Dadang Kahmad

West Java has long been known for the tolerant nature of its society and culture. ‘Siger tengah’, or ‘the middle road’, is an underlying principle of Sundanese culture that promotes moderation and the avoidance of extremes of both right and left. …………..

Nevertheless, in recent times, it is as though these cultural values have been lost. A significant escalation in acts of violence, particularly in matters of religion, has been evident in West Java. In the 10 days following the issuing of the West Java Gubernatorial Regulation banning Ahamdiyah on 3 March 2011 alone, a total of 56 cases of violence directed at the Ahmadiyah community occurred in West Java, among other places in Cianjur, Majalengka, Ciamis, Banjar, Bandung, Cirebon, Indramayu, Sukabumi and Tasikmalaya. According to the 2010 Report on Tolerance and Intolerance issued by the Moderate Muslim Society, in that year West Java recorded the highest number of incidences of intolerance of all Indonesian provinces – more than half the total 81 cases. This represented a four-fold increase on the figures for 2009 in West Java. Most cases occurred in Bekasi, Bogor, Garut and Kuningan. In Bekasi, the acts of intolerance involved obstruction of religious observances, the denial of access to places of worship, and attacks on members of the Batak Christian Protestant Church (HKBP). In Bogor, seven of the 10 cases recorded also involved Christians and were connected to church buildings. In Garut and Kuningan, most of the cases involved the Ahmadiyah community.

Tensions explode in Cikeusik

One incident of violence against the Ahmadiyah community that has drawn widespread attention in Indonesia and abroad occurred in Cikeusik, a subdistrict of Pandeglang in the province of Banten. This particular incident resulted in the deaths of three Ahmadiyah community members. According to observers, the incident arose from the concerns of some local inhabitants over the presence of Ahmadis in the village. They accused Ahmadiyah of propagating a deviation from Islamic teachings in regard to the status of Mirza Gulam Ahmad as a Prophet of God, and of offering a financial reward to anyone willing to adopt their beliefs. Meetings were held between the two groups on three occasions in November 2010, sponsored by local civilian and military authorities and representatives of the Council of Indonesian Islamic Scholars (MUI).

A coalition made up of members of the local community, local government representatives and Islamic scholars issued three demands to the Ahmadis: first, that the community should cease all its activities; second, that it should take immediate steps to integrate fully with the local community; and third, that it should formally disband. All three demands were rejected by the Ahmadis, who remained steadfast in their beliefs. From that point, the Ahmadiyah leaders were subjected to intimidation through SMS and verbal accusations, until the situation finally exploded in the events of 6 February 2011 and the deaths of three members of the community.

A number of different versions of the chronology of events leading up to the Cikeusik incident have emerged, including those of the Commission on Missing Persons and Acts of Violence (KontraS), the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), the police, popular mass organisations and Ahmadiyah itself. But they all tend towards the same conclusion – that the clash was triggered by the presence in the village of members of the Central Ahmadiyah Militia Brigade (Laskar Ahmadiyah Pusat), who originated from Bekasi, Jakarta and Bogor.

Before the arrival of the Ahmadiyah Militia, the leadership and members of the Cikeusik Ahmadiyah community had been taken into protective custody, following indications that their headquarters in the village of Umbulan were about to be attacked. Militia members reached the village the day before the events took place, intending to stand guard over the Ahmadiyah headquarters and its assets. Some versions of what occurred say that rioting the following day was incited by their arrogance. In video recordings supporting these accounts, they can be seen responding to calls by police intelligence agents to leave the building with their own threats of violence, ‘If the police are incapable [of preventing a mob attack], just turn them loose. Only when the world is bathed in blood does the real fight begin!’ According to some versions, it was these words that ignited the community’s anger.

In the version of events put forward by the MUI, the Ahmadiyah militia were warned by a number of local inhabitants to leave the building, but chose to respond by making their own show of strength, a kind of display of invulnerability that drove their opponents to anger. According to this account, the rioting occurred not because of doctrinal matters, but in an attempt to settle a question of honour between two groups of combatants. Other versions point to the behaviour of local inhabitants as the root cause of the clash, referring to local people waving machetes and shouting threats like ‘police out of the way’, ‘these are infidels’, ‘set fire to Ahmadiyah’, and ‘close down Ahmadiyah’.

Events such as this raise serious questions for West Javanese society in general: What has led to this situation? What is going on in West Java? Has there been a fundamental change to the tolerance and harmony for which Sundanese culture is known?

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