Atheism in Indonesia

Introduction

After the 32-year authoritarian rule of the so-called New Order (orde baru) ended in 1998, Indonesian society experienced a ‘conservative turn’ (Van Bruinessen, 2013), with religion becoming a crucial point of reference in both politics and society in general. Islam was stressed as a foundation of state and society, albeit a contested one (Assyaukanie, 2009; Kersten, 2015), and conservative and reactionary interpretations became the most influential, allowing less and less space for alternative ideas and practices of faith. However, it is crucial to emphasise here that Islamic organizations in immediate post-New Order Indonesia were not confronted with a wholly secular state and society framework within which to pursue their agendas. Especially from the late 1980s onwards, the Suharto government had fostered an Islamic revitalization, both by co-opting Islamic intellectuals and by widening the influence of Islam in the education and legal systems (Aspinell, 2005: 37–61). It had also made use of religious symbolic capital, for instance when Suharto performed the hajj (Azra, 2006: 96). Such efforts had already put political Islam in an advantageous position when the New Order regime collapsed. In many respects, the New Order government paved the way for post-New Order Islamisation.

Less acknowledged within academia, however, has been the fragmentation of society resulting from a revitalization of religion on the one hand and emerging secular, even irreligious, identities – especially in the large cities – on the other. The latter are seldom taken into account when it comes to recent developments in Indonesia, as they seem to be quite marginalized in both everyday life and politics. It is true that the new conservatism has had a tremendous effect on the politicization of religion as well as on the everyday practices and the internalized moral values of a large part of Indonesian society (e.g. Fealy and White, 2008; Wieringa, 2015). There are, however, considerable secular enclaves. For secular Indonesians, religion often does not play a role in their everyday practices and is only performed occasionally when required by their social environment. Young people especially develop a critical stance towards religion, as they see how it is easily politicized and utilized for anything but noble purposes. In particular, news about terrorism and the so-called Islamic State has sown doubt in the minds of many young Indonesians about the benefits and even the legitimization of religion. To some, the official narrative claiming that terrorists are not real Muslims seems less and less convincing. Among the young generation of secular Indonesians there are a growing number of atheists who completely deny the existence of God. ¹ Whereas most of them prefer to remain incognito, some seek out fellow atheists in order to exchange ideas, find friends to spend leisure time with or even explore the possibilities of social practices beyond the narrow frame set by the religious and increasingly conservative social environment. Atheist identities, however, are precarious in contemporary Indonesia. Since the first pillar (sila) of the state ideology Pancasila (the five pillars) reads ‘Ketuhanan yang Maha Esa’ (One supreme divine being, Monotheism), and as social environments frequently expect the performance of religion, atheism is often perceived as completely incompatible with – and even as a threat to – Indonesian identity.

This article first explains how state-driven discourses and practices concerning atheism are rooted in Indonesian history, before outlining the social phenomenon of atheism in Indonesia today and providing insights into discourses and practices within the atheist community. It is argued that these atheist discourses and practices run counter to the hegemonic discourses and state practices: whereas large parts of society still believe in narratives portraying atheism as a communist idea, hostile to religion, it is in fact the leftist part of the atheist community that is most tolerant towards religion, far more than atheists drawing on right-wing, anti-communist ideas. In order to illustrate what that means for social practices, I refer to young atheists and their engagement with a progressive Christian community in Jakarta. My remarks about the atheists are based on four months of field research ² in Jakarta and a long-term engagement with Indonesian atheists through different online media. During the field research, I joined atheist groups and their discussions and I held dozens of conversations. Additionally, I conducted in-depth interviews with 16 atheists of different political orientations and religious backgrounds. Most atheists were young people between the ages of 20 and 35 and came from Muslim families; however, some had previously been Christians, Hindus or Buddhists.

The article aims to illustrate how state-driven discourses and practices on the one hand and the internal discourses and social practices of a marginalized, almost invisible group on the other, differ markedly. Whereas atheism is still one of the ‘constitutive outsides’ of Indonesian identity, atheists more and more rely on global discourses and alternative narratives of Indonesia’s past.

Atheism in Indonesia: State discourses and practices

This contribution deals with the terms ‘discourse’ and ‘(social) practice’. Therefore, a brief definition of these terms and an explanation of how discourses and social practices are intertwined are provided here. The term ‘discourse’ means a regulated practice applying to utterances and statements and determining which of these are perceived to be true/appropriate or untrue/inappropriate (Mills, 1997: 6–7). The regulating practice itself consists of propositions formed within history and stabilized by institutions and other regulating regimes. This means that actual utterances and texts are expressions of discourses, not discourses themselves. However, utterances, texts and institutions are closely connected to discourses. These social practices inhere in the knowledge constituted through discourses (Weedon, 1987: 108). Discourses and social practices are part of a ‘dispositive’ that also encompasses, for instance, institutions, scientific statements and findings, administrative measures, regulatory decisions, laws and moral propositions – ‘in short, the said as much as the unsaid’ (Foucault, 1980: 194). Dispositives are social technologies. Whereas a dispositive is not omnipotent or absolute, it reshapes the institutions and social processes it consists of (Raffnsøe et al., 2016). In this sense, we deal with a dispositive of religion in Indonesia: state institutions, laws, utterances from religious authorities and discourses have developed throughout Indonesian history and constitute a dispositive in which atheism takes a prominent stance as a threatening other.

‘Practices’ are utterances, statements and texts as they emerge within a discursive frame. This frame can be determined by different, sometimes contrary discourses (for instance state-driven discourses on the one hand and anti-Islam discourses from western countries on the other). However, in this article the term ‘social practices’ also encompasses material expressions of discourses in state and society, such as laws and law enforcement by state institutions. On a micro level, social practices are expressions of discourses embedded in social interactions. Those social practices usually depend on, or counteract patterns of, social interaction on a macro level. The following section provides a brief overview of state discourses, that is, discourses shaped and reproduced by state institutions, and state practices concerning atheism. Knowledge of these state discourses is crucial if one wants to understand the current situation faced by atheists in Indonesia.

During the Indonesian struggle for independence and in the era of Indonesia’s first president, Sukarno, considerable parts of the population, such as intellectuals and labourers, were influenced by Marxist, Leninist and anarcho-nihilist ideas. Moreover, Marxism – just as religion – became part of the state’s propaganda and a tool for political cohesion, depicted in Sukarno’s concept of NASAKOM (an acronym of nasionalisme, agama (religion) and komunisme) as an anti-colonial and anti-capitalist term (Hefner, 2011: 44). Leftist approaches were incorporated into Indonesian discourses as they became part of everyday practices, including practices of resistance against the colonial government. Individual and societal processes of negotiation between religious values and modern ideas of atheism were quite common during that period, especially in intellectual urban environments where individual freedom, rather than religious identity, was emphasized as a foundation for the struggle for independence (see, for example, Lubis, 1952). But keeping Sukrano’s unifying idea of NASAKOM in mind, the Communist Party of Indonesia (Partai Komunis Indonesia, PKI) – which by the 1960s had grown to be the second largest communist party worldwide, claiming to have 27 million adherents and members (Ricklefs, 2008: 317) – took a clear stance in order to avoid being portrayed as atheist. The party’s leader, Aidit, explained on many occasions and in several publications that PKI accepted the Pancasila, Indonesia’s state philosophy, entirely (PKI menerima Pancasila sebagai keseluruhan), including the first sila of Ketuhanan yang Maha Esa (One almighty God). Religion, according to Aidit, is the opium of the people (candu untuk rakyat) only when it drives people towards political apathy or reactionary politics, and he acknowledged the contribution of religious groups in the struggle for independence ( Tim Historia, 2016; see also Aidit, 1964). At that time, religion already had a dominant role in discourses as practices, as Indonesia was framed as a nation based on monotheist faith and even the PKI was eager to portray itself as a political force not hostile to religion. However, right-wing factions within the military, and religious organizations that came into conflict with peasant organizations associated with the PKI, made attempts to strengthen discourses connecting atheism and communism in order to legitimize practices against the PKI. The Presidential Decree 1/PNPS/1965 (also known as the blasphemy law) was signed by President Sukarno due to pressure from religious organizations such as the traditionalist Sunni Islam movement Nahdlatul Ulama (Sinn, 2014: 238). The decree not only outlaws alternative interpretations of the acknowledged religions but also prohibits any efforts to promote atheism in Indonesia (Yonesta et al., 2012: 18–24).

When a coalition of religious groups and right-wing military eliminated the Communist Party and slaughtered hundreds of thousands of alleged communists between 1965 and 1968, depicting the PKI as atheist became an effective propaganda tool. Anti-PKI propaganda was fuelled by the aforementioned conflicts between peasants associated with the PKI and Islamic boarding schools (pesantren) and conservative land-owners often associated with the Nahdlatul Ulama (Mortimer, 2010: 112). This was, however, just one side of the story. The other is that several pesantren worked together with the PKI since activists on both sides did not find leftist ideas and Islam to be contradictory (see Moosmüller, 1989: 141). Eventually, though, the legacy of this cooperation between religious groups and communism was eradicated under Suharto. In the state-driven discourses of the New Order regime (1967–1998), communism was portrayed as inherently atheist.

Since 1967 the religious affiliation of every citizen has been registered on their identity card, creating pressure to claim affiliation with an acknowledged religion. ³ Leaving the kolom agama on the identity card empty could generate suspicion of communist sympathies (Qibtiyah, 2015: 120). Throughout the New Order, religion remained a cornerstone of state identity as the regime labelled its enemies atheist communists and thus atheism came to be portrayed as an ideology incompatible with Indonesianess. An example of the propaganda against atheism is the moralising novel Atheis by Achdiat Karta Mihardja (1949), which was republished and also made into a movie during the New Order. The dispositive of religion was not eradicated when Suharto took power. On the contrary, it was an important component of the new regime’s power since it excluded communism. The dispositive of religion eradicated all aspects that suggested a non-hostile relationship between Communism and Islam. Thus, Communism as the enemy of the Indonesian nation was present as a ‘latent threat’ (bahaya laten) in state-driven discourses (Hamilton-Hart, 2012: 101; Rinakti, 2005: 28). These discourses legitimized military action against leftist movements as they easily portrayed leftist activism as anti-religious and therefore as a threat to the religious foundations of the nation. From this follows that religion in general and Islam specifically was not simply marginalized during the New Order as some scholars suggest (e.g. Heiduk, 2009: 198; Latif, 2008: 339). It is correct, of course, to say that Suharto limited the influence of political Islam, but religious adherence (as an anti-communist identity) was certainly present as a subtext of Indonesian identity throughout the New Order. When Islam was revitalized – first as a way of life, then as political Islam from the late 1980s onwards – the Suharto regime used the Islamic faith as political capital. In 1989, for instance, Islamic courts became a fully-fledged part of the national legal system (Cammack, 2003; Hooker, 2003: 40–43). The state and religion, which had been intertwined from the very beginning, for instance through the Ministry of Religion (Assyaukanie, 2009: 69–71), became even more closely related.

In post-New Order Indonesia, political Islam flourished within the new liberal framework, whereas secular and atheist discourses remained peripheral or even invisible. In the wake of this development, the religious foundations of the state of Indonesia were highlighted by several actors, most prominently by conservative Muslims. In 2005, the Council of Indonesian Islamic Scholars (Majelis Ulama Indonesia, MUI) declared in a fatwa that pluralism, secularism and liberalism are haram (forbidden) (Kersten, 2015: 1). Secularism, in their opinion, contradicts Islamic teachings saying that state and religion must not be divided. Therefore, Indonesia, as a country with a large Muslim majority, has to reject the idea of secularism. As in the main discourses, the MUI found secularism a dangerous idea, arguing that it is hostile to religion and the national identity. Furthermore, conservative Muslims were not alone in their attempts to emphasize the ties between Indonesian nationalism and Islam. Politicians, for instance, often applied religious symbols and language in campaigns and this phenomenon can also be observed among so-called secular parties (Duile and Bens, 2017: 151–158). Not surprisingly, many politicians engage in Islamic-influenced legislation demanded by conservative actors such as the MUI. Arguments similar to those orchestrated by the MUI in order to condemn secularism can be found in the decision of the Indonesian Constitutional Court (Makhama Konstitusi) that the 1965 Blasphemy Law is in line with the Indonesian Constitution. In 2010, it argued explicitly that the Indonesian people are a religious, not an atheist people (Sinn, 2014: 226). Hence, within mainstream discourses, atheism has been regarded as the worst (and for many Indonesians, inevitable) result of secularism; it has been perceived not only as a western idea alien to genuine Indonesian and Islamic values but even as a serious threat to the very identity of the Indonesian people.

Whereas progressive Muslim intellectuals such as Nurcholish Majid, Djohan Effendi or Maarif Syaffi have argued that religious pluralism in Indonesia also means that atheism as a belief must be respected (Kersten, 2015: 245), for conservatives, as well as for large parts of the general public, atheism has remained a threat to their identity. As became clear in the case of Alexander Aan, a former civil servant from West Sumatra, public announcements of atheist thought are dangerous in Indonesia. Aan explained on the Facebook page Atheis Minang that he did not believe in God and gave his reasons for that in quite rude language. He was also an administrator of the page. Attacked and threatened by a mob of about 40 people who accused him of blasphemy in January 2012, Aan was found guilty of provoking the people and of committing blasphemy. The lawsuit was supported by the local branch of the MUI who claimed that Alexander Aan’s expressions were not in line with the national state philosophy of Pancasila (Hamid, 2017: 99–102; personal conversations with Alexander Aan). In its decision, the court declared:

Aan holds an atheistic belief based on his right to freedom of belief but he should not be allowed to openly declare this publicly on the internet because the State of the Republic of Indonesia is based on God as stipulated in the Pancaslia and in the 1945 Constitution. (Decision of the Negri Muaro District Court, quoted in Hamid, 2017: 101)

The benchmark for harmony (kerukunan) is the majority position, whereas minority beliefs and opinions are perceived as a potentially disruptive factor. Since religion is set as a crucial point of reference for harmony, repressive state practices have often been legitimized by identifying the oppressed as a source of disturbance. This New Order legacy could be observed recently during a symposium conducted by old military elites and Muslim organizations in order to ‘save Pancasila from the threat of the awakening PKI’ in May–June 2017. Marxism, as claimed during the symposium, is a threat because it is clearly atheist (Suspitasari, 2017). The threat of atheism was also revitalized in order to discredit Joko Widodo’s presidency by maintaining pressure from the religious and conservative groups associated with his rival Prabowo Subianto. These conflicts within the political elite have led to the existence of two hegemonic political currents of Islamic nationalism on the one hand and the hyper-nationalist approaches of the Jokowi administration on the other (Hadiz, 2017). Whereas the Jokowi approach is often viewed as more inclusive, it has to be stressed that for both movements atheism serves as a constitutive outside.

Atheism as a social phenomenon in Indonesia

The present article restricts its focus to atheist groups and social networks in Jakarta. However, for my wider research, I have talked to atheists in several Indonesian cities, and this has confirmed that the practices and cleavages within the atheist community of Jakarta can be found in other places as well. Furthermore, many Jakarta atheists have relationships with their counterparts in other Indonesians cities, both virtually and in real life. In describing social practices and discourses within the atheist community (which is actually a set of several sub-communities) I draw on discussions in online media as well as participatory observation and in-depth interviews.

In addition to 16 interviews, I talked to dozens of Indonesians who stated that they do not believe in God. What frames the community as a social group is mainstream society’s rejection and stigmatization of atheism. Online forums and regular gatherings of atheists, therefore, provide room not only for discussion but also for sharing experiences of individual atheists’ social environments. Due to the threat of stigmatization, most atheists prefer not to confess their disbelief in front of relatives and friends. Many still wear jilbab or conduct prayer when in the company of family and colleagues. Some atheists even have two Facebook accounts, one for keeping in touch with their family and conservative friends, the other for interacting with fellow atheists. However, cases of confessing atheists being banished from their family homes or even being divorced are not uncommon. One informant, for instance, explained how he confessed that he does not believe in God after his gay brother was banished from home due to religious reasons. The two comings-out caused serious tensions within the family. On the other side, there were numerous cases in which parents finally managed to accept their children’s rejection of religion. After a period of conflict, they went back to an intimate relationship but avoided religion as a topic of conversation. Such stories of reconciliation, however, are hardly possible in pious families. Generally, santri ⁴ families have the most difficulty in accepting atheists as family members, while for Buddhist families atheism is in most cases not a big problem. Most atheists I talked to were between 20 and 35 years old. I found it difficult to find older atheists. Generally, the young atheists are from religious families. Among the atheists I interviewed there was only one person who said that her father is also an atheist. Some atheists referred to the Dawkins scale to measure their disbelief and most atheists claimed to be a ‘6’. ⁵

In addition to the fear of getting into trouble with relatives and the wider social environment – meaning social sanctions in many cases – atheists in Indonesia are aware of two further threats: the state and vigilant Muslim groups. The case of Alexander Aan provides a cautionary tale to the community. Atheists are also aware that they are a potential target for violent fundamentalist groups such as the Islamic Defender’s Front (Front Pembela Islam, FPI). Since those groups are agitating in online media (Lim, 2017), even calling for ‘cyber fighters’ (laskar cyber), most atheists carefully consider what to post, usually using alternative accounts. There are cases in which the FPI has threatened atheists at their homes after they made posts critical of Islam or the FPI. In these cases, most atheists will not report the vigilantes to the police since they know that the police often work together with the FPI in many places and will likely rather arrest the atheists for disturbing social harmony. The atheists’ response therefore is typically to leave town for a while. The kerukunan ideology outlined above generally privileges religious groups, no matter whether they are violent or not.

The circumstances described above have made atheism a largely invisible social phenomenon in Indonesia. However, some atheists are looking for social interaction with other atheists in order to share experiences and find friends for open discussions. There are numerous online forums – Facebook, WhatsApp groups and other social media platforms – in which atheists can get in touch with fellow non-believers. There are even Facebook groups providing space for dialogue between atheists and theists. The group Anda bertanya, atheis menjawab (You ask, atheists answer) has more than 50,000 members (July 2017). Besides these online communities there are regular meetings of atheists in almost all large cities in Indonesia. Due to the threatening social environment, which consists of state institutions, vigilante groups and potentially the atheists’ own families, most atheists prefer not to make public statements. However, as the example of online platforms like Anda bertanya, atheis menjawab demonstrates, some atheists seek recognition from the state and the public. Some of my informants even argued for a ‘coming out’ in order to force other parts of society to accept the existence of atheism. This might also neutralize the religious tension within Indonesian society.

Discourses among Indonesian atheists

Despite the fact that atheism is considered taboo for large parts of Indonesian society, it was not too hard for me to approach atheists and atheist communities. My own identity as a researcher from a western country probably contributed to this, since the atheists know that in western countries atheism is no longer considered a threat. My first step was to engage with atheists in online media. Among others, online discussion forums for Indonesian atheists were my entry points to the atheist community. I explained to the administrators that I wanted to do research about atheism in Indonesia and convinced them that I was aware that the issue of atheism is a controversial one in the country. Eventually I became a member of the forums and posted about my proposed research. Many atheists responded and I received dozens of emails. I was able to meet and have conversations with many of them, and with some I conducted open, in-depth interviews, dealing with topics like their relations with faithful family members and friends, their identities as citizens in a country based on the belief in one God, their views on politics and science or simply their leisure time activities.

What quickly became clear was the fact that the atheist community is anything but solid. In fact, it is more appropriate to talk about many sub-communities, occasionally interacting with each other – for instance when a fellow atheist faces threats from violent Muslim groups. Whereas atheism in Indonesia is in large part a phenomenon of the upper-middle class, there are also atheists from the lower classes. In a country of large social divides, social class affiliation affects almost every aspect of people’s lives from leisure time activities to education and political opinions. This is crucial when it comes to senses of belonging among atheists: although they all share the stigma originating from state-driven discourses, they do not belong to a single atheist community but tend to develop a sense of belonging to several sub-groups such as, for instance, rather apolitical upper-middle class atheists or leftist atheists engaged with labour activists. In order to grasp the variety of atheist discourses, some distinction between different groups of Indonesian atheists must be outlined. One main distinction seems to be the divide between atheis kiri or kirik (left-wing atheists) and atheis kanan (right-wing atheists), a distinction often mentioned by atheists during interviews and conversations. Whereas atheis kiri is often a self-attribution, the term atheis kanan is also used by leftist atheists to describe rather liberal and right-wing liberal atheists. When dealing with these terms it is important to keep in mind that most atheists label themselves somewhere in-between kiri and kanan, while others are also not interested in politics at all. That means that the typology does not encompass the phenomenon of atheism in Indonesia entirely, although it is relevant for a considerable part of the atheists I met.

A distinction between left- and right-wing atheists can be used in the sense of a Weberian ideal type (Idealtypus) to describe an ideological divide within the atheist community. Concrete social phenomena, be they types of legitimate rule as in Max Weber’s analysis or sub-groups of a marginalized community as in this article, contain features of ideal types. Ideal types operate in a casuistic manner to make complex, actual social phenomena comprehensible, as they provide typologies drawn from a wider range of cases, even though ‘pure’ cases of atheis kiri or atheis kanan rarely emerge. However, many atheists I had conversations with were familiar with the terms and made clear where they stand in this divide; others explained their disappointment with the other group when the conversation turned to political topics. In this respect, the distinction between atheis kiri and atheis kanan is an emic concept. Some rather right-wing atheists asked me about the refugee crisis in Europe and expressed their confusion and disagreement with the relatively liberal immigration policies of countries like Germany or Sweden. This view was also mentioned several times in online discussions among atheists and reveals what the debate about Islam means to them. For atheists who are labelled as being rather kanan by their left-wing counterparts, Muslim refugees are a potential threat, as they perceive religion in general, and Islam in particular, as potentially intolerant and violent. From their point of view, Muslims who take the Quran seriously might eventually fight for an Islamic state. Islam, to them, can also be an obstacle to development, with religious duties seen as time consuming and faith as something that drives people towards apathy. Atheis kanan tend to adopt other arguments and points of view from right-wing discourses in the Global North. Some of them, for instance, have aversions to feminism or social equality in general and on social media some of them share news from right-wing online publications such as http://Breitbart.com or from the British National Party. Some atheists influenced by such right-wing discourses label both their left-wing counterparts and religious social movements with the derogatory term ‘SJW’ (social justice warrior), a term that stems from right-wing discourses in the West. Atheists positioning themselves as atheis kiri, in contrast, often make reference to both Indonesian and international leftist media (to Indoprogress, for instance, but also to progressive religious media such as Islam bergerak). Many atheis kiri are interested in Indonesian history, particularly in alterative narrations of the 1965 massacre. In online media, they discover narratives not in line with the New Order propaganda. Thus, they question the dichotomy between the religious-capitalist state and atheist Marxism. For more right-wing atheists, the 1965 massacre does not seem to be an important topic at all. I rarely found posts concerning that topic on their Facebook profiles, and they never raised the topic during conversations or interviews.

Before dealing with atheists who portray themselves as atheis kiri in more detail, it is important to mention that there is also a group within the atheist community that oscillates between the left and the right but most of the time shows little interest in politics. Occasionally, however, political events draw their attention. This was, for instance, the case during the mass rallies organized by conservative Muslims against the Christian Governor of Jakarta at the end of 2016 (Lim, 2017). These atheists viewed the rallies as a vindication of their rejection of religion and the anti-religious sentiments of the atheis kanan seemed to find fertile ground within the wider atheist community. On the other hand, some atheists positioned between the poles of kiri and kanan thought occasionally agree with arguments from the atheis kiri, arguing that social equality is desirable. Generally, atheists from lower classes tend to be influenced more by atheis kiri discourses since they easily engage with marginalized people and quickly develop interests in social issues. Atheists from upper classes usually do not pay much attention to social issues and rather look for likeminded people with whom they can spend their leisure time.

Atheis kiri in Jakarta: Social practice beyond the dichotomy

Whereas both the hegemonic discourses and state practices outlined above suggest that communism is a threat to the Indonesian nation because it is inevitably hostile to religion and therefore to Pancasila, leftist atheists do not fit into the stereotype of communists eager to eradicate religion. On the contrary, atheists influenced by Marxist ideas, who often identify themselves as Marxists, tend to have much empathy with religious people, especially when they fight for social issues. In the following, I outline some general lines of argumentation of self-proclaimed atheis kiri and give an example of their engagement with religion. I suggest that their attitude towards religion differs greatly from those of the atheis kanan ideal type and in some online forums there has been a lot of dispute between those groups when it comes to the question of whether religion is something suitable for mockery or whether it can be a progressive force too. I provide three examples of atheis kiri who affiliate themselves to different degrees with komunitas B., a progressive Christian community that is well-known within the atheist community of Jakarta. Some apolitical atheists and atheis kanan find the fact that atheists engage with a religious community quite strange. Other apolitical atheists generally consider it a good idea to work together with open-minded religious people since this could lead to the wider acknowledgement of atheism. In the case of komunitas B., however, they leave such engagement to their left-wing counterparts.

The personalities represented in the following – Unyil, Ratna and Jamli – are based on atheists interviewed in the context of komunitas B. Each of the three young atheist profiles is actually a composite of several atheis kiri who are affiliated with the religious community. I refer to points that various of these atheists stressed in conversations and interviews, many of which correspond with what atheis kiri throughout Indonesia are posting on their Facebook profiles and told me personally in conversation. The actual engagement with a religious community in Jakarta, however, takes leftist atheist discourses in Indonesia to a new level of social practice.

Unyil, a 26-year-old Javanese born in Jakarta, came into contact with atheist thought during his years in senior high school (sekolah menengah atas, SMA). Back then, he engaged with online atheist communities but after he subsequently became interested in leftist ideas, he found it frustrating to talk with the atheis kanan. He was looking for a social movement (gerakan) within the Indonesian atheist community that he could not find. Unyil considers himself a Marxist, and is interested in contemporary discussions on Marxism. He regrets that within the atheist community there is much discussion but no practice (hanya diskusi, tidak ada paksis apapun). The discussion within the atheist community seemed to Unyil to be unimportant, even reactionary (tidak penting, reaksioner). This point of view is shared by many other leftist atheists who have engaged in online forums and eventually many of them have left the online community or become passive members, seldom joining in discussions. Eventually Unyil got in touch with the progressive Christian community komunitas B., when the reverend of that community conducted a discussion with atheists, some of whom felt that they wanted to challenge him. It soon became clear that the reverend sympathized with leftist ideas and had no sentiments against atheists. Unyil felt welcomed in komunitas B. as an atheist (mereka welcome saya). No one from the community has ever made any attempt to convince Unyil to join the Christian faith. What is important for Unyil is that he can join a movement according to his ideology, even though that movement is actually a religious one. Through the church he can express his aspirations in a movement (atas nama gereja mengerakan diri), that is, his desire to help poor and marginalized people (orang-orang miskin, orang-orang tertindas) left behind in capitalist Indonesia. Unyil said that it is not just poor people who fall within the category of people left behind but also, for instance, LGBT people. The progressive community accepts them, as well as victims of the 1965 incident. Unyil stated that he has no problem with the fact that Indonesia is a state based on Ketuhanan yang Maha Esa, but he criticized the fact that the first sila is often interpreted in a way that suggests atheists have no place in Indonesia.

Another atheis kiri who joined the progressive Christian community is Ratna. She is 24 years old and was born in East Java. She came to Jakarta in order to study. Her aim is to become a teacher and she finished her studies last year. Ratna is very interested in leftist philosophy, yet it was not clear whether she considers herself a Marxist. Her father, an abangan-Muslim, was able to accept that Ratna had become an atheist. However, she is careful with other family members since some of them are quite conservative and are influenced by the conservative turn that has taken place in Indonesia over the last 20 years. When Ratna became an atheist about four years ago, she joined atheist online communities and also met those communities in their regular gatherings. However, she didn’t feel comfortable since her way of life was quite different to those of wealthier atheists. When the others went shopping and ate together in expensive restaurants, Ratna became bored. She is also critical of the fact that some other atheists she met with demand tolerance for atheism while they themselves show very little respect for religious people. Ratna’s goal of becoming a teacher means working as a civil servant (pegawai negri sipil) of a country based on belief in one God. That puts a lot of pressure on her since she has to try to find a balance between being safe and being herself (aman sekaligus jadi diri sendiri). Whereas she does not feel accepted by the state in her identity as a disbeliever and she also doesn’t feel comfortable with atheists from the upper classes, she does feel recognized by the progressive Christian community she joined about two years ago. Ratna emphasizes the fact that some atheists who did not feel comfortable in other atheist communities have joined komunitas B. Although they do not believe in the church or in religion in general, they have trust in the community as a religious institution (percaya komunitas B sebagai institusi). In that community, she can flourish (berkembang diri): in discussions on philosophy or in performing dramas, she gets in touch with both atheist and religious people and finds there is mutual recognition. She said that members of the community supported her in many situations, for instance during the period in which she was writing her thesis. The reverend always gives good advice and never judges people because of their disbelief. She feels comfortable (nyaman) talking to him. Ratna describes the community as very inclusive (inklusif banget).

Whereas Unyil and Ratna are examples of people closely associated with komunitas B., Jamli, 26 years old, is among the young people who occasionally join the community’s activities without developing close ties to it. Jamli is from a conservative catholic family in Kalimantan. He decided to become a priest, but during his philosophy studies he begun to doubt religion. Eventually he became an atheist. For his family this was a shock. His parents felt that they had lost their child (rasa kehilangan anak). They were not angry, however, but do try to avoid that topic when Jamli visits them, and so does Jamli. Besides studying philosophy, Jamli works as a music teacher; he plays several musical instruments. On his guitar bag, he has a sticker showing an atheist symbol. When asked about the meaning of the sticker, Jamli sometimes tells the truth and sometimes claims that this is just a symbol for science, depending on who is asking. Among his musician friends, he feels safe as an atheist and he can be open. He occasionally joins komunitas B. discussions since he is interested in philosophy as well as theology. However, he does not consider himself a Marxist and is more interested in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Jamli also helps komunitas B. in their activities, for instance performing music during plays. Jamli is not involved in online discussion with atheis kanan, and nor is he interested in joining gatherings of apolitical atheist groups. What attracts him to komunitas B. is their idealism and their similar ways of thinking (idealism dan pikiran yang sama). When he is with apolitical atheists from the upper classes, in contrast, he feels that his individualism vanishes (rasa kehilangan individualisme) since their ways of life all seem the same to Jamli. He is also socially engaged in other communities: for instance he has joined the community of Ciliwung Merdeka, an organization that fights against the forced evictions of poor neighbourhoods near the Ciliwung River.

The reverend of komunitas B., Didin, argues that a religious community should be inclusive. His mother is Christian while his father was Muslim. It took his father a while to accept that his son wanted to become a priest. Didin himself was agnostic during his studies and in an interview he stated that atheism is a part of faith rather than its contradiction. He said that people of faith should not see atheism as a threat but should take it seriously as an important opportunity to reflect about one’s own faith. Faith, to him, is always something unfinished. Doubt is not the opposite of belief (bukanlah lawan terhadap iman), but is something that can drive faith to a higher level. Two years ago, he began to conduct informal discussions, inviting atheists, via social media, to a coffee stall in central Jakarta. During the first meeting, he listened to what the atheists told him, including of their anger about religion (kemarahanya terhadap agama). For Reverend Didin, religion in general and Christianity in particular should be concerned with social justice. Therefore, atheis kiri and komunitas B. had a common denominator for both social activities and discussions. After Sunday services, for instance, the community often visits victims of the 1965 incident and listens to their stories. Atheis kiri therefore regularly join Sunday services since they are interested in both the progressive sermons and in alterative narratives of their nation’s past. Occasionally, the community also joins social protests by labourers and feminists. All community members are aware that some of them are atheists. The relationship between Marxism and atheism is frequently a subject of the regular discussions. Didin argued with regard to Roland Boer (2013) that the famous dictum of Marx (religion is the opium of the people) has often been misinterpreted. In Marx’s times, opium was considered a medicine rather than a narcotic. When Marx wrote about religion, he stressed both the progressive and reactionary dimensions of religion as a political force. Claiming that Marxism is outright hostile towards religion is not true and, in the case of Indonesia, is a product of New Order narratives. When meeting victims of the 1965 incident, they also discover that the victims are not anti-religious, even though many of them had been members of the PKI or PKI-affiliated organizations such as Gerwani (a progressive women’s association with ties to the PKI) or Lekra (a writers’ organization affiliated with the PKI).

Komunitas B. is an example of mutual recognition between people of faith and atheists. For Indonesian atheists, atheism generally implies an active denial of religion, but that denial is usually limited to a forum internum or to discussion among other fellow atheists. Komunitas B. is a rare example of religion or its denial being openly expressed by religious and atheist citizens. Not only are atheists acknowledged in this community, but people of other faiths and stigmatized sexual identities (LGBT) are also welcomed within the community. Although it is a protestant community, komunitas B. also works together with leftist Muslim groups and holds discussion events with them, occasionally writing articles for leftist Muslim online media. During these events, the atheis kiri are also present and feel safe to confess that they do not believe in God. Within the context of discussions on social and political issues, atheism does not seem to be an obstacle for leftist Muslims either. Komunitas B.’s understanding of Bhinekka Tunggal Ika (the national motto of Indonesia, ‘Unity in Diversity’; literally ‘Many but One’) is one based on a political approach. Religion, for them, is not a matter of performance within the public sphere in order to gain social capital within the religious society of Indonesia. Rather, religion provides the imperative to stand with the marginalized and to acknowledge them in their marginalized identity – as urban poor, labourers, LGBT or atheists. This opens up the space for the mutual recognition that hegemonic discourses and state practices deny.

Conclusion

Upon gaining insight into discussions within the atheist communities – which are mostly carried out in online media and occasionally at regular meetings – it becomes obvious that the discourses within these communities contrast greatly with those of the state and mainstream society. Whereas state-driven discourses are still influenced by New Order and Cold War discourses, atheists are turning their eyes to global discourses and, in the case of the atheis kiri, to alternative narrations of Indonesia’s past.

While hegemonic discourses and state practices suggest that communism and Marxist ideas are a threat to Indonesian identity because they are atheistic and hostile towards religion, it is the leftist, in many cases Marxist, atheis kiri who are much less hostile to religion then their right-wing counterparts. Influenced by media from the Global North and recent global discourses, Cold War narratives on religion and communism have become increasingly irrelevant for young Indonesians who have developed a clear distance from religion. The example of komunitas B. is in many respects a rare exception. Few religious communities are able to embrace religious difference, let alone atheism. However, it is by no means a coincidence that leftist atheists in Jakarta are joining a progressive religious community. Influenced by global leftist discourses and alternative narrations of Indonesia’s past, leftist atheists usually do not find religion a problem in general. As many of them stated in conversations and interviews, they also do not consider Pancasila an obstacle at all, instead arguing for a more inclusive interpretation of the sila of Ketuhanan yang Maha Esa.

The legacy of leftist discourses and practices prior to the New Order has not completely vanished and some young people are now rediscovering the history of their country. However, the discourses and practices within the atheist communities in Jakarta cannot be fully understood merely by pointing out their alternative approaches to Indonesian history. Global discourses are also important. Critical contributions on ‘new atheism’ (i.e. Torres, 2017) are crucial here since many atheis kanan consider approaches orchestrated by leftist atheists (which often defend Muslim minority rights) in the Global North a manifestation of what they call the ‘regressive left’. Global leftist discourses often emphasize the fact that Muslims, as people from the Global South, are marginalized both on a global scale and as migrants in western societies. Thus the need for recognition of religious difference is highlighted. On the other side, right-wing discourses portray Islam as a threat to enlightenment and progress. As a result of these contradictory discourses, the atheist community in Indonesia is deeply divided.

The harmony ideology that the current state-driven discourses and practices are based upon requires atheism as one of the constitutive outsides of the allegedly harmonious Indonesian society. According to that ideology, atheists are doomed to acknowledge the religious foundation of the state and society, whereas society does not need to acknowledge atheism in return. However, as my example of komunitas B. illustrates, alternative social spaces emerge and provide room for social practices beyond the authoritarian harmony ideology that constantly rejects what does not conform to hegemonic identities. If, somewhere in the future, Indonesia’s state and society opens up space for difference and paves the way for a more inclusive society, the roots for such a development will probably lie in alternative social practices transcending hegemonic discourses and practices.