There was a significant increase of religious activities within Muslim society. However, during the 1980s and 1990s, facilitated by the movement of ‘cultural Islam,’ a Muslim redefinition of their earlier ‘ideological or political Islam,’ Indonesia experienced an Islamization almost in every social group and all social levels, from students to government elite circle. Restriction after restriction made the santri resentful as though they were outsiders in their own country. Santri believed that the government was ‘hostile to Islam.’ The state was hegemonic and the New Order became an authoritarian regime. Dakwah activities were strictly controlled criticizing authority was illegal and often condemned as subversion. Anyone who intended to expand Islamic influence in national life was suspected and accused of trying to establish an Islamic state and being anti-Pancasila. In the 1970s and 1980s, when there was Islam-phobia amongst government officials, the restriction applied to Muslim religious activities. Those who suffered most from this policy were the santri group. The New Order’s commitment to development through the economic growth paradigm resulted in restriction and suppression of any political group who developed a political ideology.

The rivalry between these groups emerged for the first time when, in the early New Order, Soeharto backed by the military, did not approve rehabilitation of the Islamic party, restricted Muslim political activists, and made alliances with non-santri political actors in running modernization and economic development. The santri, on the other hand, were powerless, marginalized and known as the ‘outsiders’ (McVey 1983). By the mid-1980s, abangan and priyayi were associated with Soeharto and his government who dominated Indonesian politics (Emmerson 1976 Anderson 1990). The development of Islam in Indonesia during the New Order period can be seen as cultural struggle between groups which Geertz called abangan (nominal Muslim with less Islamic concern), santri (the ‘pious’ Muslims) and priyayi (elite group).

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