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The Threat of Small Things:
Public Visibility and the Threat of Micro-Sized Groups in Indonesia
Jessica Soedirgo Department of Political Science, University of Toronto
Paper prepared for the Southeast Asia Research Group 2019 Annual Meeting University of British Columbia, 2-4 June 2019
Abstract:
Why do very small groups become targets of mobilization and repression? Given their economic and political insignificance, most theories of ethnic and religious conflict expect groups that are less than 1% of the population—what I call micro-sized groups—to be ignored. Yet, micro-sized groups like the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Kazakhstan and Russia, the Baha’i in Iran and the Nirankaris in Northwestern India have experienced high levels of persecution. This paper argues that the threat of micro-sized groups is constitutive and that this constitutive threat resonates when it is publically visible. Micro-sized groups thus become seen as a threat to the larger ethnic, religious, or national group when 1) the micro-sized group poses a visible constitutive threat and 2) when political entrepreneurs are incentivized to amplify these threats for their own interests. Drawing on archival and interview data collected over 17 months of fieldwork, I develop my argument through the case of the Ahmadiyah sect in Indonesia. By identifying why and how micro-sized groups come to be seen as threats, this paper shows that threat perception is not only about material interests and resources, but is also tied to public display and group visibility.
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Introduction
On February 6th 2011, 1500 men armed with machetes, sticks and stones attacked the Jemaah
Ahmadiyah Indonesia (JAI) office in Cikeusik village, Pandeglang district, Banten province. While
some Ahmadi men escaped the violence, others were not so lucky. Those captured were stripped
naked and subsequently stabbed and beaten by their attackers.1 Three Ahmadis were killed in the
violence and six others were severely injured.2 According to the perpetrators, their bloodletting was
an attempt to stop the Ahmadis from propagating the heterodox teachings of Mirza Ghulam
Ahmad.3
What is puzzling about the violence in Cikeusik, however, is why the Ahmadiyah were
considered as a problem at all. The 1.14 million Sunni Muslims in Pandeglang vastly outnumbered
the 25 Ahmadis in Cikeusik village, who made up half of the entire Ahmadi population in the
district.4 Why would more than a thousand people risk prosecution, imprisonment, and public
disapproval to attack 25 people?5 This question can be asked not just of the Cikeusik violence, but
the actions taken against the Ahmadiyah community in Indonesia as a whole. Despite making up just
0.1% of the population,6 Ahmadis in Indonesia have been the targets of seemingly excessive levels
of repression and mobilization since 2005.
1 Ahmadi victim of Cikeusik attack. Interview by author, Jakarta, 7 April 2014.
2 Ahmad Najib Burhani, "When Muslims Are Not Muslims: The Ahmadiyya Community and the Discourse on Heresy in Indonesia" (PhD Dissertation, University of California Santa Barbara, 2013), 297. 3 Samsu Rizal Panggabean et al., Pemolisian Konflik Keagamaan Di Indonesia [Policing Religious Conflict in Indonesia] (Jakarta: PUSAD Paramadina, 2014), 68. 4 Ibid., 60-61.
5 While the perpetrators received light sentences, 12 men still served prison time for their crimes. See Melissa Crouch, "Criminal (in)Justice in Indonesia: The Cikeusik Trails," Alternative Law Journal 37, no. 1 (2012).
6 Jacqueline Hicks, "Heresy and Authority: Understanding the Turn against Ahmadiyah in Indonesia," South East Asia Research 22, no. 3 (2014): 3.
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The Ahmadiyah in Indonesia are an example of what I call a “micro-sized group.”
Constituting less than 1% of the national population, micro-sized groups are so small that states
often do not bother rendering them legible on the census. On every materialist or rationalist
indicator of threat, micro-sized groups are insignificant. Their size makes them unable to render a
meaningful impact on elections and they are too small for their identity to be used for the
distribution of state resources. Given the absence of any credible material threat, most theories of
intergroup conflict expect micro-sized groups to be ignored. These expectations are fulfilled in many
cases; while the Amish in the US or the Twa in Rwanda experience varying degrees of social
discrimination, they are not targets of repression or mobilization.
Contrary to theoretical expectations, however, many micro-sized groups experience some
level of mobilization or state repression. According to the Religion and State dataset, 93 religious
micro-sized groups experienced repression and/or mobilization between 1990-2014.7 The
Ahmadiyah in Indonesia, the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Kazakhstan and Russia, the Baha’i in Iran, and
the Nirankaris in Northwestern India are just some examples of micro-sized groups that have been
targets of high levels of state repression and collective mobilization.
Why do micro-sized groups become targets of mobilization and repression? I argue that the
threat of micro-sized groups is linked to fears about group boundaries in flux. When micro-sized
groups publically disrupt the constitutive institutions, routines, and practices of a larger ethnic,
religious, or national group (“visible constitutive threat”), it is seen as a danger to the continued
existence of said group. Micro-sized groups become seen as a threat to the broader community
7 Jonathan Fox, Religion and State dataset, http://www.religionandstate.org. The dataset codes levels of religious discrimination for 771 religious minorities in 183 states. For every indicator, a value between 0-2 is assigned, with 2 representing high levels of social and/or state discrimination. I consider any micro-sized groups where the sum total valuations in a given year exceed 10 to have experienced repression and/or mobilization.
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when: 1) they present a visible constitutive threat; and 2) political entrepreneurs are incentivized to
amplify these visible constitutive threats for their own interests.
I develop my argument through a study of the Ahmadiyah sect in Indonesia. I show that
Ahmadis were a constitutive threat to Muslims in Indonesia because their beliefs and practices
challenged those that allowed a diverse people to belong to a single category. However, Ahmadis
were only seen as threatening in the times and places where these constitutive challenges were
publically visible. When electoral reforms incentivized political entrepreneurs (i.e. politicians and
hardliner groups) to exploit and amplify the threat, the Ahmadiyah became seen as a threat to the
larger Muslim community.
By identifying why and how micro-sized groups become seen as threats, this paper shows
that threat perception is not only about material interests and resources, but is also tied to public
display and group visibility. These findings have applicability to politics more broadly. Incorporating
public display into the analysis can shed light on political behaviours that may appear to be
inefficient, costly, or irrational.
This paper proceeds as follows. I begin by theorizing the conditions under which micro-
sized groups become threatening to the majority. I then turn to my research design and develop the
argument by looking at the Indonesia case. I conclude with the implications of this analysis for
research on intergroup conflict.
Theorizing the Threat of Micro-Sized Groups
Conflict involving micro-sized groups is generally overlooked in the literature on ethnic and
religious conflict. This oversight is arguably a result of the materialist assumptions that so often
undergirds the literature on intergroup conflict. Many scholars assume that minorities become
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targets of mobilization and repression because they pose some kind of challenge to one’s access to
material resources such as physical security8 or economic opportunities.9 Even scholars who examine
non-material drivers of conflict, such as group symbols or rituals, generally presuppose the existence
of a material threat.10 Due to their “least likely” status, conflict involving micro-sized groups has
largely been ignored.
It is important to note that the phenomenon of conflict involving micro-sized groups has
not been completely ignored. More specifically, scholars have explored particular cases of conflict,
such as the targeting of the Ahmadiyah and Shi’a in Indonesia and the Bah’ai in Iran.11 Two factors
are commonly highlighted in these studies: ideas and incentive structures. Ideational arguments
attribute the persecution of micro-sized groups to ideas and attitudes. In their study of religious
discrimination, for example, Fox and Akbaba argue that Muslims tended to give greater rights to
“people of the book” minorities like Jews and Christians compared to groups deemed to be heretical
like the Baha’i. 12 Instrumentalist explanations, on the other hand, focus on the political incentives
driving behavior. Michael Buehler, for example, argues that the upsurge in anti-Ahmadiyah
8 E.g. Barry Posen, "The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict," Survival 35, no. 1 (1993); Steven I Wilkinson, Votes and Violence: Electoral Competition and Ethnic Riots in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 24-25.
9 E.g. Susan Olzak, The Dynamics of Ethnic Competition and Conflict (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1992); Neil Devotta, Blowback: Linguistic Nationalism, Institutional Decay, and Ethnic Conflict (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2004).
10 E.g. Stuart J Kaufman, Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001); Marc Howard Ross, Cultural Contestation in Ethnic Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). 11 E.g. Jeremy Menchik, Islam and Democracy in Indonesia: Tolerance without Liberalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016); Hicks, "Heresy and Authority: Understanding the Turn against Ahmadiyah in Indonesia."; Eliz Sanasarian, Religious Minorities in Iran (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
12 Jonathan Fox and Yasemin Akbaba, "Restrictions on the Religious Practices of Religious Minorities: A Global Survey," Political Studies 63, no. 1070-1086 (2015): 1073.
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legislation in Indonesia is an outcome of democratization.13 Both sets of explanations, however,
sidestep the central puzzle of this paper. Ideational approaches cannot explain why heterodoxy is
more threatening at some times and not others. Instrumentalist approaches cannot explain the
resonance of the threat of micro-sized groups and therefore have difficulty explaining why political
entrepreneurs would choose to use the issue in the first place or why ordinary people would find the
threat credible.
I argue that the threat of micro-sized groups is a constitutive one and that this threat
resonates when it is publically visible. My argument rests on—and takes seriously14—the proposition
that groups are “constructed, contingent and fluctuating” and are continually in a state of
(re)production.15 Groups are constituted—rendered concrete and taken-for-granted—by a shared set
of institutions, schemas, routines, practices, and social bonds. The elements that constitute a group
are context specific. Irrigation practices, for example, may be constitutive of regional identities in
Bolivia, but not in Mexico.16 What matters is that a significant subset17 of group members have a
shared understanding of what particular institutions, practices and bonds are foundational to group
membership and boundaries.
If the continued existence of groups are contingent on a set of institutions, schemas,
routines, practices, and social bonds, then a challenge to any of these constitutive elements of group
13 E.g. Michael Buehler, The Politics of Shari'a Law: Islamist Activists and the State in Democratizing Indonesia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016). 14 While the idea that groups are socially constructed is now widely accepted, Brubaker critically notes that scholars continue to study groups as discrete entities and agents. See Ethnicity without Groups (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004), 7-8.
15 Ibid., 8. 16 Erica S Simmons, "Market Reforms and Water Wars," World Politics 68, no. 1 (2016).
17 As group boundaries are dynamic, contingent and always open to (re)negotiation, competing visions of the constitutive elements of the group will always exist.
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can be perceived as an attack to the group itself.18 These challenges do not have to be purposive to
be read as threatening. If prayer, for example, is constitutive of a religious group, then deviations
from this ritual can be seen as a constitutive challenge. Consequently, a Shi’a placing their foreheads
on a turba and not on carpet can be threatening to a Sunni Muslim, as the collective and
choreographed practice of prayer may, in certain contexts, be constitutive of the Sunni category.
Constitutive challenges are threatening for both material and non-material reasons. Group
hierarchies and the predictable distribution of state-provided resources are predicated on the
existence of discrete and coherent group entities.19 Beyond the material implications, however, stable
and continuous group identities are arguably central for agency—especially if one sees behavior as
identity- and rule-based.20 In the absence of a stabilized group identity, the capacity for individual
action and choice will be impacted.21
When confronted with group boundaries in flux, group members will often attempt to re-
stabilize group boundaries. Mobilization and repression are two strategies that can reestablish group
boundaries. For example, Arjun Appadurai and John Sidel have argued that ethnic violence is often
driven by the desire to reify group boundaries.22 The physical destruction of bodies and property
18 Erica S Simmons, Meaningful Resistance: Market Reforms and the Roots of Social Protest in Latin America (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 8.
19 Arjun Appadurai, "Dead Certainty: Ethnic Violence in the Era of Globalization," Development and Change 29 (1998): 911. 20 James G March and Johan P Olsen, "The Institutional Dynamics of International Political Orders," International Organization 52, no. 4 (1998): 951-52. 21 Jennifer Mitzen, "Ontological Security in World Politics: State Identity and the Security Dilemma," European Journal of International Relations 12, no. 3 (2006): 344. 22 Arjun Appadurai, "Dead Certainty: Ethnic Violence in the Era of Globalization," Development and Change 29 (1998); Brubaker, Ethnicity without Groups; John Sidel, Riots, Pogroms, Jihad: Religious Violence in Indonesia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006).
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clearly demarcates the line between the self and other.23 Passing and enforcing laws that enshrine the
requirements of group membership similarly restores group coherence. Once group boundaries are
redefined and reestablished, the constitutive threat is defused.
Constitutive threats are only seen as threatening when they are publically visible. After all,
the constructed nature of groups means that challenges to group boundaries are ongoing. When
such critiques occur away from public view or in what James Scott calls the “hidden transcript”24,
they are significantly less potent. As Scott writes: the status quo can “accommodate a reasonably
high level of practical resistance so long as that resistance is not publicly and unambiguously
acknowledged.”25 Once the disruption becomes publically visible, however, the semblance of group
coherence and stability becomes difficult to maintain.
Public visibility is an important component of threat resonance for at least two reasons. First,
visibility matters because it makes challenges concrete and undeniable. Seeing a threat to group
boundaries and orders is an embodied process.26 For example, a Catholic in Northern Ireland may
experience fear and anger as she sees and hears a loyalist parade pass her neighborhood. This
experience is visceral and it thus powerfully cements the threat. Second, public space is imbued by
power relations. While the public sphere is not fully controlled by dominant groups, it is the domain
of the powerful.27 The politicized nature of public space means that claims made in public are often
perceived as challenges to existing power arrangements. Public spaces are simultaneously sites for
23 James Siegal, Solo in the New Order: Language and Hierarchy in an Indonesian City (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 246. 24 James Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1990), 27. 25 Ibid., 56-57.
26 I thank Lee Ann Fujii and Lahoma Thomas for this point. 27 Ibid., 4.
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the reinforcement of the status quo28 and sites where group boundaries and orders can be
renegotiated.29 In this light, it becomes understandable why groups are so concerned about the
display and visibility of seemingly “unimportant matters” like statues and flags.30
It is the capacity of micro-sized groups to visibly undermine the constitutive elements of
groups that makes them threatening, even in the absence of a credible material threat. That being
said, micro-sized groups can rarely project presence beyond a small area. For a visible constitutive
threat to be threatening to the broader group, it must be seen by members of the larger collective. In
other words, the mere existence of a visible constitutive threat is not enough for a micro-sized group
to be seen as a threat to the larger ethnic, religious, or national group.
Political entrepreneurship is the process by which micro-level threats become threatening to
the larger collective. Through actions such as organizing protests against space-claiming activities or
framing the group as threatening in press releases, political entrepreneurs can render the threat of
micro-sized groups visible at a broader level. While these actors may genuinely believe in the
existence of the threat, this process of amplification is often driven by interests. These interests are
generally shaped by both formal and informal institutional configurations.31 The mechanism
through which the sense of threat becomes widespread is specific to the local institutional context.
28 Don Mitchell, The Lie of the Land: Migrant Workers and the California Landscape (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 27.
29 David M Guss, The Festive State: Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism as Cultural Performance (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 11. 30 John R Gillis, ed. Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).
31 See, for example, Yuhki Tajima, The Institutional Origins of Communal Violence: Indonesia's Transition from Authoritarian Rule (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014); Alexandre Pelletier and Jessica Soedirgo, "The De-Escalation of Violence and the Political Economy of Peace-Mongering: Evidence from Maluku, Indonesia," South East Asia Research 25, no. 4 (2017); Jessica Soedirgo, "Informal Networks and Religious Intolerance: How Clientelism Incentives the Discrimination of the Ahmadiyah in Indonesia," Citizenship Studies 22, no. 2 (2018).
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However, once political entrepreneurs do amplify the threat, rates of anti-minority mobilization and
repression can multiply.
To summarize, I argue that the threat of micro-sized groups is a constitutive one, which
resonates when challenges to the elements that undergird group (re)production are publically visible.
Micro-sized groups can be seen as threatening to the regional or even national community when 1)
they present a visible constitutive threat and 2) when political entrepreneurs are incentivized to
amplify the threat. In the absence of political incentives for amplification, conflict involving micro-
sized groups will remain highly localized because the threat is only seen by proximate individuals.
Where visible constitutive threats are not present, micro-sized groups are not targets of mobilization
or repression because the threat does not resonate (see Figure 1.1).
Incentives for Political Entrepreneurship
No Incentives for Political Entrepreneurship
Visible Constitutive Threat Conflict at the Regional or National Level
Conflict remains highly localized
No Visible Constitutive Threat No conflict No conflict
Figure 1.1: Implications of Theory
Methods and Data
I developed the theory presented here through the case of the Ahmadiyah community in
Indonesia. I selected this case due to significant temporal and spatial variation in patterns of anti-
Ahmadiyah mobilization and repression. Temporally, the experience of Ahmadiyah communities in
Indonesia can be divided into three distinct periods: 1) Pre-2005, where episodes of contention were
highly localized; 2) 2005-2013, where the sect became significant targets of discriminatory legislation
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and collective action at the district, provincial, and national level; and 3) Post-2013, where conflict
has declined. The case is also characterized by spatial variation: while some Ahmadi communities
have experienced high levels of persecution, others have experienced very little. Using process-
tracing methodology, these sources of variation allow me to identify and compare the unfolding of
causal processes across different temporal and spatial contexts.
In this paper, I specifically explore conflict processes in two cases at the district (rural) or
city (urban) level: Tasikmalaya district and Bandung city (see Figure 1.2). While both sites are
located in West Java, Ahmadis in each case experienced different levels of mobilization and
repression. While Ahmadis in Tasikamalaya experienced some of the highest levels of repression and
mobilization in the country, their counterparts in Bandung have been largely left alone. The contrast
of the paired comparison helps illuminate the different causal processes at play, helping sharpen the
theoretical claims made.32
Figure 1.2 - Map of Case Studies
The main goal of this paper is theoretical innovation through the identification of new
factors and processes. This type of inquiry is particularly well suited to the case study approach, as it
is not as constrained by externally imposed categories. It thus provides space for inductive
32 Alexander L George and Andrew Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005), 32.
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theorizing.33 In depth engagement with a single case also allows for the careful documentation of
complex dynamics at the meso- and micro- level.34 While this research design foregoes sub- or cross-
national hypothesis testing, the identification of new factors and processes can help inform future
research.
This article draws on 17 months of field research carried out in Indonesia non-consecutively
in 2013, 2014, and 2015. To reconstruct local histories necessary for process tracing, I consulted
primary documents acquired from the library at JAI headquarters. My primary source of data were
the 135 in-depth, semi-structured interviews I conducted with religious minorities, politicians, local
religious leaders, bureaucrats, and individuals complicit in mobilizing against Ahmadis such as
Islamic hardliner groups. Participants were recruited through snowballing, a sampling strategy useful
for 1) finding “hidden populations” such as religious minorities and members of hardliner groups35
and 2) cultivating the trust and credibility needed to pursue sensitive topics such as violence.
To navigate local gender norms and other elements of my positionality, interviews were
often carried out with the help of a research assistant. I was especially concerned that my
participants would assume that I held views and prejudices stereotypically associated with those that
shared my Christian and Chinese-Indonesian identity. To cultivate better working relationships, I
employed a modified version of Cammett’s “proxy interviewing” strategy,36 where I “matched” the
religious identity of my participants to those of my research assistants to signal my openness to
cross-ethnic and cross-religious perspectives.
33 Ibid., 20-22.
34 Sarah Elizabeth Parkinson, "Organizing Rebellion: Rethinking High-Risk Mobilization and Social Networks in War," American Political Science Review 107, no. 3 (2013): 420.
35 Oisin Tansey, "Process Tracing and Elite Interviewing: A Case for Non-Probability Sampling," PS October 2007 (2007): 770.
36 Melanie Cammett, "Using Proxy Interviewing to Address Sensitive Topics," in Interview Research in Political Science, ed. Layna Mosley (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013).
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Interviewing is a method that is especially well suited to my research question, which
explores the non-material elements of threat perception. Interviewing gives the researcher a means
to access how people understand and construct their worlds.37 Immersion also provided the context
necessary for analyzing what Lee Ann Fujii calls the “meta-data” of an interview, such as systematic
silences and stock accounts. Meta-data is particularly useful when investigating sensitive topics such
as those related to violence.38
The Ahmadiyah as Constitutive Threat
While Indonesia is not a Muslim state, religion is an ordering principle of Indonesian
nationalism. As an example of what Menchik calls “godly nationalism,” full access to citizenship in
Indonesia is linked to belonging in one of six state-sanctioned religions.39 Religious identity and
networks have long been used to distribute state resources such as employment and funding for
education.40 It also mediates the lived experience of Indonesians, with religious organizations and
associations undergirding the daily routines and social bonds of many Indonesian Muslims.41
Religious identity is, in other words, highly salient.
When discussing their concerns about the Ahmadiyah sect, many of my participants raised
issues around blurred group boundaries. A commonly stated refrain was that the conflict would be
37 Lee Ann Fujii, Interviewing in Social Science Research: A Relational Approach (New York: Routledge, 2018), 9.
38 "Shades of Truth and Lies: Interpreting Testimonies of War and Violence," Journal of Peace Research 47, no. 2 (2010).
39 Menchik, Islam and Democracy in Indonesia: Tolerance without Liberalism, 67. 40 Robert W Hefner, Civil Islam: Muslims and Democratization in Indonesia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 86, 120-21. 41 Danielle N Lussier and M. Steven Fish, "Indonesia: The Benefits of Civic Engagement," Journal of Democracy 23, no. 1 (2012): 73-74; David Kloos, Becoming Better Muslims: Religious Authority and Ethnical Improvement in Aceh, Indonesia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018).
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resolved if Ahmadis stopped identifying themselves as Muslim. A leader of a Muslim hardliner
group stated: “We wouldn’t have a problem with them if they claimed that they were their own
religion…. Why don’t they just say they are the Ahmadiyah religion? Then the problem would be
finished!”42 Similarly, a political strategist for the United Development Party (PPP) stated that he
supported the ability of the Ahmadis “to worship, gather, and organize as long as they do not do so
under the name of Islam.”43 These quotes suggest that the threat of the Ahmadiyah arises from their
insistence on remaining in the Muslim category, despite beliefs and practices that sharply deviate
from what is considered to be constitutive elements of Islam.
The constitutive threat of the Ahmadiyah community stems from distinctive religious
practices that emerge from innovative interpretations of religious texts. The sect attracts controversy
for three reasons: 1) disagreements about the death of the Prophet Jesus (Nabi Isa); 2) conflicting
interpretations of jihad has a concept; and 3) the claim that the founder of the sect, Mirza Ghulam
Ahmad, is a prophet. The final point is most controversial, as it challenges a foundational tenet of
orthodox Islam: the seal of the prophets (khatam al’nabiyyin). This doctrine states that the Prophet
Muhammad is the last prophet (“the seal”) and that none would come after him. Ahmad, however,
argued that the khatam al’nabiyyin only referred to the finality of prophets who could add to Islamic
law (sharia) and claimed the mantle of prophethood himself. It was this claim of prophethood that
led orthodox Muslims to label the sect as blasphemous.44
These theological innovations had implications for Ahmadi religious practice, which often
made the sect visible constitutive threats. Proselytization (dakwah) is an example of a resulting
contentious practice. Proselytization is a constitutive threat because Ahmadi missionaries actively 42 Muslim People’s Ulama Forum (FUUI) Leader. Interview by author, Bandung, 16 October 2014. 43 Political strategist, PPP West Java. Interview by author, Bandung, 13 October 2014.
44 Herman L Beck, "The Rupture between the Muhammadiyah and the Ahmadiyya," Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde 161, no. 2-3 (2005): 217-19.
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seek to convince other Muslims that their understandings of foundational tenets of Islam are
incorrect. As a high-ranking bureaucrat in the Ministry of Religious Affairs stated:
The way they spread their teachings will cause disharmony in society—[especially] the belief that there is another prophet after Muhammad. Actually, [they] can evangelize to non-Muslims if they wanted to. But they don’t do [that] you know! In Africa, they do it to non-Muslims, which is fine…But in Indonesia, they don’t do it [to non-Muslims], they do it to the mainstream!45
This quote suggests that it is the Ahmadis sharing of contradictory teachings to other Muslims that
is threatening and problematic to social order.
When proselytization is carried out publically, the challenge to the constitutive elements of
group is made concrete. In fact, Ahmadis often engage in dakwah in a publically visible way.46
Journalists from national newsmagazine Tempo described their proselytization efforts in the following
way:
Like the leaders of the Ahmadis say themselves, those that convert…are committed and ready to spread the teachings. This preaching is carried out whole-heartedly and frequently. They attack key ideas: they give out brochures or hold debates, even though the majority of the people…will not change their thinking.47
The Ahmadiyah proselytization repertoire is one that often makes the group a visible constitutive
threat.
Other everyday religious practices by the Ahmadis are also seen as undermining constitutive
elements of the Muslim category. Because Ahmadis are prohibited from praying under a non-
45 Former Head of the Ministry of Religious Affairs Research Directorate. Interview by author, Jakarta, 21 March 2014.
46 Burhani, "When Muslims Are Not Muslims: The Ahmadiyya Community and the Discourse on Heresy in Indonesia," 84.
47 Syu'bah Asa and DS Karma, "Ahmadiyah, Sebuah Titik Yang Dilupa [Ahmadiyah, Now Forgotten]," Tempo 21 September 1974.
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Ahmadi imam, they build and maintain their own mosques.48 These mosques were generally
publically visible, as signage identified the buildings as belonging to the sect. Worshipping in
separate mosques is seen to undermine bonds and practices that enable diverse individuals to see
themselves as a community. If Ahmadis identify as Muslim, but refuse to worship with other
Muslims, the necessary requirements for group belonging becomes uncertain.
A Bird’s Eye View of Anti-Ahmadiyah Activity in Indonesia
The experience of Ahmadiyah communities in Indonesia can be divided into three distinct
periods: 1) Pre-2005, where episodes of contention remained localized; 2) 2005-2013, where the sect
became significant targets of discriminatory legislation and collective action at the district, provincial,
and national level; and 3) Post-2013, a period where overt conflict has flat lined.
Incidences of conflict involving the Ahmadiyah have been reported since the arrival of the
first Ahmadi missionaries in 1925.49 That being said, there is a general consensus that the character
of conflict between 1925-2004 was qualitatively different from what unfolded between 2005-2013.50
Organized opposition against Ahmadi communities occurred only intermittently in the 1925-2004
period, with most Ahmadis I interviewed only able to recall the occurrence of one or two anti-
Ahmadiyah incidents over the span of eight decades. When organized opposition did occur, conflict
remained largely constrained to the village-level. By this I mean that organized opposition was
planned and organized by village-level actors that were not affiliated with the state.
4848 Erni Budiwanti, "Pluralism Collapses: A Study of the Jama'ah Ahmadiyah Indonesia and Its Persecution," in Working Paper Series (Singapore: Asia Research Institute, 2009), 17-18.
49 Asa and Karma, "Ahmadiyah, Sebuah Titik Yang Dilupa [Ahmadiyah, Now Forgotten]." 50 The one exception was the Ahmadis living in Medan, who agreed that persecution was on the decline since the late 1990s. Mubaligh, JAI Medan. Interview by author, Medan, North Sumatra, 29 April 2014; Ahmadi from Medan. Interview by author, Medan, North Sumatra, 9 December 2014.
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Most Ahmadis identify 2005 as the year that conflict began to escalate. 51 Between 2005-2013,
anti-Ahmadiyah mobilization and repression occurred with greater frequency and began to involve
actors beyond the village level. As Figure 1.3 illustrates, there was a sudden spike in the frequency
of anti-Ahmadiyah incidents in 2005, with incidents of mobilization and repression multiplying over
the next few years.
Figure 1.3 – Frequency of Anti-Ahmadiyah Events in Indonesia, 2003-2015. Source: Author’s Data.52
It was not just the frequency of incidents that changed, but the scale of the conflict as well.
Actors beyond the village level began getting involved in the conflict (Figure 1.4). The initial uptick
in anti-Ahmadiyah activity in 2005 was driven by actions carried out by district heads and hardliner
groups. These incidents encompass the passage of district-level legislation and protests against local
Ahmadi mosques or events. By 2008, the Ahmadiyah threat had become a national concern, with
Islamic hardliner groups staging protests in front of government offices in Jakarta53 and the
51 E.g. Member of JAI Sumedang. Interview by author, Bandung, 28 September 2014. 52 I collected data on incidences of anti-Ahmadiyah repression and mobilization by coding and digitizing events data collected and published by the Wahid Institute, an NGO focused on religious freedom in Indonesia. This data was supplemented by newspaper articles from the most widely read national newspapers: Kompas, Tempo, Jakarta Post, and Jakarta Globe. 53 E.g. "FUI Temui Jaksa, Ingatkan Soal Ahmadiyah [FUI Meets with Attorney General, Reminder Made about Ahmadiyah Issue]," Kompas, 4 January 2008; "Thousands demand Ahmadiyah Disband," Jakarta Post, 21 April 2008.
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Ministries of Religious Affairs, Internal Affairs and the Attorney General passing national legislation
that limited the ability of the Ahmadis to worship (SKB No. 3/2008). While there was geographic
variation in the targeting of Ahmadi communities, state and non-state actors at all levels had become
complicit by 2011.
Actor Type Proportion of Incidents Perpetrated Hardliner Group 29% Villagers 25% District Head 19% Religious Regulatory Body 7% MUI 5% Police 5% Governor 3% Other 7% Figure 1.4: Proportion of Incidents by Actor Level. Source: Author’s data (n=246).
The target on the Ahmadiyah community subsided almost as quickly as it had emerged. In
2014, the frequency of mobilization returned to pre-2005 levels. Anti-Ahmadiyah incidents
continued to occur intermittently, but are now rare. In 2014, a national level leader of the JAI noted
that the conflict was no longer as bad as it used to be and that recent attempts to mobilize on the
issue were not effective.54 One unique characteristic about this era, however, is the primary
perpetrators of anti-Ahmadiyah activity. Prior to 2011, anti-Ahmadiyah incidents were largely carried
out by non-state actors. After 2013, the targeting of Indonesia’s Ahmadiyah community has become
institutionalized (Figure 1.5). Therefore, while no longer targets of mobilization, they remain targets
of religious repression.
54 JAI Indonesia Leader. Interview by author, Parung, Bogor, 9 March 2014.
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Figure 1.5: State vs. Non State Actors Involved in Anti-Ahmadiyah Events, 2008-2015. Source: Author’s Data.
The trends outlined in this section raise several questions. What explains the exceptional
nature of anti-Ahmadiyah conflict during the 2005-2013 period? Why did actors beyond the village
level suddenly become concerned about the Ahmadiyah threat? Why were some Ahmadi
communities seen as threatening while others were not? It is to these questions I now turn.
The Threat of the Ahmadiyah in Tasikmalaya District, West Java
Ahmadi communities in Tasikmalaya district have experienced some of the highest levels of
persecution in the country.55 I argue that the group’s visibility in public spaces made them
threatening to local religious leaders and communities. When democratization and decentralization
increased the political relevance of local networks, political entrepreneurs (e.g. politicians and
hardliner groups) were incentivized to exploit and amplify the Ahmadi threat. Once Ahmadiyah
communities in Tasikmalaya no longer posed a visible constitutive threat, opposition declined.
55 Author’s events data.
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1) 1934-2004: Localized Sectarian Conflict
Tensions between Sunni and Ahmadi communities in Tasikmalaya have been recorded since
the arrival of Ahmadi missionaries in 1934.56 Sunni Muslims in the area perceived their Ahmadi
neighbors as a threat due to the hyper visibility of JAI communities in the district. Throughout the
20th Century, JAI Tasikmalaya have built new mosques, mission houses, and schools; hosted large
religious events; and engaged in public proselytization through the staging of public debates and the
distribution of religious tracts.57 Episodes of resistance often emerged in response to these activities.
In one case, a local Sunni imam in the village of Sukasari began giving lectures in neighboring
villages soon after the JAI opened a branch there to prevent group’s expansion.58 Similarly, in the
1980s, a scheduled event—the annual JAI meeting known as jalsah salanah—was cancelled just hours
before it was to begin. An Ahmadi from Singaparna told me: “We had already prepared everything,
but suddenly when the event was about to start [it] was not allowed to go on. We had set up the tent
and stage, even killed the cow [for a sacrifice], when it was stopped by the police, on behalf of the
ulama.”59 Conflict was not strictly limited to the authoritarian era. In April 2003, after the Ahmadis
staged a religious event at one of their mosques, several kyai—heads of Islamic boarding schools
(pesantren)—made a futile demand that the government ban the sect.60 As seen, when the Ahmadis
posed a visible constitutive threat, their neighbors mobilized against them.
56 Kunto Sofianto, Tinjauan Kritis Jemaat Ahmadiyah Indonesia [a Critical Review of the Ahmadiyah in Indonesia] (Neratja Press, 2014), 128. 57 Ibid., 133-36.
58Abdul Rahim, "Sejarah Dan Perkembangan Jemaat Ahmadiyah Di Desa Tenjowaringin Kecamatan Salawu Kabupaten Tasikmalaya [the History and Development of the Ahmadiyah Community in Tenjowaringin, Salawu, Tasikmalaya]" (Undergraduate Thesis, Jamiah Ahmadiyah Indonesia, 2004), 58-59. 59 Member of JAI Tasikmalaya (#2). Interview by author, Tasikmalaya, 19 October 2014.
60 Amin Mudzakkir, "Minoritisasi Ahmadiyah Di Indonesia [the Minoritization of Ahmadiyah in Indonesia]," Masyarakat Indonesia 37, no. 2 (2011): 15-16.
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Members of the larger Muslim community, however, did not see or experience the
constitutive threat of the Ahmadiyah community in the 1934-2004 period because political
entrepreneurs did not amplify it. The decision to abstain from transmitting the threat was shaped by
the institutional incentive structure. Suharto’s fear of political Islam meant that Islamists had little
space for political organization.61 Similarly, politicians did not rely on local religious constituencies
for political power in the authoritarian era and therefore did not have to be responsive to local
concerns. There were also few incentives to amplify the threat in the early democratic period (1998-
2004), as the selection of local district heads (bupati/walikota) was the responsibility of other
members of the district legislature.62 Because political entrepreneurs were not incentivized to amplify
the threat for their own interests, disputes that took place during this period remained constrained to
the village level.
2) 2005-2013: Escalation and Amplification
The situation of Ahmadi communities in Tasikmalaya began to change in 2005. The sect did
not alter their practices in any significant way, continuing past trends of marking public space
through the building of mosques and Islamic prayer rooms (mushollah),63 and holding large religious
ceremonies.64 Yet, between 2005-2013, incidences of anti-Ahmadiyah mobilization multiplied and
the scale of the conflict expanded. While villagers continued to organize against the sect,65 they were
no longer the only ones to do so.
61 Jacques Bertrand, Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict in Indonesia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 75. 62 Michael Buehler, "Subnational Islamization through Secular Parties: Comparing Shari'a Politics in Two Indonesian Provinces," Comparative Politics 46, no. 1 (2013): 66.
63 Member of JAI Tasikmalaya (#1). Interview by author, Tasikmalaya, 19 October 2014. 64 “Islamic Hardliners Attack Ahmadiyah Community for Koran Recital,” The Jakarta Globe, 5 May 2013.
65 Sunni Imam of Mosque in Tenjowaringin, Tasikmalaya. Interview by author, Tasikmalaya, 18 October 2014.
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Amongst the newly complicit were state actors at the district level, who began to actively
engage in religious repression. In 2005, the bupati of Tasikmalaya passed a joint decree (Surat
Keputusan Bersama, SKB) that limited the group’s religious freedoms.66 In 2007, he passed an even
stronger decree that banned all Ahmadi activities in the district.67 The bupati was not the only
politician to exploit the Ahmadiyah threat; members of the district legislature did so as well.68
Hardliner groups also became involved in addressing the Ahmadiyah threat, staging a
number of anti-Ahmadiyah protests. On 19 June 2007, for example, 300 people made up of a
number of hardliner groups staged a protest in front of Mahmud mosque in Singaparna, demanding
that the government ban the Ahmadiyah for its deviant practices.69 One of the most significant
protests took place on 5 May 2013, when hundreds of hardliners attacked two villages in
Tasikmalaya for staging a Koran recital contest and hosting the jalsah salanah on Muhammad’s
birthday.70 A day later, an Ahmadi mushollah was burned to the ground.71
The increased involvement of actors beyond the village level in anti-Ahmadiyah activity is
attributable to changes in the institutional incentive structure. As part of Indonesia’s massive
decentralization efforts, direct elections (pilkada) were introduced at the district level to increase
political accountability. Under the new system, candidates for district office require the support of
66 Joint Decision of the Mayor of Tasikmalaya City, the Regent of Tasikmalaya District, the Attorney General, Kapolres and Kapolresta No 450/Kep 387-Kesra.2005; No 450/1324/Kesra 2708/0.2.17/Dsp.5/08/2005; Nopol B/844/VII/2005 Polresta; Nopol B/41/VII/2005 Polresta. 67 Joint Decision of the Regent, the Attorney General, Kapolres and Kapolresta of Tasikmalaya No 450/174/KBL/2007; No 23/0.2.17/Dsp.5/07/2007; No B/488/VII/2007; Nopol B/25/VII/2007/Polres; Nopol B/716/VII/2007/polresta. 68 "Dokumen Ahmadiyah Akan Dibawa ke MUI Pusat [Ahmadi Documents will be brought to MUI Headquarters]," MyRMnews, 20 June 2007. 69 “Masjid Mahmud Dilempar Batu [Masjid Mahmud Stoned],” Rakyat Merdeka, 20 June 2007.
70 “Islamic Hardliners Attack Ahmadiyah Community for Koran Recital,” The Jakarta Globe, 5 May 2013; Arya Dipa, “Mob Ransacks Ahmadiyah Village,” The Jakarta Post, 6 May 2013.
71 "Mushala Ahmadiyah di Kampung Sukasari dibakar [Ahmadiyah Mushollah in Sukasari Village Burned Down]," Sindonews, 6 May 2013.
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local constituencies. Given the clientelistic nature of Indonesian democracy, the 2004 electoral
reforms increased the political relevance of local networks and the brokers who could deliver them.72
The foci of political campaigning moved even further to individualized local networks in 2009, when
the introduction of an open-list proportional representation system increased intra-party
competition for parliamentary seats.73 These reforms meant that politicians increasingly had to rely
on relationships with the intermediaries of important local networks to win political office.74
Given longstanding tensions between Ahmadiyah and Sunni communities in Tasikmalaya,
being responsive to Sunni concerns about the sect was a way to garner support from key local
networks. The most important local networks in Tasikmalaya are those radiating from pesantren.75
Many kyai displayed concern about the Ahmadiyah threat. For example, Kyai Asep Maoshul Affandi
of Pesantren Miftahul Huda—one of the largest pesantren networks in Tasikmalaya76—made his
anti-Ahmadiyah preferences clear at a large kyai gathering.77 Electoral reforms incentivized the
exploitation—and thus amplification—of the Ahmadiyah threat to meet the demands of individuals
like Affandi who could deliver the votes of his followers at the ballot box.
Hardliner groups were also incentivized by the new electoral system to exploit the
Ahmadiyah threat. The devolution of fiscal resources to the district level and the new requirements
72 Michael Buehler, "The Rising Importance of Personal Networks in Indonesian Local Politics: An Analysis of District Government Head Elections in South Sulawesi in 2005," in Deepening Democracy in Indonesia? Direct Elections for Local Leaders, ed. Maribeth Erb (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009). 73 Edward Aspinall, "When Brokers Betray: Clientelism, Social Networks, and Electoral Politics in Indonesia," Critical Asian Studies 46, no. 4 (2014).
74 Buehler, "The Rising Importance of Personal Networks in Indonesian Local Politics: An Analysis of District Government Head Elections in South Sulawesi in 2005."
75 Mada Sukmajati, "How Islamic Parties Organize at the Local Level in Post-Suharto Indonesia: An Empirical Study of Six Major Islamic Parties in the Tasikmalaya District, West Java Province" (University of Heidelberg, 2011), 83. 76 Ibid., 85.
77“KH Asep Maoshul Affandy: Ahmadiyah Bukan Islam [KH Asep Maoshul Affandy: Ahmadiyah are not Muslim]” Kuningan Mass, 10 August 2016.
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for political campaigning opened up new opportunities for these groups. Mobilization was an
effective strategy for seizing these opportunities as it allowed the group to display the size of their
constituency. Through this display of their mobilization capacity, groups are able to become brokers
and/or clients to politicians or to be inducted into larger networks. Fulfilling these goals would not
only open up new revenue streams, but could also raise one’s social status.78 Episodes of space-
claiming activity by Tasikmalaya’s Ahmadiyah community thus present opportunities to mobilize
and to display one’s political resources.
Ultimately, the anti-Ahmadiyah actions carried out by Tasikmalaya’s politicians and
hardliners made the Ahmadi threat more visible. Media coverage of anti-Ahmadiyah incidents in
Tasikmalaya shone a spotlight on the group, highlighting the constitutive threat they posed to other
Indonesian Muslims. Articles on anti-Ahmadiyah legislation and protests in Tasikmalaya joined
those being written about conflicts involving the Ahmadiyah elsewhere (e.g. the violence in
Kuningan),79 thereby further amplifying the sense of threat. A conversation that I had with
Hussein,80 a high-ranking member of the FPI living in Depok, illustrates how the process of
amplification influenced his own perceptions of the Ahmadiyah threat and his subsequent
participation in anti-Ahmadiyah protests.
When did you start acting on the Ahmadiyah issue?
In 2006, I think…we knew the Ahmadiyah was there for a long time, but they didn’t really have an impact in terms of their growth and their mission. So we didn’t really care. But they started to be aggressive, going to influential leaders, proselytizing…So we reacted.
When you say they were more aggressive, what do you mean?
78 Ian Wilson, "Morality Racketeering: Vigilantism and Populist Islamic Militancy in Indonesia," in Between Dissent and Power: The Transformation of Islamic Politics in the Middle East and Asia, ed. Khoo Boo Teik, Vedi R Hadiz, and Yoshihiro Nakanishi (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2014).
79 Panggabean et al., Pemolisian Konflik Keagamaan Di Indonesia [Policing Religious Conflict in Indonesia], ch. 2; 80 All names have been changed to protect the anonymity of my participants.
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Take for example the case of Salawu in Tasikmalaya…There has been a lot of growth in the village there. Once we investigated, we found out that they had tricked [the new converts]! Ahmadis said that they were Muslim, the same as other Muslims. [But] their principle teachings differ from Islam!...If they said, ‘We are the Ahmadiyah religion outside of Islam’—we would say, go ahead. But if they confess themselves to be Muslim but then go outside of the principles of Islam…That is what we cannot accept.81
Records of Ahmadiyah activity during the early democratic era show that the community did not
change their behavior and the group was not growing beyond birth rates.82 Hussein’s perception
errors, however, demonstrate how political entrepreneurship made the Ahmadis in Tasikmalaya
more visible and therefore more threatening.
3) Post-2013: Defusing the Ahmadiyah Threat
The targeting of Ahmadiyah communities began to decline after the May 2013 attacks.83 While
the incentive structure did not change, the threat of the Ahmadi lost its resonance because Ahmadi
communities in Tasikmalaya withdrew from public space. The passage of discriminatory legislation
and conflict fatigue led the group to remove publically displayed symbols from religious buildings
and to change the way they proselytized. Their (forced) withdrawal from the public sphere
neutralized the threat they posed, leading to a drastic decline in overt acts of contention.
Ahmadi communities in Tasikmalaya began to reorient themselves inward in 2011, as the
district government began to enforce the dictates of anti-Ahmadiyah legislation.84 A coordination
team was formed by the government to prevent Tasikmalaya’s Ahmadis from proselytizing and
putting “the organization’s signs on public places, including names on houses of worship and 81 FPI Leader. Interview by author, Depok, 25 September 2014. 82 Rahim, "Sejarah Dan Perkembangan Jemaat Ahmadiyah Di Desa Tenjowaringin Kecamatan Salawu Kabupaten Tasikmalaya [the History and Development of the Ahmadiyah Community in Tenjowaringin, Salawu, Tasikmalaya]," Appendix.
83 “Menjaga Toleransi di Tenjowaringin, Tasikmalaya [Guarding Tolerance in Tenjowaringin, Tasikmalaya],” Kompas, 16 November 2018.
84 In addition to the 2005 and 2007 district legislation, the Tasikmalaya Ahmadis were subject to bans passed at the national level (SKB No. 3/2008) and at the provincial level (Gubernatorial Decree No. 12/2011).
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schools, that contains the Ahmadi identity.”85 Since the team was formed, district police and the
local religious regulatory complex have actively prevented the Ahmadis from disrupting public space.
For example, in 2014, the Ahmadiyah community in Tenjowaringin began renovating a mushollah
after getting the permission of the village head to do so. Midway through the project, the security
apparatus shut down the project because several kyai had created a petition stating that the
renovation constituted a legal violation.86 Through continued enforcement of anti-Ahmadiyah
legislation, the public presence of Ahmadiyah communities in Tasikmalaya was minimized.
In addition to increased government interference into Ahmadiyah affairs, conflict fatigue
drove the sect to turn away from the public sphere. For many years, JAI communities in
Tasikmalaya resisted the dictates of discriminatory legislation and were unbowed by the mass
protests,87 vandalism,88 arson,89 and mob attacks90 that took place between 2005 and 2012. The three
attacks in May 2013, however, seemed to be the last straw. After May 2013, Ahmadiyah
communities reluctantly toed the line, choosing to cancel events, close down houses of worship, and
cancel renovation projects.91
The combination of fear and increased policing meant that by 2014, Ahmadi communities
were only minimally visible in the public sphere. Writing in 2014, Fatoni noted the following about
the Ahmadiyah community in Salawu, Tasikmalaya: “They no longer dare put up a signs on
85 “Pemkab Tasikmalaya Bentuk Tim Mengawal Pergub Ahmadiyah [Tasikmalaya Government Forms Oversight Team for Provincial Decree on Ahmadiyah],” Antara News, 14 March 2011.
86 Member of JAI Tasikmalaya (#1). Interview by author, Tasikmalaya, 19 October 2014. 87 "Masjid Mahmud Dilempar Batu [Rocks Thrown at Mahmud Mosque]," Rakyat Merdeka, 20 June 2007.
88 E.g."Dokumen Ahmadiyah Akan Dibawa ke MUI Pusat [Ahmadi Documents will be brought to MUI Headquarters]," MyRMnews, 20 June 2007.
89 Wahid Institute, "Laporan Tahunan Kebebasan Beragama/Berkeyakinan Dan Intoleransi 2012 [Annual Report of Religious Intolerance, 2012]," 95.
90 E.g. "FPI Serang Masjid Ahmadiyah [FPI Attacks Ahmadi Mosque]," BBC Indonesia. 20 April 2012. 91 Member of JAI Tasikmalaya (#1). Interview by author, Tasikmalaya, 19 October 2014.
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Ahmadiyah mosques and they no longer freely sell calendars, pictures, or books. Anything that has
Ahmadiyah attributes are only distributed amongst themselves.”92 Proselytization strategies have also
changed. When I interviewed an Ahmadi leader in Salawu about proselytization, he told me: “Due to
all the laws, our proselytization is one on one, about relationships.”93 This inward shift was
noticeable. According to a Sunni villager, the Ahmadis were “not as frontal” with their
proselytization compared to how they were before.94 The withdrawal of the Ahmadis from public
space was accompanied by a drastic decrease in incidences of opposition. While the local
bureaucracy did continue to intervene in Ahmadiyah activities, there has not been a single episode of
collective mobilization recorded between May 2013 and the time of writing.
The absence of a visible constitutive threat means that the Ahmadiyah threat has been
neutralized. It has therefore lost its political utility. Unsurprisingly then, few politicians in
Tasikmalaya today use the issue to gain political support. Similarly, hardliner groups like the FPI
have chosen to redirect their mobilization efforts to other issues such as prostitution and alcohol.95
As the constitutive threat of the Ahmadis became less palpable, the frequency of overt conflict flat
lined.
The Limited Threat of the Ahmadiyah in Bandung City, West Java
Bandung city’s Ahmadiyah communities have had a different experience in the 2005-2013
period compared to Ahmadi communities in Tasikmalaya. While Bandung’s Ahmadi community
92 Uwes Fatoni, "Respon Da'i Terhadap Gerakan Jemaat Ahmadiyah Indonesia (Jai) Di Tenjowaringin Tasikmalaya [Responding to Proselytization from the Ahmadiyah Movement]," Jurnal Dakwah 15, no. 1 (2014): 58.
93 Member of JAI Tasikmalaya (#3). Interview by author, Tasikmalaya, 19 October 2014. 94 Author’s fieldnotes, 19 October 2014.
95 “Prostitusi, Miras Rusak Kota Santri [Prostitution, Alcohol Ruining Santri City],” Radar Tasikmalaya, 20 September 2018.
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also experienced episodes of local contention during the New Order period, the community was
largely left alone in the 2005-2013 period and beyond. I argue that Bandung’s Ahmadiyah
communities did not become targets because their inward orientation lowered their perceived threat
levels. Consequently, there were few incentives for political entrepreneurs to exploit and amplify the
threat during this time. The Bandung case further highlights the importance of visibility in the
construction and perception of threat.
1) 1938-2004: Localized Conflict
Like their counterparts in Tasikmalaya and elsewhere, Bandung’s Ahmadiyah communities
did experience opposition during the 20th Century. Most of this resistance was concentrated in the
1960s and 1970s, when Bandung’s Ahmadi community was particularly visible. In 1960, 1963, and
1965, the Bandung branch of the JAI played host to the jalsah salanah, meaning that hundreds of
Ahmadis from across the country gathered at the Ahmadi mosque in the city.96 Furthermore, after
training for dakwah for nearly a decade, proselytization efforts resumed in earnest in the sixties.97 In
1969, for example, members of JAI Bandung staged a debate attended by over a thousand people in
the city’s famous Salman mosque.98 Furthermore, between 1960 and 1979, the Bandung branch
established offshoots in four new neighborhoods, which were accompanied by the building of
marked mosques and mission houses in the following years.99
The visibility of Bandung’s Ahmadiyah community in the 1960s and 1970s prompted those
in proximate neighborhoods or villages to mobilize against the sect. When a new JAI office was
96 Catur Wahyudi, Marginalisasi Dan Keberadaban Masyarakat [Marginalized Populations] (Jakarta: Yayasan Pustaka Obor Indonesia, 2015), 121-22..
97 Sofianto, Tinjauan Kritis Jemaat Ahmadiyah Indonesia [a Critical Review of the Ahmadiyah in Indonesia], 149.
98 Ibid., 245n358. 99 Ibid., 149. JAI Bandung Leader. Interview by author, Bandung, 22 April 2014.
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opened in 1963, for example, the local ulama began to disseminate information that framed the
Ahmadi sect as a “very dangerous” sect that infected the teachings of Islam.100 Opposition increased
when this new site began building their mosque, with the group receiving threats of vandalism.101
While construction was completed and the mosque was never destroyed, these threats indicate the
anxieties around the physical manifestations of the Ahmadi threat.
Like the experience of Tasikmalaya’s Ahmadi communities, tensions between Ahmadis and
their Sunni neighbors in Bandung remained constrained to the village level. Although there were
reports of village heads getting involved in the conflict and members of the sect were reported to
the police,102 the institutional structures were such that people outside these specific neighborhoods
did not experience the visible challenges made by the sect.
2) 2005-2013: Limited Threat Resonance
While Ahmadiyah communities in Tasikmalaya continued to engage in publically visible
activities until 2013, Bandung’s Ahmadi communities had a more inward orientation during this time.
While Bandung’s Ahmadis did occasionally celebrate religious holidays, the group did not have a
significant public presence. They did not build or renovate any houses of worship during this
period,103 nor did they host the jalsah salanah. Furthermore, while the Bandung branch did engage in
proselytization activities, much of these efforts were in Banjaran, located in a neighbouring district
and not in the city of Bandung itself.104
100 Dadan Saefuddin Ahmad, "Profil Daerah Kabupaten Bandung Dan Sejarah Beberapa Jemaat Ahmadiyah Bandung Selatan [Profile and History of the Ahmadiyah Congregation in South Bandung]" (Undergraduate Thesis, Jamiah Ahmadiyah Indonesia, 2004), 76.
101 Ibid., 79. 102 Ibid., 89.
103 JAI Bandung Leader. Interview by author, Bandung, 22 April 2014. 104 Member of JAI Kota Bandung. Interview by author, Bandung, 9 September 2014.
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The comparative invisibility of Bandung’s Ahmadiyah communities in the 2005-2013 period
arguably decreased the group’s perceived threat levels. While important people like Maman
Abdurrahman of Persis were strongly critical of Ahmadi teachings,105 the leaders of some of the
other important local networks were ambivalent. For example, some of the most important
networks in the city are those that radiate from Bandung’s universities106 and key figures in these
networks do not see the Ahmadiyah issue as a priority. Anto, a professor at the Bandung Institute of
Technology (ITB) and an important broker for the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) at the city level
told me that while he disagreed with the teachings of the Ahmadiyah sect, it was not a pressing issue
in Bandung.107 Two PKS politicians, whose support came primarily from ITB’s campus networks,
made similar claims, suggesting that their constituents were not making particular demands regarding
the Ahmadiyah issue. 108 Likewise, the Bandung branches of Muhammadiyah and NU—who
represent key constituencies in the city—did not make any public statements on the Ahmadiyah
issue, suggesting that they did not have strong anti-Ahmadiyah preferences.
The preferences of these important local actors shaped the decisions of Bandung’s political
entrepreneurs. When asked about the Ahmadiyah issue, a strategist for the Bandung office of
Golkar—the party of the mayor at the time—noted that the party just chose not to engage with it.109
In fact, Dada Rosada, the mayor of Bandung between 2003-2013, chose not to pass legislation that
circumscribed the rights of Bandung’s Ahmadi community. His administration eventually chose to
selectively enforce legislation that had been passed at the provincial level (Gubernatorial Decree No.
105 Menchik, Islam and Democracy in Indonesia: Tolerance without Liberalism, 65.
106 Political strategiest, Golkar West Java. Interview by author, Bandung, 29 September 2014; Member of City Legislature. Interview by author, Bandung, 10 June 2015.
107 ITB Professor and Broker for PKS. Interview by author, Bandung, 22 October 2014. 108 Member of the West Java Legislature (PKS). Interview by author, Bandung, 15 June 2015; Member of City Legislature. Interview by author, Bandung, 10 June 2015. 109 Political strategiest, Golkar West Java. Interview by author, Bandung, 29 September 2014.
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12/2011 and the national SKB No. 3/2008) to uphold the status quo. This often involved he
policing the visibility of Ahmadi communities in the city. For example, while deploying forces to
guard an Ahmadi celebration of Ramadan in 2013, the police’s spokesperson noted that he had
directed them to “avoid religious activities that were too ostentatious, such as using speakers and
symbols that would provoke conflict.”110
The inward orientation of Bandung’s Ahmadiyah community also shaped patterns of hardliner
protest. Because the Bandung branch of the JAI did not frequently stage religious celebrations in
public and did not build new houses of worship, there were fewer opportunities for hardliner groups
to instrumentally display the threat the group. Hardliner groups in Bandung did stage two protests.
The first happened on 15 January 2008, when several hardliner groups symbolically sealed the
entrance to Mubarak mosque.111 In the second, which took place on 25 October 2012, the Bandung
branch of the FPI protested an Ahmadi Idul Adha celebration.112 Generally, however, hardliner
groups in Bandung chose to mobilize against other minorities in the city, such as Christian and the
Shi’a minorities,113 which were perceived as more threatening than the Ahmadiyah.114
Overall, the comparative absence of anti-Ahmadiyah repression and mobilization during the
2005-2013 period was rooted in the inward orientation of the Ahmadiyah in Bandung. Because
Bandung’s Ahmadis did not engage in many space-claiming activities, many of the city’s most
110 “Polisi Akan Pantau 4 Masjid Ahmadiyah di Bandung [Police will Guard 4 Ahmadi Mosques in Bandung],” Pikiran Rakywat, 8 July 2013.
111 "Kantornya 'Disegel', Ahmadiyah Bandung Serahkan pada Hukum [Their Office Closed, Bandung’s Ahmadiyah Community to Comply with the Law," Detik News, 15 January 2008.
112 “Kronologi Penyerangan Masjid Ahmadiyah di Bandung [A Chronology of the Attack on the Ahmadi Mosque in Bandung], Viva News, 26 October 2012.
113 E.g. “Tutup 23 Gereja Di Bandung, Gus Dur Minta SBY Tindak FPI [23 Churches Closed in Bandung, Gus Dur asks SBY to Discipline FPI], Detik, 23 August 2005; "Warga Syiah Bandung Peringati Asyura di Tempat Sempit [Bandung’s Shi’a Honour Asyura in a Small Place],"Kompas, 14 November 2013. 114 Muslim People’s Ulama Forum (FUUI) Leader. Interview by author, Bandung, 16 October 2014.
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important brokers did not perceive the group as a threat. In the absence of perceived threat, political
entrepreneurs chose to direct their efforts elsewhere.
2) Post-2013: Maintaining the Status Quo?
The experience of Bandung’s Ahmadiyah community between 2013-2018 resembles that of
their counterparts in Tasikmalaya, as the group was not targets of mobilization and repression. The
continuity of stability is linked to the group’s careful management of its public presence, a task
carried out under the close monitoring of the state. This management of the group’s public presence
has reduced the group’s perceived threat levels. That being said, the staging of an anti-Ahmadiyah
protest in January 2019 does suggest that there is at least a small possibility of escalation.
After 2013, the Bandung government continued to monitor the public presence of the
Ahmadiyah community. The branch generally complies—however reluctantly—with the restrictions
placed on them by the state. For example, Bandung’s Ahmadiyah communities are occasionally
asked by the police to cancel particular events.115 When events were allowed, they have to follow
certain guidelines around visibility to ensure that the events occur away from public view.116 For
example, when a large gathering of leaders from the Bandung area was held in 2014, all meetings
were held at the back of the mosque with the front gates tightly shut.117 This inward orientation was
even maintained with the staging of jalsah salanah events in 2017 and 2018. According to reporting
on the 2017 meeting, very little activity could be witnessed from the street118 despite the meeting
115 JAI Bandung Leader. Interview by author, Bandung, 22 April 2014.
116 Uwes Fatoni, Researcher. Interview by author, Bandung, 9 September 2014. 117 Author’s fieldnotes, 29 September 2014.
118 “Masjid Ahmadiyah di Bandung Ini Tertutup Rapat, Polisi Berjaga-jaga di luar [Ahmadi Mosque in Bandung Closed Tightly, Police Keep Watch],” Tribun News, 14 July 2017.
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being attended by approximately 3500 people.119 Pictures of the event show that blue tarps were set
up around the mosque gates to prevent individuals from peering inside.120 Their management of the
group’s public presence has reduced the group’s perceived threat levels.
The maintenance of the status quo is not guaranteed. In January 2019, individuals associated
with Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI) and other hardliner groups in Bandung staged a protest in front
of the main Ahmadi mosque in the city. The groups were protesting the launch and distribution of
Ahmadi religious books, which they claimed was an act of proselytization.121 While the protest was
brief, ending when the Ahmadiyah community agreed to end their event early, the incident suggests
that disruptions to public space—even mild ones—can still be easily exploited by political
entrepreneurs due to the incentive structure. The staging of an anti-Ahmadiyah protest in January
2019 thus suggests that although the Ahmadiyah threat has largely been neutralized, it can reemerge
once more.
Conclusion
In this paper, I argue that micro-sized groups become seen as threatening under two
conditions. First, micro-sized groups must pose a visible constitutive threat to the majority group.
When the core institutions, routines, and practices that reproduce the majority group are publically
undermined, the existence of the group itself is perceived to be under attack. Second, if visibility is a
necessary component of threat perception, then a micro-sized group can only be perceived as
119 “Catatkan Ribuan Peserta, Jalsah Salanah Bandung Dihadiri Ceu Popong [Thousands of Attendees Recorded, the Jalsah Salanah is attended by Ceu Popong],” Warta Ahmadiyah, 27 July 2017. 120 “Masjid Ahmadiyah di Bandung Ini Tertutup Rapat, Polisi Berjaga-jaga di luar [Ahmadi Mosque in Bandung Closed Tightly, Police Keep Watch],” Tribun News, 14 July 2017. 121 “Puluhan orang bubarkan acara Ahmadiyah di Bandung, panitia 'pasrah', polisi bantah 'mendampingi' massa [Dozens of Protestors break up Ahmadiyah event in Bandung: committee surrenders, police reject Claim that they sided with protestors],” BBC Indonesia, 5 January 2019.
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threatening if their challenge to group coherence is experienced by members of the larger group.
When incentivized by institutional configurations, political entrepreneurs play an important role in
amplifying the constitutive threat of the micro-sized group.
I demonstrate the dynamics of the theory using the case of the Ahmadiyah in Indonesia,
specifically the cases of Tasikmalaya and Bandung. I show how the Ahmadiyah became perceived as
threatening to Indonesian Muslims when 1) the community engaged in space-claiming activities,
thereby threatening the fiction of group coherence and 2) political entrepreneurs were incentivized
by electoral reforms to transmit these threats beyond the village level. In the absence of a visible
constitutive threat, however, the threat of the Ahmadiyah did not resonate and lost its political utility.
Along the same lines, the threat of the micro-sized group remains highly localized when political
entrepreneurs are not incentivized to amplify the threat.
By identifying why and how micro-sized groups seen as threatening, my work speaks to the
scholarship on ethnic and religious conflict in a number of ways. Studying a least likely target of
repression and mobilization challenges longstanding assumptions about the necessary material
dimensions of threat perception. Despite dominant assumptions that minorities become threatening
due to the existence of a material threat, the targeting of micro-sized groups suggests that a material
threat is not a necessary precondition of mobilization and repression.
My work also highlights the centrality of public visibility in threat construction and threat
perception. While I agree with scholars that see the impulse to stabilize group boundaries as a key
pathway to ethnic and religious conflict, my study shows that constitutive threats only resonate
when they are visible in the public sphere. If even micro-sized groups can be seen as threatening due
to the ways they occupy public space, then visibility is likely an important component of how threats
are perceived more broadly—even if the threat is not solely constitutive. Conflict, therefore, is likely
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not just driven by concerns about retaining privileged access to resources, but shaped by elements
such as representation in politics and the media, the celebration of festivals and ceremonies, and the
simple everyday marking of public space through store signs, religious institutions, and even dress.
The concept of the visible constitutive threat has applicability beyond micro-sized groups. It
can, I argue, shed light on political phenomena that appear to be costly, inefficient, and irrational.
There are many cases where actors invest seemingly disproportionate amounts of attention or
resources to seemingly trivial issues. Such examples may include the banning of minarets in
Switzerland; 122 the ongoing debate in Quebec about niqabs; 123 and the allocation of resources to
pave over graveyards in the midst of warfare.124 Funneling resources and energy into these seemingly
unimportant issues may seem irrational if only the material costs are considered. However, if one
sees public visibility as crucial to the (re)production of groups, then prioritizing the management of
public space is only logical. To echo sentiments expressed by scholars of memory,125 these seemingly
trivial concerns are not simply epiphenomenal oddities that can simply be brushed aside, but are
central to the practice of politics.
122 Nick Cumming-Bruce and Steven Erlanger, “Swiss Ban Building of Minarets on Mosques,” New York Times, 29 November 2009.
123 Ingrid Peritz, “ ‘It’s going to encourage more hate’: Women in Quebec who where the niqab speak out against Bill 62,” The Globe and Mail, 27 October 2017.
124 Ghulam M Haniff, "The Balkanization of Yugoslavia's Islam," Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 19, no. 1 (1999): 127.
125 Gillis, Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity; Timothy Longman, Memory and Justice in Post-Genocide Rwanda (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2017).
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