This Islamic resurgence could not take place successfully without the right social and political conditions. How much then do the conditions of the early resurgence still apply?

One of the most common phenomena associated with the development of the Islamic revival among young Muslims was the increased number of young female Muslims who wore Jilbab.^[25] Since 1977, a few female Salman activists had begun to wear jilbab, and gradually this practice spread widely amongst young, female Muslim activists, especially university and school students. Wearing this type of cloth spread through various Islamic trainings activities. Among the harakah and Islamic movements generally, according to a leader of one harakah in Bandung, wearing a jilbab became one of the parameters of success of training or organised activity. If female participants continued to wear jilbab after the training it meant that the training had been successful.

In 1982 when many more students were wearing jilbab, even when they went to their schools, the Ministry of Education and Culture created a new act concerning student uniforms. It detailed acceptable uniforms for both male and female students. The act forbade female students to wear jilbab within the school area. As a consequence, those who wore jilbab had to choose between removing their jilbab and moving to other schools which allowed them to wear such clothes.^[26]

This led to a “confrontation” between students and the government. Such confrontation created and reinforced two attitudes among students and young Muslims activists generally. First, suspicious responses from the government created a new view that the government was actually not in favour of Islam. For student and Muslim activists who already viewed the present regime as un-Islamic, government actions reinforced their belief. Second, the lack of comment by the ulama, who were unable to advocate the freedom of using veils, to a certain degree created an antipathy toward ulama among young Muslim activists. Furthermore, the feeling of powerlessness and hopelessness of the overwhelming majority of Muslims led to frustration and alienation. Such feelings, given that Muslims are in the majority, were described by Wertheim (1986) as a “Majority with minority mentality”.

Another influential event was the Tanjung Priok massacre in 1984, followed by a series of trials of many Islamic activists, throughout Java. The beginning of the first case was a Tanjung Priok massacre in which hundreds of people (Muslim) were killed. A similar massacre against Muslims occurred in 1989, when an army operation was held to quell unrest (Tapol 92:4:89) and ‘suspicious’ Islamic activities (Tempo 18:4:1989) in the Lampung province. According to one source, hundreds of people were killed and others injured. These massacres were followed by many arrests and trials of the Muslim activists. For Muslim activists, these cases showed that the government continously oppressed Islam.

These various cases from the late 1970s to the late 1980s illustrate some important points. First, there was a clear indication that government authorities were cautious and suspicious about the new tendency among young Muslims. This cautiousness often was marked by unsympathetic and even oppressive attitudes such as the prohibition to use veils that identified them as political devices. Second, government attitudes in turn led to a state of frustration and antipathy towards the government; fertile conditions for the development of the Islamic movement because the teachings and methods of the Islamic resurgence movement provided a kind of shelter from that frustration. At this point, I agree with Emerson (1981), who says “Religion is like a nail. The harder you hit it, the deeper it goes into the wood”. Here, some conditions of the early emergence in early 1970s ie. frustration and dissatisfactions still apply in this development stage. The difference is that in this stage the spread of the frustration and dissatisfaction became much more pervasive, since it spread through various channels.

To conclude there are some distinct characteristics of this development stage. First, the movement initially centered on charismatic figures but developed with the establishment of various organisations, both formal and informal, through which the resurgent ideas dispersed effectively. Another important characteristic of this stage was the aggressive preaching and evangelical attempts launched by those organisations. Finally, as in the first stage the common trend during the stage was towards emotional and radical expression.