Muslim Pop Culture on the Rise in Indonesia

Due to the economic crisis that hit Indonesia in the late 1990s, the government of longtime dictator Suharto fell and gave rise to democratic elections. Along with democracy came religious freedom, which for many Indonesians has meant becoming more devout Muslims. As a result, Muslim pop culture, whether manifested in books, television shows, movies, ringtones, or otherwise, has become a central, growing part of Indonesian society. Thus far, the huge rise in this phenomenon has remained strictly in the private realm, as the proportion of voters preferring democratic institutions of religious tolerance and secular law over Sharia have remained steady since independence 60 years ago. The popularity of Muslim cultural products reveals that democracy and the growth of pop culture is much more complicated than simply the importation of Western cultural hegemony; rather, pop culture develops based on the interplay between global themes such as romance and the tastes of local consumers. – YaleGlobal