25 Years on, Vanguard Liberal Indonesian Muslim Activists are in Disarray

It has been 25 years since Indonesia’s Liberal Islam Network (Jaringan Islam Liberal, JIL) was established in March 2001, just three years after Reformasi.

The intellectual network has been in disarray over the past decade, reflecting the current state of the broader liberal and progressive Islamic movement in Indonesia. The old guard of liberal Indonesian Islam, represented by the establishments within Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, are facing elite co-option as they seek access to state resources, and are grappling with ideological challenges from their younger members affiliated with progressive, leftist and environmentalist Islamic groups such as Islam Bergerak and Muhammadiyah Green Cadres (Kader Hijau Muhammadiyah). 

This ideological split has made it difficult for former JIL figures, as well as the overall progressive Indonesian Islam movement, not only to 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 the group’s “boundary-testing strategies”, its elitism and Indonesia’s “conservative turn”. Ideologically, while all JIL thinkers claim to support civil liberties in matters of religion, they do not share the same political and economic orientations. Some JIL figures are staunch libertarians and free-market supporters, while others lean towards democratic socialism and could even be considered “liberal left”.

Although JIL no longer stands behind a coherent “liberal” brand, its individual members continue to shape Islamic discourses in Indonesia through their activism and respective platforms. Some former JIL figures have become hosts of the liberal YouTube channel CokroTV, and leaders or members of social and political organisations such as NU or Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P). Their prominence, however, has done little to revive institutional coherence; these internal ideological differences have instead hastened JIL’s irrelevance within Indonesia’s liberal movement.

On many critical issues, JIL figures stand on opposite sides. Regarding the issue of Gaza, Luthfi Assyaukanie and Saidiman Ahmad have been critical of Hamas as an extremist group and supportive of Israel’s “right to defend itself”. This is in stark contrast to the views of other JIL figures such as Ihsan Ali Fauzi and Ulil Abshar Abdalla, who have been critical of Israel. Ulil, now serving as one of the leaders of NU, even expressed his confusion as to why those who defend minority groups in Indonesia are defending Israel, in a clear reference to his colleagues within JIL.

Ideologically, while all Jaringan Islam Liberal thinkers claim to support civil liberties in matters of religion, they do not share the same political and economic orientations.

The Gaza crisis is not the only issue where JIL figures have appeared on both sides of the debate. Ulil was also at loggerheads with other JIL members on critical issues, such as the blasphemy prosecution against then Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama in 2017 and the passage of the 2020 Jobs Creation Law.

These public disagreements indicate two key points of divergence within JIL membership and ideology: First, JIL figures have different, and often conflicting, interpretations of liberal Islam. Second, there is no consensus on what liberal Islamic ideology looks like in practice, nor what compromise means. The absence of a clear ideological stance has made it impossible for liberal Muslims to organise and rally public support vis-à-vis the relatively more cohesive conservative groups.

The largest break among liberal Muslims occurred in 2024, when liberal supporters of former President Joko Widodo split over his decision to back Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) Party leader Prabowo Subianto in the presidential election. Nong Darol, a prominent JIL figure, left her position as CEO of YouTube channel CokroTV after media owner, Jeffri Geovanie, the chief patron of the Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI), decided to back Prabowo instead of then Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowo in the election. She left along with other pro-Ganjar hosts at CokroTV, including Guntur Romli, Denny Siregar and Eko Kuntadhi.

Nong was replaced by Akhmad Sahal, another prominent JIL figure. Her departure allowed Ade Armando, another JIL figure and PSI politician, to return to CokroTV. Ade claimed that he initially left CokroTV after being told by Nong not to criticise the PDI-P, the party that backed Ganjar.

The split within PSI and CokroTV is symptomatic of JIL’s state of disarray. PSI is arguably the most liberal party in Indonesia, having run its campaign on a platform of religious freedom and other civil liberties. Its decision to back Prabowo in 2024 disappointed JIL co-founder Saiful Mujani. Saiful has been outspoken in his opposition to Prabowo, which contrasts with Sahal’s seemingly more neutral position and, more glaringly, PSI’s support for the former general.

In recent interviews with three former JIL activists, they downplayed the differences of opinion among them, emphasising to the author that JIL was only a forum and that political disagreement is inevitable. That said, they also accused fellow JIL thinkers of compromising their liberal ideology because of social or political obligations imposed by their institutional roles, as well as their affiliations with particular political-economic interests.

Ulil’s criticism of Ahok, for example, could be seen as a result of his political bias, given that he was then a former member of the Democratic Party, which backed Ahok’s rival, Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono, in the 2017 Jakarta election. Similar allegations can also be made against other JIL figures. Guntur, for example, was affiliated with Ganjar’s campaign team and PDI-P, while Ade was affiliated with PSI. Luthfi, who backed former Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan in 2024, was reportedly close to the National Democratic (NasDem) Party. While the above political-economic constraints may have forced JIL thinkers to compromise their liberal principles, in some cases, ideological disagreements also contributed to JIL’s state of disarray.

Once a formidable force in Indonesia’s liberal movement, JIL’s wave of intellectual schisms, whether due to ideological fragmentation or the political pragmatism of its prominent figures, have eroded its relevance as a leading voice of liberal Islam in Indonesia. As political conversations gradually shift from the issue of religious tolerance to more pressing concerns such as inequality and climate change, proponents of liberal or progressive Islam would do well to redirect their personal influence towards issues that resonate more with young Indonesian Muslims.

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