventual independence. The one exception to this arose in 1999 when President Soeharto's chosen successor, B.J. Habibie, agreed to a United Nations-sponsored referendum in which the people of East Timor were given the opportunity to support or oppose “special autonomy” within Indonesia. With the vote overwhelmingly opposed to Jakarta's offer, the referendum led to the opposite outcome — Indonesia relinquishing its claim over the territory and international recognition of East Timor's independence.

Despite these objections, the theme of this volume provides a useful opportunity to rethink the dynamics of the twenty-four year conflict and the reasons for the success of the East Timorese resistance. Most scholarship on the conflict in East Timor has focused on either the heroic resistance to the illegal occupation or the horrific human rights abuses committed by the Indonesian military/state. Curiously, far less attention has been paid to the long-term logic of the occupying power, including fluctuations in the use of violence and periodic efforts to employ negotiation. And yet, careful scrutiny reveals that the twenty-four year conflict in East Timor was punctuated like clock-work by something entirely exogenous to East Timor: the Indonesian electoral cycle. Corresponding to the national electoral cycle, at regular five year intervals the regime of occupation withdrew troops from the territory, reduced or altogether ceased combat operations, and attempted in one way or another to “normalize” the status of the territory.

The idea of autonomy or other forms of sovereign devolution has been proposed as a viable compromise model in the resolution of claims to separatism. This chapter will consider the meaning and method of application of autonomy or other sub-state political models, and assess whether a semi-independent status can adequately address separatist claims. It will consider the formation of post-colonial states, the failure of many such states to adequately represent ethnic minorities, and the so-called third wave of nationalism in which national or proto-national groupings seek territorial sovereignty. The chapter draws on case studies from Indonesia's Aceh and Papua provinces, Sri Lanka's Eelam and the Philippines’ Bangsamoro, and the failure of the autonomy option in East Timor.

The idea of autonomy has been available to sub-state entities since before the period of Westphalian states, and can be seen as having its origins in the allocation of devolved local rule in empires, or points of local political organization within a wider and overarching political constellation. In the post-Westphalian world of sovereign states, autonomy has generally been allowed to accommodate sub-national or ethnically distinct geopolitical entities that, for strategic reasons, have been obliged to accept incorporation into larger states. That is to say, the idea of autonomy is neither new nor novel, and has been accepted as a viable method of securing regional strategic interests while at the same time encouraging state loyalty via a degree of political “looseness” on one hand while confirming a rationale for state cohesion on the other.

Where a state has been established without due regard for internally differentiated constituent parts, as in the case of many unitary and centrally administered post-colonial states, a devolution of centralized state authority to a variety of sub-state models may be undertaken through a process of mediation. Such mediation applies to both the process by which such a devolved sub-state outcome is achieved, and to the outcome which locates the devolved sub-state entity between the polarities of absolute self-determination and absolute state sovereignty. This mediated compromise, usually around autonomy or a similar form of local self-government, has been proposed as a viable model for the resolution of claims to separatism, sometimes in its own right and sometimes as a step along the path to full independence.