The Movement of Religious Moderation: Indonesian Experience of Non-Violence Approach to Radicalism

Indonesian cases of religiously-inspired radicalism are among the most prominent in the world. Government and non-government agencies are deeply involved in the process of eradicating this phenomenon. From the government side, hard approach has been most visible method taken so far. However, the efficacy of this method is under serious question. Rather than suppressing radicalism, hard approach is even seen as one of many factors leading to the spread of radicalism, especially among the youth. In such cases, the adoption of a new approach is inevitable. In the light of this situation, during at least five years, Indonesian government has launched a campaign to counter religiously-inspired radicalism. The campaign called “Moderasi Beragama” in Indonesian national language, or religious moderation, is aimed at advocating people of religions in Indonesia, especially Muslims, to have moderate mindset on religion, and at the same time practise their religion in proportional way. As a strategy, this approach has brought new hope for deradicalisation movement. The strength of this approach are two-folds. Firstly, it proposes non-violence nature in dealing with radicalism. Secondly, as radicalism is not merely the problem of actions, but the most fundamental element of radicalism is mode of thought, the movement of religious moderation is aimed at moderating mindset. However, in reality, this approach cannot be easily implemented and accepted. In addition to support by moderate groups, some other groups view moderation as a movement towards secularizing Indonesian Muslims, and even further it is perceived as an agenda of the enemy of Islam to destroy Islam using hand of Muslims. This paper looks into deep sides of the movement, how it has been developing during recent years, what benefits it has brought for deradicalisation movement, what challenge that it faces; and how is future of the movement.