Neo-Modernism in Indonesia : The thoughts of Cak Nur and Gus Dur
Indonesia has produced intellectuals who have contributed to building Islamic civilization. In the 20th century, Islamic neo-modernist intellectuals tried to dialogue traditionalism and modernism, which subsequently led to the intellectual awakening of Islam in Indonesia. Names such as Nurcholis Madjid and Abdurahman Wahid are already well-known especially in Indonesia. Both have a strong role and influence in the rise of Islamic intellectuals in Indonesia. Both of them have terminated the stagnation of Islamic thought in Indonesia. In other words, they gave enlightenment to Islam in Indonesia. The study of the rise of Muslim intellectuals in Indonesia has caused the appearance of new various literatures that attempt to study and examine systematically both the development of the intellectual world of Indonesian Muslims or studies that highlight their style of thinking. One of the style of Indonesian Muslim intellectual thought is Neo-Modernism which is a thought that combines traditionalism and modernism as echoed by these two figures.
While highlighting Neo-modernism in Indonesia, Greg Barton said that neo-modernism is not like most Islamic movements so that Neo-modernism should be said to be a progressive movement. In that sense neo-modernism has a positive attitude towards modernity, progress and development. In addition, Barton added that neo-modernism is like fundamentalism which is partly a response from modernity itself. In this case the position of neo-modernity is better than that of Western culture, especially in the social sciences and humanities. It could be said that neo-modernism criticizes certain aspects of Western culture and does not accept the general argument that Western culture and Islamic culture cannot be combined. Barton also added that neo-modernism in Indonesia emphasizes a certain type of secularism stipulated in Pancasila and the Indonesian constitution where religious interests are separated from state interests. At this point, neo-modernism became controversial where Nurcholis Madjid was the first to openly talk about secularization and declarism. Furthermore, Neo-modernism in Indonesia is capable of presenting an open and inclusive understanding of Islam. Furthermore, Barton said that Neo-modernism in Indonesia began with the spirit of modernity where this spirit was carried out by raising Muhammad Abduh's concern for rationality and ijtihad or individual efforts in terms of interpretation.
In the Indonesian context, Cak Nur offers the slogan "Islam Yes, Islamic Party No”. He rejected the concept of an Islamic state because it was considered ideological-political in nature which contradicted the principle of monotheism. He emphasized that modernization is rationalization in context of such modernization is not the application of secularism and also does not use any Western values. In this case, modernization is a process of change towards a stagnation of thought or replacing irrational actions with rational ones. So, this modernization is an important thing to carry out. Cak Nur's thinking can be seen from the various works he produces. Unlike Gus Dur where he is not a figure and also a person who does not have an Islamic academic degree. So, it's not easy to read the direction of his thinking. However, he can be categorized as an intellectual who has an academic background in Islamic boarding schools, so his writing has reflective and transformative characteristics. Gus Dur's thinking is transformative because his ideas combined several ideas such as traditional Islamic thinking, Islamic modernism, and modern Western thinking. He also revolutionized Islamic ethical concepts from those that are theoretical to practical, and from those that are oriented towards individual interests into a social welfare. Gus Dur was the pioneer of the birth of "renewal" of Islamic thinking, especially within the NU and Islamic boarding schools. His various ideas have opened the stagnation of NU people to break free from the classical Islamic orthodoxy and to make changes and expand their thinking towards modernity. Referring to Barton, Gus Dur is a progressive neo-modernist thinker. In fact, Gur Dur pushed his thinking on leftist Islamic ideology which he considered capable of presenting unconventional religious views among Muslims.
At this point, Greg Barton saw that Gus Dur's and Cak Nur's thoughts were parallel. Greg Barton argues that these two scholars have an interest in the movement for renewing the thoughts of Indonesian Muslims which is different from the revivalist and modernist movements. The neo-modernist thought proclaimed by Greg Barton is characterized by the existence of Islamic liberation ideals which are related to efforts in answering the challenges in modern society. In fact, Cak Nur's and Gus Dur's thoughts cannot be compared because there are significant differences between these two. Gus Dur was not only a neo-modernist thinker, but also a neo-traditionalist. This was based on the strong traditionalist aspect of Gus Dur which was developed into a discourse of Indonesian Islamic thought. Gus Dur did not simply abandon tradition as brought by the modernists, but Gus Dur also adopted traditionalist values which were later developed with Western intellectual khazanah.
This Gus Dur's attitude towards tradition is what distinguishes the discourse of Islamic thought from other modernist figures, including Cak Nur. Gus Dur's attitude towards Islamic traditions, both the Indonesian Islamic traditions and Arab Islamic traditions, does not negate the development of Western-Modern thought. However, Gus Dur took a middle ground in reading tradition and then took a step forward. For this reason, Gus Dur made a major contribution to the liberation of Indonesian Islamic thought. Gus Dur provided the foundation for the discourse of Islamic thought for the future. Gus Dur did not give up his traditionalist aspects, as he had received from Islamic boarding schools, but at the same time he also did not throw away all discourses of modern Western thought. Gus Dur thought is based on Islamic foundations that have been understood so far, then combined with Western thought discourse, both in terms of politics and Islamic thought
One of the proofs that Gus Dur is also based on neo-traditionalist thinking is where he made aswaja not only as mandzab but also as manhaj fikr (method of thinking). The meaning of aswaja manhaj fikr is Muslim scholars or thinkers that not only refer to the yellow book when there is a problem, but to make the methodology of classical scholarly thinking to be applied in the contemporary era. Even so, these efforts did not abandon the sources of law in Islam, namely the al-Qur’an and hadith. By briefly reading Gus Dur's contribution to the struggle for Islamic thought in Indonesia, at least it can illustrate how the projection of Gus Dur's Islamic thought in the intellectual khazanah of Indonesian Islam. Gus Dur's efforts to break down the orthodoxy of Indonesian clerical thinking at that time had a major impact on the development of Indonesian Islamic thought.
From the explanation above, it can be concluded that neo-modernism is a new thought that emerged in the twentieth century as the antithesis of modernism. The most famous and astonishing thought of cak Nur's neo-modernism is the concept of "secularization". Furthermore, his thoughts also lead to the political world which states that Indonesia is a democratic country, this is in line with the real Islam which is open to any ideas and thoughts. Therefore, according to Cak Nur, Muslims must display Islamic values in the modern era as one of the attempts to accept the Western culture. Meanwhile, Gus Dur's thinking is not only based on neo-modernism but also neo-traditionalist, where he not only accepts modernity but he also develops traditionalist values. His thinking is characterized by upholding human rights, being non-sectarian, and tolerant.
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