Liberal Islam in Indonesia is sliding into irrelevance

It has been 25 years since Indonesia’s Liberal Islam Network (Jaringan Islam Liberal or JIL) was established in March 2001, just three years after Reformasi.The intellectual network has been in disarray for much of the past decade, reflecting the current state of Indonesia’s broader liberal and progressive Islamic movement. The old guard, represented by the establishments within Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, faces elite co-option as they seek access to state resources while also grappling with ideological challenges from younger members aligned with progressive, leftist and environmentalist Islamic groups such as Islam Bergerak and Muhammadiyah’s Green Cadres (Muhammadiyah" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="154090" data-entity-type="organization">Kader Hijau Muhammadiyah).This ideological split has made it difficult for former JIL figures – and Indonesia’s progressive Islamic movement overall – to not only advance the interests of the Ummah (Muslim community), but also to effectively turn the tide against Islamic conservatism.Scholars have attributed JIL’s decline to its “boundary-testing strategies”, its elitism and Indonesia’s broader “conservative turn”. Ideologically, while all JIL thinkers claim to support civil liberties in matters of religion, they share little else. Some are staunch libertarians and free-market advocates; others lean towards democratic socialism and could even be described as “liberal left”.Young women attend a ceremony marking the 85th anniversary of the Nahdlatul Ulama organisation in Jakarta in 2011. Photo: AFPThough JIL no longer projects a coherent “liberal” identity, its individual members continue to shape Islamic discourse through their activism and respective platforms. Some former JIL figures host the liberal YouTube channel Cokro TV; others hold leadership or membership roles in organisations such as NU or the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P). Their prominence, however, has done little to revive institutional coherence. If anything, these ideological differences have hastened JIL’s slide into irrelevance within Indonesia’s liberal movement.Differing stance