Over the past century, modern technologies and transportation have allowed Muslim Indonesians to participate in the pilgrimage to Mecca in ever-greater numbers. Contact with the Arab world, an area often viewed as the spiritual homeland of Islam, is now as simple as turning on the television or clicking on the Internet. This contact inevitably has had an influence on Islamic popular culture in Indonesia. In North Sulawesi, for instance, Arabic words have worked themselves into popular Islamic slang, and Arab styles of clothing can be seen during Friday prayers in nearly every kampung. With music, however, Arab cultural influences are not so clearly discernible. Although Arab music styles are popular and are often played within Islamic contexts, musik islami in Indonesia constitutes a diverse range of musical sounds and styles, including local, national, and transnational styles. In this paper, I will discuss the fine lines that distinguish Islamic music in the popular realm in Indonesia and how forms of Islamic popular music fit within or blur the lines of musik islami. In this discussion, I will draw on examples from national Indonesian media as well as from my fieldwork experiences among urban youth in Java and North Sulawesi, Indonesia.

Asia in the 1990s-2000s experienced the liberalization of the economy, the proliferation of consumerist lifestyles and rapid changes in its mediascape. There has also been acceleration in the worldwide dissemination of ‘Islamic’ as well as Islamist media produced in what can be termed as ‘Muslim’ Asia. The transnational media migrations into, out of, and within contemporary Asia prove that we can no more talk about one way traffic of media from the West to Asia. Within this context, the increased amount of inflow of Western screen media into Muslim Asia and the supposed resistance of ‘national’ cinemas against such flows became visible since the early 1990s alongside conversations on mediated cultural exchange and globalization. Scholars argued that globalization of market and media (including the Islamic/Islamist ones) transformed understandings of nation and culture and made way to the intercourse of the local and the global. With/in such intercourse, this paper attempts to understand the roles of the national film industries based in two major nation-spaces of the Muslim Asia.

The paper looks at the workings of the Bangladeshi and Malaysian cinemas: how these nationally-defined but transnational/regional, cultural institutions interact with Islam and Muslim identity in these nation-spaces where Muslims are majority (above 80% in Bangladesh and above 60% in Malaysia). Though colonialism played different roles in the construction of nationhood for Bangladeshis and Malaysians, More importantly the Muslims with different ethnic/cultural orientations (Bengalis in Bangladesh and Malays in Malaysia) became the dominant group in both these postcolonial nation-spaces and somewhat seized the notion of a modern ‘national’ identity. For example, Bengali-Muslims normalized Bangladeshi identity and Malay-Muslims normalized the Malysian-ness in the global stage amid the protests and resistances in various forms from the non-Muslim Bangladeshis (e.g. the Hindu- and Christian-Bengalis as well as the indigenous hill peoples) and non-Muslim Malaysians (e.g. the Chinese, Indian and a range of indigenous Malaysians).

Here I start my enquiry on cinema, Islam and nationhood in ‘Muslim’ Asia with a simple question: how is cinema as a social institution positioned with/in the identity debate in these two Asian nations I am looking at? What roles do Islam and Muslim identity play in shaping such identities in very different societal frames of South and Southeast Asia? Have the Bengali-Muslim and Malay-Muslim ‘national’ cinemas been used to propagate a certain type of national culture and a particular notion of national/cultural identity? I find that in both Bangladesh and Malaysia, the Bengali- and Malay-nationalist groups are keen (though somewhat fail) to propagate a ‘pro-Islam’ national public sphere. They want to see the national cinemas as part of this public sphere as well as to keep the transnational but ‘anti-Islam’ screen media outside such a sphere. In the paper I will assess such state-national aspirations towards utilizing cinema as part of establishing a Muslim public sphere as the national public sphere within today’s global village. I would also focus on the works of a number of ‘Muslim’ film-authors in both the national contexts. For example, I will dissect the films of Tareque Masud, Tanvir Mokammel and Morshedul Islam from Bangladesh and the films of U-Wei Hajisaari, Yasmin Ahmad and Amir Muhammad of Malaysia—the films which received important national and international awards during the 1990s and 2000s. Looking at these films I will examine how these filmmakers project a certain type of (e.g. Bengali or Malay version of) Islam and Muslim identity on the film screens while dealing with the pressures of the nation-state and the forces of cultural globalization in today’s ‘Muslim’ Asia.

The past few years have seen a sudden explosion of public discourse and debate over the issue of polygamy in Indonesia. Long suppressed under the authoritarian Suharto regime’s policy of promoting monogamy as the proper form of marriage for a modern nation--even a nation with a Muslim majority--the new openness of this discourse has been a rather unexpected byproduct of the transition towards democracy. Fueled by the public outcry associated with such events as Puspo Wardoyo’s “Polygamy Awards” and the polygamous marriage of the celebrated Muslim preacher Aa Gym, polygamy has recently become the focus of high-profile films like Berbagi Suami and Ayat-Ayat Cinta as well as popular books, tabloids, TV shows, and Internet forums. The debates engendered by these events and the diverse media representations of polygamy center not only on questions of religion and its place in contemporary Indonesian society, but also on those of gender, social class, politics, and nation. This paper explores these issues by focusing on recent portrayals of polygamy in Indonesian film and print media. It examines the ways in which marriage and family, often seen as the bedrocks of a stable nation, become the theaters in which fundamental social divisions are performed and contested.

Blogs have become increasingly prominent in Indonesian cyberspace over the past few years and successful in a range of subcultures. The form appears flexible enough to capture the attention of music to sport fans, to produce a new type of communication sphere for commentary on and information about politics, to build networks of individuals of similar interests (e.g. sharing recipes among housewives) and to serve as an outlet for personal catharsis (curhat). The obvious features of this blogging form are self-publication, the dialogic interchanges encouraged by 'open comment' sections, the use of links and other forms of citation, and the elasticity of the form. Using some prominent cases such as the anti-pornography/action bylaws and the screening of Fitna, this presentation tries to explore the ways in which Muslim bloggers use this new flexible form to be engaged in discourses that are related to Islam, and to answer some of the following questions: How do the features of this new environment influence the discourse on Islam? How do these forms allow Muslim blogger communities to cut across traditional lines of affiliation such as class, creed, ethnos/race and gender/sexual orientation? Do they offer promising possibilities for new types of Muslim communities to emerge?

In Indonesia, the rules and regulations that govern the television Industry shift from one extreme to another. After 28 years of monopoly by the state owned and controlled Televisi Republik Indonesia (TVRI), the government decided to end this broadcast monopoly and issued licenses to five commercial television stations.

The resignation of President Suharto in 1998, after 30 years of power, generated a new spirit of reform that swiftly spread across the entire Indonesian political scene. This spirit brought about changes to many state policies, including those that relate to television. In 2000, the government issued another five new licenses to five new commercial television stations, bringing the total number of national television stations to 11, including TVRI.

In the spirit of reform and democracy, television stations began to experience complete freedom, without any form of government control. Although the parliament later established an independent supervisory institution, the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (Komisi Penyiaran Indonesia – KPI), this 9-member commission seemed to be powerless in performing their supervisory duties on the existing 10 national television stations that were constantly competing with one another. The situation then swayed to another extreme, this time to where commercial television stations competed with one another in producing programs that could generate greater audience share, thus significantly increasing their income from advertisers.

Within the two extremes, Islam, as the faith followed by the majority of the Indonesian population - which currently stands at 250 million and is the largest Islamic community in the world - was disproportionately represented by the existing television stations. Only very few programs of an Islamic nature were produced and broadcasted, specifically during the strict government control of the Suharto era. This condition stems from the fear that these types of programs would promote the spread of Islamic culture and trigger the demand for the implementation of the Islamic Syariah law, thus interfering with the ideals of diversity and secularity that were the foundation of the government at the time. The Suharto government saw Islam as a religion and culture of the Middle East, which in certain situations was not suitable to Indonesian culture. Even today, in the era of reform, democracy and freedom, Islamic culture is still rarely represented as it fails to achieve the adequate ratings and shares necessary to attract advertisers.

Television stations would only broadcast programs that depict the Islamic culture and ambiance during the holy month of Ramadhan – the holiest month of the Islamic religion, when all Moslems perform the fast and alters their lifestyles. During this holy month, and sometimes even before then, many television stations begin to broadcast programs that are filled with Islamic lifestyles and beliefs. Programs, such as sermons and the reciting of the Holy Quran, are broadcasted daily from 4 p.m. and would reach their peak between 6 p.m. (during the breaking of the fast) to 9 p.m. This condition is followed by “new” prime time hours, from 2 a.m. to 5 a.m., which coincides with the time when all Moslems begin to rise and have their early morning meals, called sahur. Programs broadcasted during these hours receive extremely high ratings and advertisers compete to have their commercials aired at these specific times. On average, television stations see a 20% increase in advertising shares from these special programs. The holy month of Ramadhan is the only time when Islam is seen as the culture of choice by every television station.

How the media interacts with Islam that lie outside of the boundaries of the media to fulfill greater Islamic aspirations on television, and how decisions are made during the holy month of Ramadhan, is an interesting research topic, as proven by the supporting data that will be presented in this paper.

An enormous variety of musical expression has been disseminated through broadcast and recording media in Indonesia. Dominating the mediated musical landscape have been Indonesia’s secular popular music, but this domination is not absolute. Some genres, notably dangdut, occupy an ambiguous position as often but not always secular in theme. A growing number of genres, styles, and songs identified as “Muslim” are being widely represented in the popular media--audio cassettes, audio compact discs, video compact discs, national and private radio, national and private television, as well as the internet. Genres range from traditional gambus and qasidah to recent nasyid and the more idiosyncratic music of Emha Ainun Nadjib’s Kyahi Kanjeng. In addition to genres and groups routinely associated with Islam, some basically secular groups, such as the long-standing sensational rock group Gigi, are occasionally producing songs or albums that are overtly Islamic in message and, it could be argued, in “style.”

With reference to a broad sampling Indonesia’s Muslim music, this paper seeks to identify common threads shared among these diverse forms of expression—both in textual message and in musical style. What topics are prevalent? What seem to be avoided? Is there a dominant “Muslim sound” in Indonesia, even if primarily derived from the music of other Muslim countries? Is there an “Indonesian Muslim sound” unique among Muslim musics of the world? To what extent do Indonesia’s myriad regional traditions seem to color the mediated musical expressions that are marketed as “Muslim”? In addressing these questions, the paper seeks to elucidate the dynamic inter-relations international and local Islam, musical austerity and sensuality, and the dominating role of commercial media, seeing a multitude of responses commensurate with Indonesia’s own cultural and social diversity.

Since the early 1990s nasyid music has become popular among the Islamic youth of Indonesia and Malaysia. Imported from the Middle East, the verbal art or a-cappella song genre finds its proponents here particularly in the religious boarding schools and mosques, but also in universities and above all among student activists affiliated with, for example, the Indonesian Justice party. Nasyid’s popularity in Southeast Asian countries is due to its not all-too-explicit use of religious dogmas, instead touching upon recognizable social issues and employing the local Malay language. Nasyid music is therefore much in tune with a more fashionable and commercial Islamic pop culture that recently has been branded as ‘15 minutes Islam’: a combination of lifestyle politics, youth culture, and yet a very self-assured religious message.

While its proponents trace nasyid to the Middle East and back to the times of the Prophet Muhammad, many see the popularity of nasyid groups equally influenced by the successes of western boy bands like Boys II Men, Backstreet Boys, or Westlife. Like their western counterparts, an often largely female audience worships nasyid singers. At the same time initiatives to form all female nasyid groups or even mixed ensembles have not always been warmly welcomed. Experiments with the female voice, a nasyid song contest modeled on American Idol, and the question if God is for sale have further intensified discussions on what a 21st century Islam should sound like.

The link between Islam and sexuality has created continuing discourses on “Islamic sexuality,” particularly those related to polygamy, women’s hijab (dress code), and male-female conduct in private/public spaces in Malaysia. Such discourses are usually framed within notions of halal and haram (lawful and unlawful) in Islam. This paper explores how Malaysian Muslim filmmakers use films as a space for publicity of Islam and for the unpacking of the moral high ground held by Malaysian religious institutions regarding Islamic sexuality. The discussion is also complicated by Islamic sexuality being constructed within Malaysia’s multiracial context. This has led to filmmakers resisting the exclusive Islam-Malay equation nationally recognised as the Malaysian Islamic identity, and to promoting a more publicly agreeable definition of Islam as a multiracial non-exclusive religion. Thus, Islam is portrayed in such films as a tolerant religion, whose followers need not always be serious, dull and disciplined.

In demonstrating this argument, I will discuss two award winning films, Sepet and Gubra, by a Malay Muslim filmmaker, Yasmin Ahmad. In addressing Islamic sexuality in her films, she has been criticised for being seen to have hurt the mainstream religious sentiments of Malay Muslims in Malaysia. Her contestatory film-making style (which some critics see as bordering on pornography) in handling Islamic sexuality blurs a Malay nation’s continuous struggle with leftover imperialism which has crushed the social fabric of the Malay-Muslim nation. Paradoxically, in doing so, Yasmin, in her social critique of religion/Islamic sexuality, has continued the imperialist legacy of religion as an instrument of social control.

From street banners advertising “sexy dancers,” “naughty girls,” and “condom fiesta” to promote club events; venders selling the Indonesian version of Playboy at stoplights; cell-phone pornography scandals starring high school and university students; the booming popularity of sex comedies; to commercials for herbal medicines to spice up you sex life, discourses of sex and sexuality are seemingly everywhere in contemporary urban Indonesian popular culture. These open discourses seem contradictory against the back-drop of an increasingly conservative Islamic and political culture where pornography laws are debated and sex education in schools is protested because of fears that such discourse would promote sexual lasciviousness.

This paper investigates how sex and sexuality are discussed in CANTIQ, a popular woman’s weekly tabloid and NURANI, a woman-targeted Muslim weekly tabloid over a 12-month period, 2007-2008. What meanings about Islam, gender, and sexuality do audiences derive from popular women’s magazines? How do discourses of sex and sexuality compare and contrast between magazines for “women” and those specifically targeting “Muslim women”? While sex most obviously sells in the popular women’s weekly tabloid, with the largest cover-lines about sex, discourses of sex and sexuality in the Muslim women’s magazine are present, but overtly subtle. Through examining these magazines as cultural texts and cultural phenomenon, this investigation brings to light several examples of the dynamic – and often competing – discourses of gender, sexuality, Islam and capitalism at play in contemporary Indonesia. Such representations raise important questions about the nature of sexuality and about gender and religious identity in conjunction with sex.

In the past eight years, digital technology has democratized filmmaking in Malaysia, giving rise to a new generation of international film festival award-winning directors. Numerous private colleges and universities began to offer film and animation courses; the Kelab Seni Filem screened foreign films and also ran special screenings on Malaysian short films and documentaries several times a year; film festivals increased and there began to be overlaps between local film activists and social activism, manifested in the Freedom Film Fest offerings which focused on human rights. In 2005, the Goethe-Institut in Kuala Lumpur and the Multimedia Development Corporation initiated and sponsored a short film competition on the subject of the headscarf or ‘tudung’. The competition intended to highlight “creative visual attempts that lend themselves best to portraying the width of social and religious functions performed by the ‘tudung’ right up to its current status of being a fashionable designer item and an accessory.”

Premised on the notion that digital filmmaking as a new cultural phenomenon is a popular though not a mass movement, I will focus on several independent short films that broach the subject of Islam and its nexus with gender and ethnicity in Malaysia. In a country that is heavily racialised and where religion and ethnicity are intertwined, independent filmmaking provides an alternative site where cosmopolitan attitudes towards the Other can prevail and allow for exploratory cross-ethnic representations. Indeed, two of the winning submissions of the Tudung Short Film Competition were made by Chinese Malaysian directors. Yet, fearful of courting controversy and contributing to social tensions, the organizers did not screen the films in public. How and in what ways does the tudung signify Islam, women, agency and freedom in these cinematic representations, both by Malay and Chinese Malaysians?

The production of Islamic discourse has increasingly taken place in the cyber-space, arguably not as a replacement, but as an ambivalent alternative to the traditional spheres of school, mosque, and literature. The Digital Age witnesses the dual if not paradoxical functions of globalization: democratization/pluralization and authoritarianization/homogenization of religious discourse. Although all Muslim groups perceive the Web as advantageous, the conservative groups would become more conservative, and the progressive more progressive, conditioned by the greater virtual sense of difference and otherness facilitated by the Information Communication Technologies (ICTs). The websites, mailing lists, discussion forums, on-line editorials, on-line fatwas, blogging, and friendship networks, serve as a cross-cultural, cross-boundary media, but at the same time serve as a marker and a tehnological tool for furthering the previously and traditionally held ideologies and discourses. The Digital Age certainly has allowed more interaction between the activists or the makers of Islamic discourse and their audience, but has not necessarily witnessed more interaction and dialogue among competing religious ideologies. This paper will analyze the role of the ICTs in the rise of Islamic progressive networks, and their powers and limits in the construction of new religious discourses, with a special reference to the Progressive Islam Network and Liberal Islam Network. The main question will be: how democractic is cyber-Islam after all?