Religions Prone to be Political Commodity

Jakarta, PPIM – People frequently referred to religious identity in determining their political choices when it came to general election, both in national and regional levels. Identity politics, thus, had become a flexible maneuver tool in social life and a concept that had two faces – positive and negative.

Identity politics could mean positive when it became a liberation movement for marginalized communities, such as Black Lives Matter movement in the U.S. which advocated the voices of black communities.

Recently in Indonesia, however, identity politics often became a commodity used as a religious identity by certain majority groups for their own necessity.

“Here in Indonesia, religions are often misused by certain religious majority groups. This, of course, has posed negative impacts,” Sirojuddin Arif, a researcher from the Center for the Study of Islam and Society (PPIM) of the Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University (UIN) Jakarta, said on Friday (11/12).

He was speaking in a virtual seminar series of #ModerasiBeragama (Religious Moderation) themed “Identity Politics and Religious Moderation” held by the PPIM UIN Jakarta through Convey Indonesia program.

Sirojuddin said that identity politics could grow in Indonesia because people tended to consider the religions of the candidates before they voted.

“Based on data from Indonesia Family Live Survey [IFLS], religious identity became the main consideration in regional elections. Such a phenomenon got stronger in 2007 and 2014 [elections],” he said.

Meanwhile, Indikator Politik Indonesia Executive Director Burhanuddin Muhtadi saw that identity politics had led to negative implications towards the religious patterns of the society. “The effect of the Jakarta election has reached national level and contributed to the rising intolerance,” he said.

Burhanuddin also emphasized that identity politics usually occurred ahead of political momentum. “Religions are considered to be able to influence voting behaviours, and there is a significant correlation between religious affiliations with the support a candidate can obtain,” he said.

Why Religions?

The reasons why religions could be the main consideration in political preferences could be analysed from the context of social relation in the society. It was said to be closely related to identity politics as it created two dimensions – a bridging dimension established by good relationships between groups and a bonding dimension that came from social relations among people who shared the same religions and ethnicity.

Both of the dimensions created different impacts. Bonding dimension affected positively to the solidarity of a group, but negatively to people from different groups. The Bridging dimension, meanwhile, posed negative impacts among people from different groups.

Those dimensions significantly affected the way people thought and could be the reason why religions could influence people’s voting behaviours. “Regarding the religious sentiment in the elections, we can take a hypothesis that people tend to [vote for candidates] who come from their social circle. Meanwhile, people who have stronger social bridging show few possibilities to vote for candidates based on religious preferences,” Burhanuddin said.

Burhanuddin mentioned a surprising fact that in the real practices, identity politics occurred more in the areas with strong diversity. “Identity politics mostly can be found in the cities or regencies that tend to be heterogeneous,” said the lecturer from the Social and Political Sciences Department of UIN Jakarta.

Elite Interests

The practices of identity politics could also be observed into House of Representatives lawmakers. A survey by PPIM UIN Jakarta in 2019 showed that most political parties tended to put religion as the main consideration in endorsing candidates for presidential and regional elections.

“But parties are divided over opinions about implementing religious consideration in endorsing candidates. PDI-Perjuangan, for example, does not agree with that, while PPP agrees,” Sirojuddin said, adding that having good relations with people from different religious backgrounds could ease the tendency of identity politics.

He added that, however, the identity of the political parties could strengthen identity politics.

“Political parties that tend to use religious sentiment for their interests are PAN, PKS and PPP. Golkar Party, meanwhile, takes a middle position. It doesn’t use religious identity to achieve political benefits,” he said.

In practices, identity politics was often used by political elites to trigger mass sentiments. Burhanuddin confirmed that “identity politics can work optimally due to mass mobilization.”

Convey Indonesia Team Leader and the moderator of the seminar, Jamhari Makruf, said that identity was attached to each individual and could emerge at any time. The most important thing was we had to be smart citizens and recognize that Indonesia had a diversity that we should preserve together, he said.

Writer: Abdallah
Editor: M. Nida Fadlan