Introduction

When President Suharto's rule ended in 1998, democraticstructures were initiated under the national mottoreformasi or‘change’. This was accompanied by a decentralizationof administrative structures, as well as theofficially abolishment of the censorship ofreligious and ethnic topics, thus allowing forscrutiny of existing structures and opening the wayfor new alternatives in various aspects of dailylife. On Java, this now includes religiousexperimentation on an individual basis, oftenunconstrained by longstanding family traditions. Thenew freedom has provoked an ongoing dispute overcontrasting forms of Islam. Violent Reformers, whoare trying to adapt their lives to what they see asan orthodox ideal of Islam, stand at one end of thescale. On the other end are Muslims who regardIslamic mysticism as essential for Javanese peopleto live a life in harmony with mankind and nature intheir traditional home territory. For the timebeing, these currents exist side by side. In mostsituations, both sides behave as if the other sidedoes not exist. To outsiders, this looks likereligious tolerance. In fact, it is a consciousattempt not to acknowledge the others as importantstreams making their contribution to the Javanesesociety.

Analyzing the agitated interreligious atmosphere aswell as the discourses accompanying the ritual willoffer insight into Javanese modernity by taking intoaccount the idea of multiple modernities (Eisenstadt2000a). On Java in recent years, critical andrational analyses of religion and tradition are mostvivid. This is as true for Javanese Muslims who wantto reform Javanese Islam as for those MuslimJavanese who are activists in practicing mysticIslam in a Javanese way, known as kejawen (‘the essence ofJavaneseness’). These Javanists are activistsbecause ongoing discussions brought them to reinventkejawen as a way oflife they see as a local necessity to ensure bothsecurity and harmony. The Muslims who want to purifyIslam from local traditions – Reformists – regardtheir own religious behaviour as a global necessityand as something that, in the long run, everyone inthe world should follow. They regard Javaneseness asnothing more than nostalgia or backwardness.