Research Program Seminar on Politics
Tuesday, 4 May at 12:00 pm in John A. Burns Hall, Room 3012 (3rd floor)
Presented by Baladas Ghoshal, Visiting Fellow in East-West Center

For centuries Islam in Southeast Asia was renowned for its adaptability to local practices and tolerance of other religions. Over the past three decades, however, fundamentalists have tried to homogenize Islam, introducing new tensions. More than any other factor, what has fueled conflicts and divided Muslims and others in otherwise tolerant and harmonious plural societies like Malaysia, Indonesia and some other countries of Southeast Asia, is the slow but steady process of the transformation of Islam in the region, from a syncretic and inclusive Islam to a puritanical and exclusivist one under the influence of ideas, norms, practices, and finances flowing from the Arab world. The “Islam of the desert” has made inroads across the Indian Ocean. This process of homogenization and regimentation – a process I would like to call the “Arabization” of Islam – puts greater emphasis on rituals and codes of conduct than on substance, through the Wahhabi and Salafi creeds, a rigidly puritanical branch of Islam exported from, and subsidized by, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The internationalization of Islam drew Southeast Asian Muslims to the desert and brought the desert to them. Such “globalization of political Islam” could threaten stability throughout Southeast Asia and the world. Unfortunately, too many proponents of any form of fundamentalism rely on it as a tool, not for inspiring spirituality, but for acquiring economic or political power.

BALADAS GHOSHAL is currently a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi and an honorary Distinguished Fellow at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies. He is a former Professor of Southeast Asia and South-West Pacific Studies and Chairman of the Centre for South and Southeast Asian Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. A leading expert on Indonesian politics and society, Professor Ghoshal has published extensively on Indonesian politics, ASEAN and regional security issues, South Asian regional security and political developments. He received his Ph.D. at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

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