Islamic Civil Society in Indonesia: Analysis of the Accommodative Politics during the Soeharto New Order Regime

This article briefly discusses the accommodative politic of Indonesia's Islamic civil society from the perspective of ideological background, society and role point of views during the period of New Order regime. During that time, Muslims was the group of societies that mostly experienced suppressions by the regime. To keep their existence, the Islamic civil society used a political approach that was accommodative to encounter the regime’s policy and diffuse within the government. Surprisingly, this ideological politic remained useful and grew during the New Order regime period, leading the main element in triggering the democratization process. The findings of this study show that the peoples’ social background and level of understanding on ideology, politic and sociological reality contributed to the effectiveness of the accommodative politic implementation. Furthermore, the Islamic society played a vital role as “driving” force in the democratization process in Indonesia, indicating that Islamic ideology is apparently in agreement with Democracy