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Islam, Democracy and Human Rights in Contemporary Indonesia65Muslim Youth) and Persatuan Islam (Persis %u2014The Unity ofIslam). JIB was a youth organization, the members of whichreceived Dutch colonial government-administered %u201csecular%u201deducation. This organization aimed to deepen its members%u2019understanding of Islam and encouraged them to be proud ofbeing Muslims. As a cadre organization, JIB was active inconducting discussions and publishing magazines as well asjournals. Many JIB activists, such as Kasman Singodimedjo,Mohammad Roem, Mohammad Sardjan, Jusuf Wibisono,Prawoto Mangkusasmito, Samsurizal, and others, later cameto be prominent leaders at the time of Independent Indonesia.Concurrently, in which Natsir was active during his youth,it was rather more a thought and purification movement thana social organization. Its social activities were very muchconducted through the publication of religious books, brochuresand magazines. These publications were widely distributedthroughout Southeast Asian Malay societies. Depending on thecentral figure of this organization, Ahmad Hassan, manypolitical as well as religious debates and polemics surfaced. Oneof the polemical issues in the 1930s was the problem of therelationship between religion and nationalism. Persis gavespecial attention to this problem of %u201cloving religion and nation%u201d.Together with Hassan, for example, Natsir participated in anopen debate with Muchtar Luthfie, the head of PersatuanMuslimin Indonesia (Permi-the Association of IndonesianMuslims), on the possibility of combining Islamic principles withnationalism. Therefore, even though Persis never directlyparticipated in politics, it surely made a contribution to theideological debates that built the basis of the Indonesian strugglefor independence.