Are Muslim Religious Conservatism and Political Islam Making a Comeback?
Little did Elianu Hia know that a video he posted on Facebook in early 2021 would shape Indonesian policy and turn his life upside down.
A Christian in a Muslim-majority nation, Mr. Hia objected to vocational school authorities in the West Sumatran city of Padang, obliging his daughter to wear a hijab.
In a secretly taped video, his daughter's teacher insisted that wearing a hijab was mandatory. The teacher demanded that Mr. Hia put his daughter's refusal in writing, which would have been a first step to expelling her. The video went viral.
In response, Indonesian Religious Affairs Minister Yaqut Cholil Qoumas and his home affairs and education counterparts threatened to sanction state schools seeking to impose religious garb in violation of government rules and regulations.
“Religions do not promote conflict, neither do they justify acting unfairly against those who are different,” said Mr. Qoumas, a leader of Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest Muslim civil society movement and foremost advocate of theological reform in line with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The school complied. Over the last two years, the number of Christian girls who shed the hijab has grown. But at the same time, Mr. Hia received threatening messages on Facebook and WhatsApp. “I lost count,” he told Human Rights Watch. “Hundreds of them.”
Mr. Hia’s air conditioning business started to lose customers. “Some customers asked me whether I was the one who was protesting the mandatory hijab rule. And they stopped requesting my services,” Mr.Hia said.
Struggling to repay a bank loan, he fired five employees and sold his truck and minibus. Almost two years later, Mr. Hia and his wife decided to sell their house while waiting for their daughter to finish high school. “I cannot earn enough money now. We have to move out of West Sumatra,” he said…
