May 17 2006
Book Review: Islam, Law, and Equality in Indonesia
In “Islam, Law, and Equality in Indonesia”, John Bowen reveals how societies, like the one in Indonesia, maintain social order and continuance by drawing strength from “repertoires of reasoning” (p5). One key concept in Bowen’s thesis is “pluralism”. However, Bowen has not defined clearly what this term means in his book. Instead, I find that, although he intends to use “pluralism” to denote multiple sources of legal reasoning, Bowen occasionally confuses “pluralism” with “multiculturalism”. I would further argue that the obfuscation of the concept undermines Bowen’s attempt to apply his thesis in societies other than Indonesia.
First of all, Bowen’s main contention is that public reasoning is a dynamic process that comprises sources of reasoning and interpretations of such sources. The diversity of the sources and the interpretations is what he characterizes as “the pluralism of legal systems” (p8). Some sources of public reasoning Bowen identifies in his book are: traditional norms as seen in adat, religious tenets as codified in sharia, and the secular state laws. In addition, there are various but nuanced ways to apply rules from each source. For example, sharia is used to govern life rituals such as birth, marriage or divorce, while adat is cited in property disputes or interethnic relationships (p16). What is more, the contextualized interpretation of rules from the different sources contributes further to the “pluralism” of public reasoning in Indonesia.
Secondly, when describing diversity in Indonesian society, Bowen seems to have confused “pluralism” with “multiculturalism”. For example, when discussing the arguments surrounding equality, pluralism, and political legitimacy, he gives an example of what he means “pluralism” here as “how porous the boundaries ought to be between religious communities …” (p6). Later in the section “Indonesian pluralism”, he refers to the term “pluralism” as “a consciousness of other societies”. To add to the confusion, Bowen dedicates a whole section to “cultural pluralism” (p253), in which he discusses how cultural diversity adds to ad hoc validation of amalgam of legal sources.
Finally, I would argue that Bowen’s casual use of “pluralism” seriously undermines the validity of his theory. Although Bowen’s immediate focus is on Indonesian society, he nevertheless harbors the hope of a broader adaptation of his theory. For example, by studying how Indonesian society cope with the changing world within the confines of tradition and religion, he hopes to find clues as of how “constitutional democracy states can encompass cultural and religious diversity”. Indeed, Bowen concludes his book with a discussion about Muslim “implants” in the West, where, when arguing against what he calls a “monist” view, he questions the assumption that there is only one “basic structure” of society (p264). Instead, Bowen argues that there ought to be more sources of public reasoning in Western societies too.
But Bowen fails to distinguish cultural pluralism from legal pluralism. These two concepts do not always go hand in hand. In Indonesia, for example, the “adat communities” are not the same as linguistic or ethnic communities (for example, there are different “adat communities” among the Javanese). The very reason that different legal sources do carry binding forces over diverse social groups is that those legal sources are “internal” to all the groups. For example, most, if not all, Indonesians recognize traditional norms (adapt) or religious teaching (sharia) as valid legal sources. The society may be culturally “plural” but its acceptance of the “legal pluralism” is universal—thus “singular”. In the case of Muslim “implants” in the West, the challenge is fundamentally different: the society as a whole does not and cannot agree on a set of legal sources that are binding to all. The French mainstream public may never accept sharia as an alternative source of public reasoning while the Muslims in France may never recognize the state law as the sole source. In French society, the challenge may not even be, as Bowen suggests, that there is a lack of legal pluralism. Rather, the difficulty of integration lies in the fact that sources of legal pluralism do not overlap from community to community.
Had Bowen consciously made the distinction of “cultural” pluralism and “legal” pluralism, he might have realized the limited application of his theory. He might have enlightened us with some other cases, for example, In Indonesia, how non-Muslim communities or new Muslim immigrants are coping with their neighbors or with the changing world? Unfortunately, we cannot find such cases in Bowen’s book.