Front Pembela Islam Research Articles

Criminological Analysis of Violence and Anarchist Demonstration Conducted by the Front Pembela Islam (FPI) Mass Organization (Ormas)

In a nation where the freedom of association, assembly, and expression is protected exclusively by its Constitution, Indonesia isn’t a stranger to mass organizations (Ormas) created by its citizens. With the Ormas Law, Ormas is regulated and supervised, but it doesn’t take forever for an Ormas to rebel and act by their own rules, such as the FPI Ormas. With an extensive history on violence and public disruption, this research is aimed to analyse the sociological and psychological factors behind FPI’s illegal behaviours through the eyes of criminology, and what can be done to prevent similar cases in the future. It has been found that sociology and psychology play a heavy part on influencing the illegal acts and fanatic mindset of FPI members, birthing a series of violations against the Ormas Law and even the Criminal Code. While FPI has been disbanded since 2020, it’s important to learn from the past and improve the supervision of Ormas in Indonesia to prevent the rising of another FPI.

Radical Turn: The Case of Front Persaudaraan Islam (Neo-FPI) in Indonesia

In the last decade, a religious conservatism group of Front Pembela Islam (FPI) was notoriously controversial due to series of anti-government protests, harsh approaches as well as opposing state constitution which led to this group disbandment in 2020. After being disbanded, this group quietly formed Front Persaudaraan Islam (Neo-FPI) during COVID-19 and operated secretly through religious activities. The momentum of Neo FPI appeared publicly comes in 2022 when they took to the street for complaining the Minister of Religious Affairs’ comment of call for prayer, widely known as adzan. This study aimed at exploring how Neo-FPI responds and transforms after being dissolved constitutionally by the government and to what extent this rebirth is accepted by the Muslim community. The emergence of Neo-FPI can be interpreted by Sydney Tarrow (1998) as a puzzle of political opportunity. The social movement increased when it gained the support of resources and successfully mobilized the resource. The result of the study shows that the Neo-FPI might try to attempt on humanistic approach and moderation within the religious movement. However, substantially this group will not be different from the old version like an apple that falls not far from the tree.

From Pemuda to Remaja

ABSTRACT This study investigates how the civic nationalism of the current millennial generation is perceived and expressed in contemporary Indonesia. We define civic nationalism as nationalism in which the foundations of citizenship are civic ties that ensure equality for people of different religions or ethnicities. Since the post-New Order period, religious nationalism promoted by vocal Islamist groups such as Laskar Jihad, Front Pembela Islam (Islamic Defence Front, FPI), and Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI) has contested Indonesian civic nationalism. Despite this challenge, we argue that Indonesian civic nationalism has been vibrantly reproduced, with the current millennial generation playing an active role, despite studies that frequently portray them as apolitical remaja (consumerist youth). We use NusantaRun and SabangMerauke as examples of youth communities that actively promote civic nationalist narratives. We also contend that their ideas on civic nationalism emphasise interfaith engagement in activities centred on consumer culture, self-development, and volunteerism, all of which fit into the broader neoliberal milieu of post-New Order Indonesia. These findings, deriving from our interviews and analyses of their social media discourse, will help to advance research on changing nationalist expressions across Indonesian generations.

Discourse on the Disbandment of Front Pembela Islam and Renegotiation of Democratic Ideas

The Indonesian government, through a joint decision of the Minister of Home Affairs, the Minister of Law and Human Rights, the Minister of Communication and Information, the Attorney General of the Republic of Indonesia, the Chief of the Indonesian National Police, and the Head of the National Counter-Terrorism Agency have designated the mass organization the Front Pembela Islam (FPI) as a prohibited organization. This decision has given rise to polemics and various discourse debates. The pros and cons of more robust public discourse are related to the problem of the idea of ​​democracy. Some of the narratives agree because FPI has been considered a threat to democracy. Some other articulations refuse because this decision violates the principles of democracy itself. Through the perspective of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe's Critical Discourse analysis, this paper attempts to examine the polemic of the discourse on the disbandment of the FPI and the renegotiation of the idea of ​​democracy. Several essential notes were found: First, the plurality of responses to the discourse on the disbandment of the FPI was caused by the various articulation formations concerning the preference for the meaning of democracy. Second, democracy is an empty sign whose meaning will always be constantly negotiated. Third, the disbandment of FPI can be read as a concrete form of the ambivalence of democracy, which, in principle, is always fluid to be articulated by any narrative configuration.

Searching for the Formula of Third Way Ideology Conflict: A Case Study of the Front Pembela Islam (FPI)

Searching for the Formula of Third Way Ideology Conflict: A Case Study of the Front Pembela Islam (FPI)

State repression on the Islamic political opposition in Indonesia in the period of 2017-2021

Repressive approach is one of the state's responses to social movements taken to restrain or limit the action of a movement that always strives for a social change process in society. In this context, Hizb ut-Tahrir and the Islamic Defenders Front (Front Pembela Islam – FPI) are two Islamic groups that recently after 2016 have been active in pressuring the government on various political issues. The government responded to these two groups with repressive measures such as stigmatization, criminalization, and dissolving or banning the organization. This study aims to discuss the details of government policies in responding to both HTI and FPI in Indonesia using comparative analysis by collecting secondary data from the media, books, and journals relevant with this study. This study found that the Indonesian government has used various means to repress HTI and FPI, such as intimidation, stigmatization, and disbandment to the organizations.

Sociopolitical Analysis of The Escalation of The Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) Movement During The Reign of Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok) in DKI Jakarta 2014-2017

This study analyze how social conditions during the reign of Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok) affected the escalation of the Islamic community organization Front Pembela Islam (FPI) movement and built the reality of socio-political conflicts that occurred in DKI Jakarta from 2014 to 2017. The method used in this research is a qualitative research method using a case study approach. The case study approach was used to analyze how the process of forming the escalation of the Islamic community organization movement of Front Pembela Islam (FPI) against socio-political conditions during Ahok's reign in DKI Jakarta from 2014 to 2017. Using theories related to the concept of Political Opportunity, New Social Movements, and Identity Theory becomes an analytical knife to explain questions that have been formulated academically and, of course, produce an answer from the results of the analysis. From the results of the research, the Islamic Mass Organization of Front Pembela Islam (FPI) was one of the Organizations that experienced an escalation of the movement based on various conflicts that occurred both before, during his time in office, and also after Ahok served as governor of DKI Jakarta. FPI is present as a hard-pressure group for Ahok's refusal to become Governor. FPI became one of the organizations considered very active and aggressive in carrying out a series of protests against Ahok's rejection.

A Social Capital In Contemporary Indonesia: Examining Faith-Inspired Civil Society and Democracy

As a national agenda for development, democracy needs to be developed and deepened by both the Indonesian state and society to achieve a just and prosperous country. Within this framework, faith-inspired civil society organizations are expected to promote equality before the law and observe humanistic, pluralistic and tolerant religious social life. This study employs the theory of Bourdieu’s Habitus, Gellner’s Typology of Social Organization and Kymlicka’s Multicultural Citizenship. It also engages other sociological theories, namely the social capital theory of civic community from Putnam, Coleman, Uphof, and religion-state relations theory from Bolland, Menchik, and Hassan. This study is qualitative with a multidisciplinary approach derived from Sociology, Anthropology, Political Science, and History. Research findings suggestthe following: (1) The imbalance of bonding and bridging social capital has tended to result in hegemonic relations among faith-inspired civil society that to some extent excludes equal participation of ‘the others’; (2) The social capital of civil society organizations is highly nuanced and formed based on differences in religious and political orientations, which are the resultant interpretation and understanding of the Sacred texts and its religious culture; (3) Nahdlatul Ulama, Muhammadiyah and Persatuan Tarbiyah Indonesia with moderate religious orientations (wasatiyah) have contributed positively to social capital that is persistent and consistent with democracy, while Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI) and Front Pembela Islam (FPI) and to a lesser extent Gereja Masehi Injili di Minahasa (GMIM) with religious fundamentalist outlook tend to have an imbalanced social capital, which is resistant toward the so-called “Pancasila democracy”.

Front Pembela Islam as a Leading Indonesian Far-Right Islamic Organisation in the Second Half of the 2010s

The author analyses the Front of Defenders of Islam as the largest legal organisation of Indonesian supporters of political Islam, which existed in Indonesia from 1998 to December 2020, when its activities were stopped by the authorities. It is assumed that the religiously motivated political radicalism develops as a heterogeneous phenomenon, and its secondary character became its main feature. Therefore, the Front is analysed in the context of the recent history of the Islamic alternative to the processes of democratic transition and trends of modernisation and secularization also. The author believes that the radicals of the Front were unable to off er an original political program, and their ideology actualised the fragmentation of Indonesian society and the inability of some traditional groups to integrate into a dynamically changing society. The author analyses various forms of intellectual activities of religiously motivated political radicals, including criticism of liberalism, rejection of secularisation, denial of modernisation in general and its forms imagined as extreme in Indonesia by some intellectuals in particular. The author believes that after the prohibition of the Front in December 2020, far-right political Islam in modern Indonesia entered a new stage of its development. The delegitimation of the Front, on the one hand, could become an incentive for the revitalisation of other similar groups in Indonesia. On the other hand, the legal marginalisation of supporters of far-right political Islam and their displacement to the periphery of the legal space can become an incentive for the growth of extremism, inspiring change new tactics of adherents of extreme currents in Indonesian Islam.

Membincang Pembubaran Front Pembela Islam dalam Framing Pemberitaan Republika.co.id

The Indonesian government's decision to dissolve the Front Pembela Islam (FPI) has sparked controversy. Republika.co.id is one of the online media that intensively reported on the disbandment of FPI three days after the government's decision was delivered, which was to release 47 stories on its online site. This article aims to find out how the Republika.co.id media framed the issue concerning the history of Republika as a media that was created by the Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals Association (ICMI), one of the famous Islamic groups in Indonesia. In addition, this article also analyzes how media framing is related to media ownership to see the media's alignment with power. This article uses framing analysis by Zhongdang Pan and Gerald M. Kosicki to determine how the text strategy of media builds frames. The results show that the Republika.co.id remains critical of the government's policy of disbanding FPI as an organization even though the media owners are part of the government.

Structure of News Text on the Arrest of the Head of Front Pembela Islam in Online Media

The study was to find and describe the structure of the news text on the arrest of the Front Pem-bela Islam chairman in cases of violating health protocols in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic on BBC News Indonesia and Kompas.com online media. The research was a descriptive qualitative by utilizing van Dijk's model with a social cognition approach focusing on the text schemes which included macro structure, superstructure, and micro structure. The research data were the fragments of discourse of articles on online media BBC News Indonesia and Kompas.com which contained news of healt protocals violations. The re-search applied listening technique and a note-taking technique as a follow-up. To check the re-search data, triangulation and interactive analysis techniques were needed to analyze the data. This study foud out that the online media BBC News Indonesia and Kompas.com had a macro structure regarding the arrest of Rizieq Shihab for violating one of the Covid 19 health protocols, that was gathering crowds. the superstructure was found in the introduction, content, and clos-ing; the microstructure section was found in semantics (background and intent), syntax (sentence forms and pronouns), lexicon, and graphics. The study concluded that according to the Teun A van Dijk scheme, the news on Rizieq Shihab's health protocol violations during the Covid 19 pandemic of BBC News Indonesia and Kompas.com had a macro text structure, superstructure, and micro structure.

Social Interaction in Petamburan as a Form of Socio-Religious Tolerance in Indonesia

Petamburan is a sub-district of Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital city, and it has been a center of attention in Indonesia because of the growth and movement of the Islamic Front Defenders (Front Pembela Islam: FPI) within it. Before the FPI was officially banned by the Indonesian government on December 30, 2020, all of its activities and controversies performed in the name of Islam and its leader had become a main attraction for Indonesia’s mainstream media. This impacts Petamburan, which is described as a conflict-prone area in terms of social and religious factors. However, the image of Petamburan from the mass media does not describe the depth of its social reality. This research proposed a core hypothesis that the Petamburan people have deep riches of social harmony in terms of religion, race, and social factors. This study used a social interaction approach and analysis that focused on interactions in the actual public spheres in Petamburan. The final result was a picture of social and religious tolerance from the wide social diversity in the Petamburan community as a form of harmonious and inclusive social life in Indonesia.
 Keywords: social interaction, religion, public sphere, virtual space, FPI

Investigating the Role of Symbolic Elites in Shaping Public Discourse: A Case of Detikcom

Public discourse in the mass media following the political contestation of the 2017 DKI Jakarta Governor election made the Islamic Defenders Front (Front Pembela Islam) become more popular in Indonesia. FPI had a central role in the victory of the candidates it supported: Anies Baswedan and Salahuddin Uno. Considered by some as one of the most influential Islamic mass organizations in post-Reformation Indonesia, especially since 2016 after organizing a demonstration event known as the 212 Demo Action, with various pros and cons surrounding it, FPI is a social movement phenomenon that is highly and widely debated in various circles. As a ’media-darling’ (in its negative sense), it is interesting to highlight in this context how the mass media construct news stories for FPI and its leaders. Employing the critical discourse approach of ideological square and symbolic elites from Teeun A van Dijk, this paper examines how one of the largest mainstream media organizations in Indonesia, Detikcom, ’mediates’ discourse about FPI through its reporting.
 Keywords: symbolic elites, CDA, FPI, Indonesia

Religious and Pro-Violence Populism in Indonesia: The Rise and Fall of a Far-Right Islamist Civilisationist Movement

The first quarter of the twenty-first century has witnessed the rise of populism around the world. While it is widespread it manifests in its own unique ways in each society, nation, and region. Religious populism, once rarely discussed, has come to take a more prominent role in the politics of a diverse range of societies and countries, as religious discourse is increasingly used by mainstream and peripheral populist actors alike. This paper examines the rise of religious populism in Indonesia through a study of the widely talked about, but little understood, Islamic Defenders Front (FPI—Front Pembela Islam). The case study method used to examine the FPI provides a unique insight into a liminal organization which, through populist and pro-violence Islamist discourse and political lobbying, has had an outsized impact on Indonesian politics. In this paper, we identify the FPI as an Islamist civilizationist populist group and show how the group frames Indonesian domestic political events within a larger cosmic battle between faithful and righteous Muslims and the forces that stand against Islam, whether they be “unfaithful Muslims” or non-Muslims. We also show how the case of the FPI demonstrates the manner in which smaller, liminal, political actors can instrumentalise religion and leverage religious rhetoric to reshape political discourse, and in doing so, drive demand for religious populism. The paper makes two arguments: First, the FPI is an example of a civilizationist populist movement which instrumentalises religion in order to create demand for its populist solutions. Second, that as Islamic groups and organisations in Indonesia increasingly rely on religio-civilizational concepts of national identity, they become more transnational in outlook, rhetoric, and organisation and more closely aligned with religious developments in the Middle East.

The contribution of Ahlussunnah Waljamaah’s theology in establishing moderate Islam in Indonesia

Radicalism and Islamic phobia have the potential to cause conflict amongst religious communities so that it needs social movements in building religious moderation. This study aims to understand and analyse the Ahlussunnah Waljamaah theology in the six largest Islamic community organisations in Indonesia in implementing religious moderation. This study uses a qualitative method with a phenomenological approach. Data obtained from interviews, observations and in-depth interviews regarding the process of externalising, objectifying and internalising the theology of Ahlusunnah Waljamaah in Nahdlatul Ulama, Rifa’iyah, Muhammadiyah, Al-Irsyad, Lembaga Dakwah Islam Indonesia and Front Pembela Islam organisations. Then, the data were analysed through social construction theory of Peter L. Berger and T. Luckman. The results show that the six largest Islamic community organisations in Indonesia apply Ahlussunnah Waljamaahs theology. Those Islamic community organisations differently understand the externalisation of Ahlussunnah Waljamaah theology based on its teaching. Thus, it has implications for Aswaja’s model of application (objectification) in the fields of state, preaching, social and cultural life. Aswaja’s internalisation is reflected in the moderate character of the figures and followers of mass organisations in Indonesia. The Islamic community organisations contribute to build Islamic moderation character by applying an established and consistent theology of Ahlussunnah Waljamaah in various fields.Contribution: This article provides insight into the contribution of Ahlussunnah Waljamaah’s theology in establishing moderate Islam in Indonesia. It contributes to build Islamic moderation’s character by applying an established and consistent theology of Ahlussunnah Waljamaah in various fields.

Contending Views and Power Struggle within Islam: The Clash of Religious Discourse and Citizenship in Contemporary Indonesia

In the last 20 years, the ‘conservative turn’ toward overtly Islamic identity in Indonesia paved the way for raising political Islamism. This political Islamism aspires to the continuing Islamization, implementation of sharia, and even the establishment of a global caliphate. Emerging Islamist forces such as Front Pembela Islam, Jemaah Tarbiyah, and Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia along with the conservative turn, therefore, pose the normative-political challenges to both republican and liberal notions of citizenship. This paper deals with the question of religion and citizenship under the democratic space in contemporary Indonesia. By examining three variants of Islamic citizenship, religion vigilant, pragmatic, and rejectionist citizenship, this paper tries to address the following question: to what extent Islamism challenges the discourse of citizenship in contemporary Indonesia? We argue that while Islamism apparently rises and gains followers, the state and mainstream Muslim organizations (Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah), and their emphasis on Pancasila and commitment to NKRI successfully manage to reconcile Islam and citizenship under democratic space.

Religion and Social Capital of Citizenship: Bogor Islamic Community in a Globalizing World Development

Democratization is a globalized agenda of development that needs to be developed by the Indonesian society to achieve a just and prosperous country that is referred to as ‘baldatun toyyibatun wa robbun ghofur’ (Arabic, literally, “good country under God forgiveness”). Within this framework, Islamic community (Islamic social organization) and other religious organizations are expected to behave kindly as an equal citizen that observe humanistic, pluralistic and tolerant religious social life. In this context, the situation of reciprocal trust, social solidarity, tolerance, equality, social networking even intra and extra-collective cooperation among socio-religious religious communities are expected to be more natural and sustainable. However, citizenship social capital still need to be develop through internalization and socialization. This research is based on the theories of Habitus of Bourdieu and Gellner’s Typology of Social Organization and Kymlicka’s Multicultural Citizenship. This research also use other sociological theory namely the social capital theory of citizenship from Putnam, Coleman, Uphof, and religion-state relations theory from Boland, Menchik and Riaz Hassan. This research is qualitative with a multidisciplinary approaches of Sociology, Political Science, and History. The research findings show (1) the cosmopolitanism of the Bogor society is the factor that the various Islamic social organizations are accepted; (2) The social capital type of citizenship of Islamic social organizations is formed due to differences in religious and political orientation which are the resultant understanding of the texts and its religious culture; (3) Nahdhatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah with a moderate religious orientation (washitiyyah) have citizenship social capital that is persistent with democracy, while Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia and Front Pembela Islam with a fundamentalist religious style (ushuliyyah) have civic social capital that is resistant to Pancasila democracy.

Whose Suffering? National Identity and the Contest to Define Victimhood in Indonesia’s Genocide

ABSTRACT This article compares the ways in which different groups construct competing visions of Indonesian collective identity, based on their own definitions of victimhood in the mass violence of 1965–1966. The linkages between nationalism and the New Order’s virulent anti-communism have long been acknowledged. However, recent scholarship on the heterogeneity of narratives about the Indonesian genocide has largely overlooked what these ancillary or competing narratives imply about national identity. To fill this gap, this article examines the genealogies of and relationships between three major contemporary trauma narratives: the state’s official history, the Front Pembela Islam’s extension of the official narrative, and civil society discourses based on human rights. Through applying the sociological framework of cultural trauma, I argue that how each group draws the boundaries of victimhood is intricately tied to its particular assumptions about the essential characteristics of Indonesian society and its prescriptions for how to preserve the nation.

Islamic Revivalism in Indonesia: The Caliphate, Sharia, NKRI, Democracy, and the Nation-State

This research examines Indonesian Islamic revivalist movements’ perspectives on the concepts of the nation-state and democracy. The Islamic revivalist movements studied in this research include Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI), Front Pembela Islam (FPI), Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia (MMI), and Forum Umat Islam (FUI). Following the fall of the authoritarian Suharto’s regime in 1998, Indonesia witnessed an escalation of Islamic activism whose goals revolve around the implementation of Sharia (Islamic law) and, to a certain extent, the reestablishment of a caliphate (transnational Islamic state). To this end, revivalist movements have been staging frequent mass protests, mainly addressing Indonesian government policies that are deemed un-Islamic. Some of the protests have ended violently, which implies that their Sharia and Islamic state goals have become a source of conflict in Indonesian society. This research suggests that this violent activism stems from different versions of the concept of the nation-state and democracy, which disagree with broadly accepted definitions. This research was conducted against this backdrop to analyze each movements’ perspectives on the concept of nation-state and democracy and argues that, despite each movement advocating the implementation of Sharia, their understandings of the concepts of the nation-state and democracy differ.

Islamist Buzzers: Message Flooding, Offline Outreach, and Astroturfing

Based on ethnographic research on Islamist buzzers – social media political operators tasked with making particular online conversation subjects trend – in Indonesia, this article details the process of how the proliferation of insensitive message in both the online and offline realms plays a role in mobilizing those sympathetic to religious fundamentalism. As this research shows, the interviewed buzzers were one of the driving forces behind the massive success of the fundamentalist Islamic Defenders Front (Front Pembela Islam, FPI) as they mobilized people to participate in the organization’s political rallies between 2016 and 2017. Driven by altruistic volunteerism and sense of community, these actors go beyond their duty as click-farmers. They maintain regular contact with sympathizers and convincing them to revive broken weblinks, hang banners on streets as part of astroturfing campaigns and gather masses to attend offline events. Detailing the activity and spatiality of buzzers in crafting new online and offline spaces as part of their innovative bottom-up propaganda management, this research concludes that right-wing political mobilization and radicalization are not simply the product of ideology but are catalyzed by technically and socially tedious, mediated messaging campaigns.