The Resistance of Islamic Organization in Indonesia to Globalization and How to Handle It A Discourse Analysis on Sharia Cooperatives 212

This paper discusses the rise of far-right groups in Indonesia which is represented by Islamic organizations and how the government handle it. This phenomenon can be seen as a part of the rise of far-right groups on the global stage, signified by Donald Trump’s victory in America and Britain’s vote to exit the European Union. The similarity between these phenomena is the appearance of groups claiming to represent a particular traditional identity who opposes international authority. In this case, the international authority is a neoliberal-capitalism regime which enters their respective local territory through globalization. This paper will use Richard Falk’s theory of globalization and resistance. According to Falk, Globalization will make neoliberal economics the only government agenda and force them to ignore programs that benefit society, such as social welfare. Because of that, resistance from local groups will be inevitable. By using discourse analysis on the declaration of Sharia Cooperatives 212, this paper finds that the rise of farright groups in Indonesia is a form of resistance to the neoliberalcapitalism regime. In the end, this article argues that the government’s sensitivity toward the people’s well-being is the first step that must be taken to deal with the rise of far-right groups in Indonesia. Keywords—Globalization, Neoliberalism, Resistance, Far-right. I. A NEW KIND OF TRAGEDY Terrifying things happened in Jakarta in the past decades. There was the Malari Incident in 1974 which results in 11 protestors dead, and hundreds of cars and buildings destroyed [1]. There was the Tragedy of May 1998 where mass violence, civil unrest, and bodies lying on the roadside was a common thing [2]. There was, and still, many student gang-fights (tawuran) on a daily basis which killed some students from time to time [3]. All of those tragedies were nothing compared to what happened in Jakarta on December 2, 2016. On that fateful day, hundreds of thousands of people wearing white robes and clothes rallies to the center of Jakarta shouting a single demand: “Ahok (the then-Governor of Jakarta) must be jailed [4]! ” What makes this so-called ‘212 Demonstration’ scary, despite the absence of violence, is the fact that this was not an angry mob. It was a highly organized group unified by a single agenda, hellbent on overthrowing democracy and replace it with their more tyrannical version. What makes these people truly scary is the fact that they might succeed. Together with the rise of Neo-Nazi and Radical Nationalists in Europe [5] as well as the presidency of Donald Trump [6], these movements are part of ‘the global rise of farright groups. ’ Despite having an ideological difference, all of these movements have similar characteristics. First, all of them claim to represent the certain traditional identity of which, they claim, have been ignored for years. Secondly, all of these movements were motivated by a strong hatred to the political ‘others’ that they consider as evil. In the case of Indonesia, this is the Islamic religious extremist claiming to represent Muslim people to fight the ‘reign of Chinese minority. ’ The advent of this far-right groups signifies a massive wave of change in the practice of politics. Whereas we thought that the era of globalization would bring forward an age of stable political economy, the far-right groups resurrect the dreaded identity politics once more [7]. The impact of this phenomenon can be felt, not at the material level, but at the immaterial level. Despite their few numbers, these groups are quite vocal and have the effective method of producing ideas and discourse which can disrupt the liberal/mainstream conversation. Just by khutbah and social media, they were able to convince thousands of people that Islam is the most superior religion while others are merely blasphemy, eliminating the value of tolerance and diversity in the process. It is quite clear that these far-right groups are problematic because their value and their existence are inherently against democracy. In other words, should the Islamic extremists succeeded in their goal, the sacrifice of countless people who have paved the way for democracy in Indonesia will be in vain. That will be a far more dreadful tragedy than what had happened in Jakarta previously. To deal with this problem, I believe that we must first understand the nature of these farright groups. What is their background? How did they develop their motivation? Why were they able to be so determined at their goal? Those questions will be answered by analyzing the discourse provided in their most important achievement: “The Declaration of Sharia Cooperatives 212. ” 320 Copyright © 2018, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research (ASSEHR), volume 129 Third International Conference on Social and Political Sciences (ICSPS 2017)