Heeding Sylvia Wynter’s call to go beyond the contemporary “descriptive statement” of being Man that stands on the racist/classist/patriarchal/colonial/White-Christian centric ontology (Wynter, 2003), this paper analyzes the sociopolitical and religious perspectives of the indigenous community in North Kendeng Mountains of Central Java Province that stand at the intersection of Islam and Saminism (an indigenous religion established within the crucible of anti-colonial struggles in 19th century Indonesia). The paper proposes to see the Islam/Saminism matrix in the life of the North Kendeng indigenous community, which is a community that is presently engaged in a struggle against a government-owned cement company that ravages their mountains. It looks at how Islam/Saminism is an affirmation of being human – instead of the hegemonic “descriptive statement” of Man - that is always in relation with Ibu Bumi (lit. Mother Earth). In this way, the paper argues that the Islam/Saminism matrix provides an ontotheological conception of ‘human’ in opposition to what Wynter called as the master code of “Man2,” and serves as an epistemological foundation with embodied resistance against racial capitalism as a primary meaning of being human.
Iskander Abbasi talks about how the “discovery” of the Americas and the encounter between Spanish colonial power and Native Americans was an extension of the Iberian Reconquista that constructed the Muslim (and Jewish) Others; the Spanish colonial power conceptualize Native Americans through their Islamophobic paradigms, and hence argues that religion and race is in the construction of coloniality of being unlike what decolonial theorists have argued with their secularist conceptions of coloniality of being in the Americas (2020). Taking this critique against the secular concepts of coloniality of being seriously, this paper proceeds to propose an analysis of embodied Islam/Saminism in the North Kendeng Mountain in Central Java Province of Indonesia as a fight against material imposition of coloniality of being in the form of racial capitalism.
Since 2006, the North Kendeng Mountain – a karst mountain range rich in limestone and underground spring water that serves as a major rice producer region in the province – has been ravaged by the presence of a state-owned cement company and a subsidiary of the German HeidelbergCement AG, PT. Semen Gresik, which mines the limestone from the mountain for their production. The local community, who embrace a blend of Islam and Saminism (also known as Sedulur Sikep), organized a resistance against the encroaching mining practices that systematically grabbed their lands while also eliminates the rich ecology in the area by ravaging the mountain with explosives.
When I visited Tegaldowo Village, the center of community organizing in North Kendeng Mountain, yellow dust that came out of the rock blasting process in the mountain made the air heavy and covered the corn fields owned by local farmers. Failed agricultural harvests due to the yellow dust pollution, and the presence of rare pest infections caused by ecological imbalance are common stories that I heard from the local farmers. Falling river water levels and noise pollution from the repeated explosions of the mountain have compounded the man-made crisis experienced by the community.
In North Kendeng Mountain, instead of a direct oppositional line between the Western paradigm of Man2 (Wynter, 2003) and the supposed “inhumanity” of racialized Muslims, coloniality of being takes place against the backdrop of imperial debris (blasting of the mountain, poisoned air, dried out river, etc.) and is being imposed through imperial formations (colonial residues of neoliberal necropolitics, corruption and bribed local officials, divide and rule policy, and urban-centric development) (Stoler, 2008). It necessitates an expansion from the focus on Islamophobia as a form of coloniality of being that, while connecting race and religion, does not speak of the specific ways Islam comes to be a part of coloniality of being in Indonesia, as well as resistance against it.
The paper argues that Islam/Saminism in North Kendeng Mountain sheds light on the relationship between religion, racial capitalism, and coloniality of being in the ways that change the location of religion from the compound of race/religion that has become the ontotheological basis of colonial difference to its location as sources for revolutionary practices against environmental, religious, social, political, and material oppressions that are rooted in the residue of the said colonial difference in postcolonial Indonesia.
Putting Louiza Odysseos vision (2017) of a prolegomena to decolonial ethics into practice, Islam/Saminism decolonial poetics in North Kendeng Mountain is going against the two hegemonic “descriptive statements” produced within the milieu of neoliberal necropolitics in Indonesia, namely: Indonesia Emas 2025-2045 (National Long Term Development Plan, 2025), and what I called as governmental Islam (Fitriyah, 2019). Indonesia Emas 2025-2045 is Indonesia’s current national plan to create “a Republic of Indonesia that is unified, dignified, developed, and sustainable” by leaning on the rich resources available in the country, including demographic and natural resources (RPJPN, 2025-2045). Meanwhile, governmental Islam refers to a version of Islamic religiosity in which messages of inclusivity are coopted by the Indonesian government to stamp any dissenting voices as “radical Islam.” (Fitriyah, 2019) In this context, a progressive face of Islam is used as a façade to dismiss critiques towards the coloniality of the concept of ‘religion’ itself that is imposed on the internal religious others in Indonesia, one of which is the Muslim/Saminist community. Thus, the praxis of being human (Odysseos, 2017) in North Kendeng Mountain is a form of double refusal: A refusal first to accept the exploitation of the land and racial capitalist regime through a living cosmology with the land, mountain, and water, and a refusal second against the coloniality of the concept of ‘religion’ in Indonesia by way of blurring of the line of “religious tradition”. Islam/Saminism in North Kendeng Mountain, more than just an expression of local religions, is actually an embodied decolonial poetics through praxis of being human along with nature.
Heeding Sylvia Wynter’s call to go beyond the contemporary “descriptive statement” of being Man that stands on the racist/classist/patriarchal/colonial/White-Christian centric ontology (Wynter, 2003), this paper analyzes the sociopolitical and religious perspectives of the indigenous community in North Kendeng Mountains of Central Java Province that stand at the intersection of Islam and Saminism (an indigenous religion established within the crucible of anti-colonial struggles in 19th century Indonesia). The paper proposes to see the Islam/Saminism matrix in the life of the North Kendeng indigenous community. It looks at how Islam/Saminism is an affirmation of being human – instead of the hegemonic “descriptive statement” of Man - that is always in relation with Ibu Bumi (lit. Mother Earth). In this way, the paper argues that the Islam/Saminism matrix provides an ontotheological conception of ‘human’ in opposition to what Wynter called as the master code of “Man2,” and serves as an epistemological foundation for being human.