Crafting a New Democracy: Civic education in Indonesian Islamic universities

Abstract

Indonesia's post-1998 transition to democracy has presented Muslim educators with the opportunity to take part in shaping the future of Indonesian democracy in ways that are consistent with Muslim social, political, and educational aspirations. One of the key vehicles for doing so is civic education. For Muslim educators in the Islamic higher education sector, the challenge has been to develop a civic education curriculum which can educate the young generation about democratic citizenship while incorporating the values and perspectives of Islam on civil society, democracy, and human rights. This paper examines civic education initiatives in two Islamic university systems, suggesting that the development of the new curriculum reveals clear differences in perceptions about civil society and the state within the institutions which make up these two systems. This is reflected by the extent to which Islamic concepts of the state and citizenship are integrated with Western thought and practice on civil society and democratic pluralism in the civic education curriculum and in teaching practice. The success of the Indonesian experience, the paper concludes, provides an example of how Western and Islamic concepts and values can be successfully combined in the teaching of civic education.