It is difficult to write about this book without sounding over-enthusiastic. It is fluently and lucidly written, penetrating and sensitive in its analyses, having a lightness of touch which belies the closeness and care of its organisation. The occasional throwaway line ‘But we are running ahead of ourselves’ (pp. 107, 207) is delightfully disarming. It is about an important topic — the place of Islam in the self-identification of an Indonesian ethnic community which almost became a breakaway nation state. It presents the role of a charismatic personality in creating and marketing the myth of this state, and supplying it with a justifying narrative. Finally, it gives an account of the struggle against the Indonesian central government that ensued, and ultimately its failure. All in all it is a valuable case study for social scientists concerned with the tensions in ethnically plural states between individual self-identifying communities, and the central government of the state of which they are part.
Aceh is strategically situated at the northern tip of Sumatra. Historically it represented the gateway between the island world of Southeast Asia and the India Ocean and beyond. It has a single land border. It had a significant trading base, with natural resources for export, such as minerals, spices and even fauna, at one time exporting elephants to India. It is rich in oil and natural gas resources, precious in today's economy. It has a complex history, with constantly evolving relations between its coastal cities and the interior. High points in its earlier history are the great years (1550–1670) of the Acehnese sultanate, when it was a widely revered centre of Islamic learning, regionally feared and internationally recognised power, and more recently, between 1873–1908, its long resistance to the imposition of Dutch rule.
As part of the Dutch East Indies, it became a province of the successor state of Indonesia in 1950, but has been the most restive of its provinces. The Acehnese role (1953–59) in the Darul Islam insurgency has a high profile in modern Indonesian history. For Edward Aspinall's book, this is only an hors d'oeuvre to the story of the Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (Free Aceh Movement or GAM) — which grew out of its embers. GAM was founded in 1976 by Hasan di Tiro (b. 1926?), a veteran of the Darul Islam revolt. Aspinall gives an account of the varying fortunes of movement from its origins until its formal demise in 2005. Concerned with the perspective of the participants, he has mastered the relevant literature and conducted extensive interviews in Sweden, Malaysia and Indonesia. This has enabled him to clarify the evolving attitudes and aspiration of these participants, the distribution of emphases and contradictions in their ideological orientation and strategies, and the networks on which they relied for support. In this account, Hasan Di Tiro emerges as a colourful and charismatic personality who travelled widely, and even attracted the interest and patronage of senior American political figures. He reified events in the Acehnese past, remote and recent, into the myths and symbols of a nation state, using the techniques of Soekarno in his integrative myth-making hyperbole to create a picture of Aceh as a nation seeking self-realisation and justifying its right to exist.
Aspinall remarks that Di Tiro's writings ‘present a text book case, indeed almost a parody — of ethnohistory, replete with the techniques and tonalities of nationalist intellectuals of different times and place’ (p. 69). He goes on to give an account of the complexities and inter-relationships within the movement, the sacralisation of the struggle (p. 97), the dedication it inspired, and the role of outside powers, notably Libya, in training its cadres.
Hasan Di Tiro declared Aceh independent in 1976. The movement appeared to attract little overt support, and seemed to have collapsed by the end of the 1970s. Its life continued, however, as a hidden stream through the 1980s, and in the 1990s made a violent reappearance, provoking a brutal response from the Indonesian military. It reached its apogee in 2002, when briefly it seemed the possibility that it might achieve the success of Timur l'Este. The conflict was resolved in 2005, when GAM leaders accepted autonomy status for their province.
The narrative is vividly presented and richly textured. But one area requires comment. The word ‘Islam’ leads the title, yet the Islam that appears in its pages is not an Islam as it is lived, prayed, thought and taught, but an Islam reduced to a solidarity-making slogan, thus leaving a space, possibly unperceived, between Islam as a solidarity-making slogan, and Islam as a religion and way of life. This is reflected in the lack of precision in the account of several items with an Islamic reference. (It should be pointed out that the word santri in Sumatra does not have the meaning that it has in Java.) Surprisingly, concern with segregation of the sexes (pp. 92–3) is said to be distinctive of Aceh — rather it is a norm in many Muslim societies, including other ethnic communities in Indonesia. The author draws attention to ‘honour killings’ (p. 101). Do these occur elsewhere in Indonesia?
This is a space rather than a flaw in the way the book tells its story, a space that exists because engagement with a Muslim society is not reducible to Islam observed, but requires a full engagement with Islam as a religion. Even so, this is a wonderfully engaging and enlightening work, inspiring further exploration of the wonderful world of Aceh.
