Speaker: Dr Rémy Madinier (Senior Researcher, CNRS and Co-Director, IISMM & CASE-EHESS)
Date: Wednesday, 12 February 2014
Time: 2:00pm – 3:30pm
Venue: AS3, Level 6, SEAS Seminar Room (06-20)
Chairperson: Assoc Prof Vatthana Pholsena
Synopsis
Between Independence in 1945 and the advent of the New Order in the mid-1960s, Indonesian Islam saw the emergence and then the failure of a powerful and original phenomenon — a democratic Muslim current. Within the Masyumi party – for a long time the main political formation in Indonesia – was spelt out and defended the ideal of a Muslim democracy, one that substituted the simple demand of an Islamic state for political and parliamentary struggle. This project, and its failure, left a lasting impression and supplied a clear lesson on the complex and fragile alchemy that can push a moderate Islamic approach, favourable towards democracy and limited secularism, down the slope of intransigence and intolerance.
About the speaker
Rémy Madinier is a senior researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and co-director of the Institut d’études de l’Islam et des sociétés du monde musulman (IISMM) and of the Centre Asie du Sud-Est (CASE-EHESS). He has published several books devoted to the modern history of Indonesian Islam: L’Indonésie, entre démocratie musulmane et Islam intégral. Histoire du parti Masjumi (1945-1960), Karthala, 2012; The End of Innocence? Indonesian Islam and the Temptations of Radicalism, NUS Press, 2011 (with Andrée Feillard); The Politics of Agama in Java and Bali, Routledge, 2011 (co-edited with Michel Picard). He is currently working on a history of Muslim-Christian relations in Indonesia.
