Indonesia Remains Secular Despite Islamic Revival

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• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  Now: religion and politics in Indonesia.

  Earlier this week, Indonesia's secular president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, was sworn in for a second term.

  Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports on how this Muslim nation is experiencing a surge in Islam, while remaining politically secular.

  A version of this story aired on the PBS program "Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly."

• FRED DE SAM LAZARO:

  Islam is making a comeback in Indonesia. At the Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta recently, about 10,000 worshipers gathered for Friday noon prayer. At this crowded shopping center, the most popular garment seems to be the head scarf, something few Indonesian women wore just a few years ago.

• INDONESIAN WOMAN (through translator):

  I'm here because Islam tells women to wear the scarf.

• FRED DE SAM LAZARO:

  Forty-year-old accountant Inne Burnamasari began covering her hair three years ago.

• INNE BURNAMASARI (through translator):

  I feel ashamed, because I should have been wearing it since I was young, but at least I am wearing it now.

• FRED DE SAM LAZARO:

  Indonesia has the world's largest Muslim population, around 200 million. But the country has been quite secular since independence from the Dutch in 1945, says historian Dewi Fortuna Anwar.

  DEWI FORTUNA ANWAR, historian (through translator): Islam and the traditional, customary laws were regarded as being backward and primarily blamed for, you know, the defeat of many Muslim countries under European rule, so that many of the earlier nationalist leaders, many of the educated elite, in fact, turned their back on religion.

• FRED DE SAM LAZARO:

  Anwar says when the dictator Suharto came to power in the mid-1960s, he enforced a rigid separation of religion and state.

  But, in the '80s, alongside a booming free market economy, religious practice became more popular. And, in 1998, when a teetering economy forced Suharto to resign, democratic reform and religion both began to flourish.

• DEWI FORTUNA ANWAR (through translator):

  Among the younger generation, there seems to be a greater willingness both to be openly religious and to be modern and educated at the same time. I think maybe there is not just a search for a greater spiritual anchor, but, also, I think it's greater self-confidence.