NOTES FROM THE MUI INDRAMAYU MUKERDA, A PATHWAY FOR MORAL AFFIRMATION JUSTICE REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT
By: Adlan Daie
Political analyst, Secretary General of the MUI, Indramayu Regency
Indramayu, July 13, 2026
Here’s a brief note: The Regional Working Conference (Mukerda) of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) is not simply an “organic mechanism,” but a process of consolidating collective awareness of how religious moral principles guide the path of affirming a commitment to justice.
In this context, the spirit and urgency of the Indramayu Regency MUI Mukerda, held at the Indramayu Islamic Center complex (Saturday, July 11, 2026), emphasized that affirming justice is the primary path to guiding MUI’s service to the community and collaborating for the benefit of the regional development process.
This means that the Mukerda—and even the existence of the MUI itself—is only useful, once again, only useful in the construction of a Pancasila state if it is present to affirm justice in public policy spaces. That is the “core” message of Pancasila, which in social theory by Jürgen Habermas is called “political deliberation.”
In the current era of electoral political regimes, the state and nation are increasingly fragile, guided only by “opinion viralization” and program celebrity. The term “people’s” is only about Manipulated mass selfies, guided not by sound wisdom but by discriminatory power relations between political blocs, undermine the very foundations of public justice.
Back in 1937, at the end of the Dutch colonial period, a forum for Islamic mass organizations was formed in the form of the “Majelis Islam A’la Indonesia,” abbreviated as “MIAI.” Martin Van Brunessien characterized the presence of MIAI as the point of “new awareness” for Muslims within a “nation-state.”
In his 1982 doctoral dissertation entitled “The Politics of Islam in the Dutch East Indies” (published 1985), Dr. Aqib Suminto noted that the role of the Islamic mass organizations united in MIAI, pioneered by Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, was not merely to protect and ensure that Muslims could “carry out the obligations of their religious law.”
More than that, it explored how MIAI provided affirmative action for the struggle for justice in the social life of the nation. The Indonesian Ulema Council (MIAI) actively criticized Dutch policies regarding restrictive regulations on religious teaching and budget discrimination against Islamic schools.
The MIAI even opposed the Dutch policy of allowing large companies to enter traditional markets where the majority of business players were small Muslim traders.
The Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) was founded and formed in 1975, under the perspective of the Minister of Religious Affairs, General (ret.) Alamsyah Ratu Prawiranegara, as a continuation of the MIAI’s organizational spirit, although its form and role underwent a transformation following the context of sociological developments across political regimes.
Both the MIAI and its successor, the MUI, were formed due to the sociological reality of the Indonesian nation, where the absolute majority is Muslim, inseparable from the presence of Islamic mass organizations in Indonesia.
The formulation of Pancasila, as “Mu’ahadah Wathoniyah,” also referred to the final consensus as the nation’s ideology, involved seven heads of Islamic mass organizations in its process and finalization.
This means that national and regional development within the Pancasila state framework must not solely be guided by a “secular developmentalist” regime that relies on economic growth, minimal inflation, and physical infrastructure—without the meaningful involvement of “spiritual infrastructure”—Islamic mass organizations.
Here, Imam Al-Ghazali’s perspective in his book “Al Iqtishad Fil I’tiqad” becomes relevant in the construction of the Indonesian state, a state with the final ideology of Pancasila. He calls the relationship between religion and power “Tau’aman”—like “twin brothers,” reinforcing each other.
Religion, represented by the power of Islamic mass organizations, is the foundation and guardian of power. Religion without a constructive relationship with power will weaken its social influence, and power without the dignified involvement of Islamic mass organizations will easily collapse in its political authority.
Power comes and goes, but a nation and state based on the principles of humanity and justice is a goal that must be continuously fought for across regimes and generations. Allowing the arrogance of authority without a struggle for principles of justice is simply inheriting the “darkness of civilization.”
This is where the MUI Indramayu Regional Working Meeting, mentioned above, is interpreted as meaning that, no matter how small its scale and influence, it must always be present in public spaces, present in the development process, and present to guide the ethical path of political power.
Without an affirmation of justice, religion and religious institutions, to quote sociologist Ibn Khaldun, “are merely rituals preoccupied with themselves, allowing the path of civilization to be diverted by political power without ethics.”**
Regards.
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