‘Shariah don’t like it ...?’ Punk and religion in Indonesia

Indonesia boasts one of the largest and most vibrant punk scenes on the planet today. It is also home to world’s largest Muslim population. Punk and religion are usually found in antagonism with one another, but the situation is far more complicated in Indonesia. Using interview and participant-observation material gathered in September/October 2012 and January 2015, this article examines the relationships between punk and religion in Indonesia, finding it markedly different to the oppositional relationship expected elsewhere in the world. Despite the fact that repression of punk in Indonesia is often religiously motivated, most of the interviewees still maintained a Muslim religious (or at least cultural-religious) identity. Those punks who did profess atheism were doing so against a very different social backdrop to their comrades in more secular parts of the world, and were making a much more significant stand in doing so.