Initially, I will reference Mustafa Akyol’s story when he was on a flight from Saudi Arabia. He had attended a conference on the politics of the Middle East. After finishing his business, he flew to Istanbul. In his story, Mustafa Akyol noticed that half of the women were wearing face veils (niqab). When the Turkish Airlines flight neared Istanbul, he was shocked by those women. Some women who returned from the lavatory appeared in a different fashion. “Even one of those women wore the shortest miniskirts I had ever seen,” said Akyol.
Mustafa Akyol did not judge those women. He explains that women in Saudi Arabia did not have freedom of expression. He added that the local authorities had forced them to do something they did not want to do (Akyol, 2021). Although Akyol only mentions a particular case in the freedom of expression, the same situation occurs in certain Islamic countries. To make this discussion more specific, I will draw the landscape faced by Indonesia today.
Comparatively speaking, the appearance of Islam in Indonesia is more flexible than that in other countries. Even Najib Burhani quoted a journalistic report which labeled Islam in Indonesia as ‘Islam with a Smiling Face’. Does this reality necessitate that Indonesians have experienced freedom of expression? Neither can I answer this question precisely nor can I deny that Islam in Indonesia has a unique face. Islam shows its heterogeneity rather than homogeneity. There are not only many schools (madhahib) of Islamic thought but also numerous mass organizations. At the same time, Islam in Indonesia addresses several unique religious authorities.
Responsibility for Freedom of Expression
A discussion over Islam in Indonesia cannot marginalize the roles of preachers as well as the mass organizations. Seeking freedom of expression will be complete after we analyze the roles of mass organizations critically. For years, either Muhammadiyah or Nahdlatul Ulama has proposed and supported an idea of religious moderation. Unfortunately, the positions of those mass organizations do not have an impact, obviously.