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Muhammadiyah Bans Smoking
Anita Rachman | November 14, 2011

Tobacco farmers from Central Java protest outside the Ministry of Health in Jakarta earlier this year, demanding leniency under the law. Muhammadiyah now says cigarettes should be banned from all of its premises, taking a recent fatwa on smoking one step further. (JG Photo/Afriadi Hikmal) Tobacco farmers from Central Java protest outside the Ministry of Health in Jakarta earlier this year, demanding leniency under the law. Muhammadiyah now says cigarettes should be banned from all of its premises, taking a recent fatwa on smoking one step further. (JG Photo/Afriadi Hikmal)
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Comments

SirAnthonyKnown-Bender
11:11am Nov 17, 2011

...because the word "bugger" has a very specific meaning colloquial English.

LadyBuggers
10:51am Nov 17, 2011

SAKB: I dunno how to change it, and I kinda like the name, coz I like to bug people, especially socialite ladies totting their Hermes (pronounced: HERMES) bags everywhere. Anyhow, may I know why, Sir?

DrDez
4:55pm Nov 16, 2011

SirA

That is exactly the point and my question relating to it. How can an act that requires a fatwah be ok in private but not in public, if that is the case it is a selective religious interpretation and a sop

I support the MUI and its efforts


SirAnthonyKnown-Bender
3:45pm Nov 16, 2011

By the way Lady Buggers, you may wish to consider a name change.

SirAnthonyKnown-Bender
2:41pm Nov 16, 2011

"When coming out with a fatwa against smoking for its followers last year, Muhammadiyah equated smoking to suicide, something sinful in Islam."

Hmmm, yes but in that case this Islamic body would ban smoking full stop. The fact that they have banned smoking only in public areas represents a prohibition that is entirely secular in nature and which equates to something like John Stuart Mill's utilitarian harm principle (i.e. I can do what I like to myself so long as it doesn't harm another person - and by harm Mill means real harm, not just offending someone). Mill is just one of the historical figures who have offered moral philosophies not based on supernatural beliefs.

Religions, on the other hand, with their omniscient deities, claim to care very much about what one does in private. What the Muhhamadiyah have offered here is a secular prohibition and to be consistent, they should also allow consenting adults to engage in whatever sexual activity that pleases them in private.

The country’s second-largest Islamic group has thrown its full weight behind efforts to rid Indonesia of its heavy smoking habit.

After issuing a fatwa in March 2010 to tell its tens of millions of followers that it was religiously unacceptable to light up, Muhammadiyah is now set to declare all of its health and education institutions smoke-free zones.

Muhammadiyah operates some 500 health institutions such as hospitals and clinics, about 15,000 schools from the level of kindergarten to high school and nearly 200 higher education institutions. It also operates 350 orphanages across the country.

“On Monday [today], we are going to launch our nationwide program that, starting now, Muhammadiyah’s offices, enterprises and forums are officially smoke-free areas,” Syafiq A. Mughni, Muhammadiyah’s chairman for health issues, told the Jakarta Globe on Sunday. The campaign will kick off at the Muhammadiyah headquarters in Jakarta.

“This is also meant to protect the young generation from cigarette smoke exposure and to create a healthy living environment,” Syafiq said.

He added that the campaign did not mean Muhammadiyah was telling people to stop smoking or banning tobacco cultivation. “But we want people to smoke in the right place. Not in public facility areas.”

Syafiq, who is a professor at the Sunan Ampel Islamic State Institute (IAIN) in Surabaya, said Muhammadiyah understood there would always be people breaking the rules, but officials would not halt their efforts to enforce the regulation.

When coming out with a fatwa against smoking for its followers last year, Muhammadiyah equated smoking to suicide, something sinful in Islam.

Syafiq said the non-smoking zones in Muhammadiyah premises would be applicable to all, members or not.

Zainuddin Maliki, rector of Muhammadiyah University in Surabaya, said the new rule would increase pressure on smokers. But, he added, “It won’t be a problem for us. At our university, we banned smoking some time ago.”

While Muhammadiyah takes a tough stand against smoking, the country’s largest Islamic organization, Nahdlatul Ulama, is not likely to follow suit.

NU has defined smoking as makruh, or a habit that is best avoided but does not constitute a sin. Unlike Muhammadiyah, it never has issued a fatwa against smoking.

The Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI), however, has declared smoking to be haram, or forbidden, in public places, for pregnant women and for children. The MUI is the country’s highest authority on Islamic affairs and includes representatives of Muhammadiyah and NU.

NU deputy chairman Slamet Effendy Yusuf told the Globe that the group applauded Muhammadiyah’s move. “The thing with NU is, our senior clerics, most of them are heavy smokers,” he said. “We couldn’t even stop some of our students in Islamic boarding schools from smoking. But we are going to try,” he said.

Douglas Bettcher, the director of the World Health Organization’s Tobacco Free Initiative, has said that low taxes, low prices and the lack of graphic warnings on Indonesian cigarette packaging were contributing to a pro-smoking environment in the country.

An estimated 200,000 Indonesians die each year from tobacco-related illnesses.

Anti-tobacco activists have accused the government of being reluctant to impose strict controls on tobacco because the industry generates significant tax revenue and is one of the nation’s major employers.

Editorial

A battle in the long war > A10