In the country with the most Muslims in the world, the war in Ukraine is provoking pro-Russian and pro-Putin reactions that are surprising to say the least.
” Bapak Putin », « Pak Putin “. In recent days, this is how Indonesian TikTok videos with millions of views have nicknamed the Russian president who has become, since the invasion of Ukraine, ” Papa Putin ” Where ” Mr Putin in Indonesian.
A sudden popularity which is surprising, in this country where the oldest generations remember the invasion of the Russians in Afghanistan and where the slightest communist symbol is prohibited by law. Until recently, the shadow of the USSR still hovered over Russia and fueled the mistrust in public opinion.
A Russian president presented as an ally of Muslims
But it is on aspects quite distant from geopolitics that this new craze for Vladimir Putin has been forged. In various ways, he thus appears to be on the side of the Muslims. Video archives circulate for example on TikTok where we see him condemning the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, where he shows his closeness to the Muslim Chechen leader Kadyrov.
In a vision of a fairly binary world with the West on one side, represented by the United States and NATO, and the oppressed Muslim populations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine on the other, Putin then sided with the camp of Islam for more and more Internet users, who often do not hesitate to recall in passing the Jewishness of the Ukrainian president in front of Vladimir Putin. The fact that Chechnya, a Muslim republic attached to Russia, also sent men to fight alongside the Russian army in Ukraine only reinforced this. Rare are those who then remember the bloody repression of the Kremlin regime towards this Muslim people.
► Read also : in Syria, the Russian army resumes its bombardments on the city of Aleppo
To reinforce this vision of a pro-Muslim Putin, in Indonesia, some even rely on the Koran, and on the authority of the prophet of Islam, by putting forward a hadith (reported oral word of the Prophet) of Abu Dawood. In this hadith, the prophet evokes a non-Muslim people who will unite with their faithful, at the end of time, to fight a common enemy. In the French versions, the name of this people is often translated by “the Romans” but in Indonesian, the Arabic word ” Rum » is kept, a term without local reference and whose mysterious character is undoubtedly conducive to many conjectures.
On TikTok, Youtube and instagram, now accounts with hundreds of thousands, even millions of subscribers are certain: this people in question are the Russians, whose Orthodox Christian religion would be the direct heiress of the Byzantine Roman Empire to which the sacred texts would refer, these Internet users venture. The end times are more imminent than ever for others, like Imran Hosein, a Muslim scholar who, from neighboring Malaysia, also sees Putin’s Russia as the ” Rum described by the Koran, and offers on YouTube to its 334,000 subscribers a video entitled “ The Prophet Predicted Nuclear World War III “.
A space left empty
The Indonesian researcher at the University of Tartu Radityo Dharmaputra was one of the first surprised by the extent of this pro-Russian vision in his native country. Installed today in Estonia, he says he has been receiving messages for a few days of people who say to me: but look Kadyrov supports Putin, this invasion must be good for Islam suddenly? »
This infatuation with Putin’s Russia, he then suggests, may have arisen in a space that remained otherwise relatively empty: You don’t have a lot of people talking or studying Russian geopolitics in Indonesia, about the United States, Europe, there are people, but not a lot about Russia. However, this void has been filled in recent years by the Russian Embassy on social networks where it presents itself as non-communist and pro-Islam, and in real life with the Russian Cultural Center that they opened in Jakarta, more and more scholarships for Indonesians to study in Russia. »
► Read also: War in Ukraine: “ For Vladimir Putin, the Ukrainian people do not exist »
The geopolitical reading of hadith evoking the ” Rum is not new either, notes this Indonesian scholar specializing in Russia. “ When Russia intervened in Syria, there were already discussions about this, but mostly in the form of debates asking themselves these “Rum” what is this hadith talking about which country is it today? »
Historical links between the USSR and Indonesia
Noor Huda Ismail, of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, reminds us that, if they are not obvious at first sight, the links between Indonesia with a Muslim majority and Russia are older than one would think. believes. He cites, for example, the way Sukarno the father of independent Indonesia pressured the USSR to have the Saint-Petersburg mosque or the tomb of Imam al-Bukhari (in Uzbekistan today) renovated “. This academic who specializes in the representations of masculinity in geopolitics also notes an Indonesia haunted by military authoritarianism and not insensitive to that of Putin today.
As for the Indonesian authorities, Russia’s offers have not been displeasing in recent years, particularly on the defense front, such as when Moscow offered Indonesia to settle arms contracts for oil palm, a not insignificant gesture when the European Union and the United States are increasingly boycotting thePalm oil from a country they consider guilty of deforestation or forced labour.
In recent weeks, however, Indonesia has denounced the invasion of Ukraine, voted to do so at theUnited Nations General Assembly. But Radityo Dharmaputra notes a certain caution in government communication: “ He condemns the Russian action, but not directly Russia. »