Dr. Bahtiar Effendy: Without trust, Democracy would not be Sound

Islam provides theological apparatus which is receptive upon trust as the social capital of democracy. But ipso facto, many citizens of Muslim countries are trust-less. Research held by Sarif Mardin in the Middle East indicates the lack of trust; hence the power of civil society is blunted and Islamic countries suffer a deficit of democracy. Here is the interview with Burhanuddin by Dr. Bachtiar Effendy, a political observer and lecturer at UIN Jakarta. It was conducted in August 2003.

BURHANUDDIN: Many social scientists emphasize the urgency of trust in the social capital of democracy. How urgent is trust in supporting democracy?

BAHTIAR EFFENDI: It’s very important. Without trust, democracy cannot work. We may talk about democracy from the procedural point of view to locate someone to engage in various public positions but without trust, without any established habits of trusting anyone, system, structure, or infrastructure, I think democratic institutions can only be fragile at best.

BURHANUDDIN: Generally, what is meant by trust?

Trust is divided into two elements. Firstly, there is trust in the sense of amanah (trusteeship, mandate) that someone can be trusted. Secondly, there is trust in the sense of simply trusting in others. Both elements are important to uphold a democratic social, economic and political system. This understanding of trust is unlike Francis Fukuyama who does not distinguish these two elements.

The existence of trust in others, neighbors, friends or public officers is the “pillar” of democracy. Trustis about our belief in procedure, in playing by the the rules of the game. Otherwise, suspicion and prejudice makes life unhealthy. One of the latest example about trust, for instance, can be seen in Nurcholis Majid’s low level of trust in the rules of game made by Golkar Party in choosing the candidate for president within the convention process.

As we observe eventually Cak Nur (Nurcholis Majid) discontinued the process over the suspicion, prejudice and stigma, that whatever was done by Golkar Party it would not be able to deliver sufficient trust. As a consequence of the stigma of the past, even Cak Nur himself could not trust the available “democratic” process.

BURHANUDDIN: Isn’t the distrust of Golkar triggered by the tradition of New Order maintained in their political practices?

I would not deny that. Political life could go on in an orderly fashion through the existence of trust. Orderly here is not something forced, but something that should come naturally. We cannot develop trust not because we are a zero-trust society, but because there is economical-political process at work that dramatically decreases trust. In this case, Golkar has contributed greatly to the failure of trust.

It doesn’t mean that the mistake is in the hands of people who cannot be trusted. Instead of trust at the macro political level, our trust is low even in terms of friendship. We often unfairly notice someone’s academic achievement, for instance. Little by little, we have to eliminate or decrease those feelings.

BURHANUDDIN: Does interpersonal trustinfluence the level of trust toward public institution?

Trust should be built on the society’s level and it would be better if it were not associated with the state’s structure. It would be influential without any attempt to be associated with anything. Actually since the state is not well functioning, it influences the people’s level of trust. For instance upholding the law, which is not maximal, decreases public trust of the legal institutions. They prefer to take the law into their own hands usually in brutal and radical ways. Why would FPI destroy discotheques? It’s due to their distrust in the state.

Hence we could learn about trust more from the trade corporation system built by the Chinese. For them, interpersonal trust plays a big role. Once you have a partner; he would fulfill anything you want. But once you betray that trust, you would be destroyed forever.

BURHANUDDIN: You have mentioned trust with amanah (trusteeship) which is familiar in Islamic doctrine. Is there a parallel between concepts of amanah and trust?

It’s indeed a rather ironic case. If we want to associate it with Islam, we find that the concept of trust is popular among people like Francis Fukuyama.. In Arabic language or Islamic terminology the word trust might be interpreted as amanah. Since then, we learnt about the history of Prophet Muhammad, that before being prophet, he was already titled as al-Amin (the trusted man). There is even a Hadit about the signs of hypocracy and of people who cannot be trusted.

It’s actually a lesson about principle that should be followed by Muslims. Usually, the matter of amanah should be associated with leadership and accountability. Someone given authority and responsibility should be amanah. It means that he should truly uphold the position so that people know that he always works within the accepted boundaries.

BURHANUDDIN: The fact is that many leaders cannot be trusted?

We have to admit that very few Muslims practice the concept of amanah. Actually it is not merely a religious principle but also a principle of life. Maybe in this context, amanah could be understood as a universal value. That concept is available within Islam, complete with its theological injunction. Only it has a very wide association such that it is not only Muslims who practice the principle of amanah.

There is indeed a gap between doctrine and our daily attitude. We can say that many things in our life are not inspired by the spirit of religious teaching. And it is not merely a problem amongst Muslim. Many people, whatever their religions are, cannot be trusted.

BURHANUDDIN: Nevertheless, several verses of Qur’an like walan tardla anka al-yahud wa la al-nashara hatta tattabi’a millatahum seemed to suggest distrust, especially toward the Jews and Christians. What do you see?

I’m not a master of tafseer like Quraish Shihab. But some verses in Alqur’an withstand each other, or contradict each other. Sometimes a verse teaches love toward others, but on the other hand some verses suggest behaving firmly.

But when we look at it generally, the urgency to withstand amanah and being firm and clear might also indicate non contradictory things. But when they are read separately like that, they seem to contradict.

BURHANUDDIN: Does the verses that triggered distrust lead us complicate us to tolerate?

When we notice Muslim community’s view upon the west, especially America or Israel, I think their sense of distrust is huge. The majority of Muslims are a distrustful social group. Hence the prejudice, but the motive does not purely come out of the theological basics taught by Islam.

I think it is more socially and politically constructed. Hence Muslim’s distrust toward non Islam or west is formatted more by social-economic-political structures than a theological one.

BURHANUDDIN: Hence, what is the point of talking about a theological concept that is supportive of trust?

At the most extreme level, the answer is that theology is not used and taken in order to distort the condition. Our daily life is influenced or formatted also by how far we perceive religious comprehension. In this case, correctly comprehending theology is important; as is using the religious to select religious matters and others.

BURHANUDDIN: Besides, Islam recognizes the concept of husn al dzan (positive thinking). Does this concept support trust?

This concept is complementary. In Islam, we recognize the fitrah doctrine that humans are born innocently. We don’t recognize original sin. All babies are born innocently. Hence we should develop positive thinking or husn aldzan. Humans are good by nature. That is the Islamic philosophy about human. It’s a good concept.

Since the beginning we have to develop husn al dzan till it is proved that someone is not good. It comes together with trust. Sociologically, the Prophet Saw taught this in his daily attitude especially in trading, that’s why he could be easily trusted.

BURHANUDDIN: Islam forbid ghibah (gossip) as well, is it inherent with trust?

Yes, even if the gossip (ghibah) is true, it is forbidden, moreover when it is unproved. Sometimes we can’t practice those teachings. There should be internal Islamization where we study about relevant teachings to solve the problem around us.

BURHANUDDIN: However, our people like infotainments on television.

I don’t know how to explain this matter. We’d better return to the good values of religion, and then gradually practice it in our daily life. We know that many Islamic doctrines uphold the concept of trust.

BURHANUDDIN: The research held by Sarif Mardin indicates the low level of trust in many Middle East countries which have Muslim majorities. Why is there a paradox like this?

Islamic countries experiencing a deficit of democracy cannot blame this merely upon the matter of trust. Requirements to uphold democracy are not referred to only by trust. The most important matter is this: is there any serious attempt to withstand democracy in the sense of upholding principles required by democracy?

I don’t believe that American democracy could be implemented likewise here. Democracy could be applied here, when we put its universal values and principles within democracy into our social cultural context. There must be many versions of democracy, and we cannot claim that democracy in certain countries is better than in others.

BURHANUDDIN:Do you believe in the possibility of democracy’s indigenization? 

Yes, I do believe this since initially democracy appeared by the support of social, cultural and belief system within the Anglo-Saxon society in Western Europe, in England. It was small at first, and then it grow bigger after being exported to America. It’s easily exported to America since the people living there were British. What about export it to Indonesia? We had experienced that in a very liberal context and it failed. Would we repeat that failure? I don’t think so.

BURHANUDDIN: We have many doctrines supporting social capital of democracy. The logic is that if we perform democratic indigenization it would be easily adapted by the people. What is your response?

We have never made any democratic indigenization. Our experience of democracy was very short, from 1950-1959. Then, it was not democratic indigenization, that’s why Sukarno was furious and declared that it was an unreal democracy (demokrasi stem-steman) . Supporters of democracy have never made it, since their experience is a Western one, in the educational field as well as in daily social life. Even though some of them want Islam as the base for the nation, basically their experience is Western. We should think about how to expose our people to democracy. The more we experience democractic life, the easier wecan perform the adaptation.[]

(Translated by Lanny Octavia, edited by Jonathan Zilberg)