Page 103 - Demo

86Islam, Democracy and Human Rights in Contemporary Indonesiabequeathed a rich intellectual heritage. For this reason, heencouraged educated Muslims to investigate Islamicphilosophical and theological works written during the goldenage. He himself pioneered this effort, although, due to the lackof sources in Indonesia, he had to utilize secondary sources toinvestigate the opinions of Muslim philosophers andmutakallimun (theologians). In one of his articles on Muslimcivilization (1936), he expressed his yearning for the revival ofthe past glorious Muslim Civilization. He actively encouragedMuslim youth to reconstruct this civilization.Within this frame of the intellectual debate, we cananticipate Natsir%u2019s polemics with Christian leaders, such as withSipahutar, and with an experienced nationalist, Soekarno, aboutthe relationship between religion and state. Indonesia in the1930s was a nation in search of an ideological format for thebasis of a common struggle, in order to strengthen the formationof a %u201cnation%u201d and to build an independent state in the future.Since the emergence of national movements at the beginningof this century, various political and ideological factions havealso emerged. In 1920, Soekarno mentioned that there werethree main ideological streams in Indonesian nationalmovements: Nationalism, Islamism and Marxism. Soekarnohimself was a pioneer of nationalism, even though in his youthhe was much inspired by H.O.S. Tjokroaminoto, an Islamicproponent with an inclination towards socialism and panIslamism.When Natsir was still residing in Bandung, he oftenattended public meetings of the PNI (Indonesian NationalistParty), which was led by Soekarno. Soekarno made energeticspeeches in these public meetings, insisting that nationalism