The Tolerant Many

Source: The Jakarta Globe
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/columns/the-thinker-the-tolerant-many/419399

Testriono | January 27, 2011

Two studies on religious life in Indonesia released at the end of 2010 showed significant increases in the number of religiously motivated attacks and discrimination against minority religious groups.

In its survey, the Moderate Muslim Society recorded 81 cases of religious intolerance over the last year, up 30 percent from 2009.

The Wahid Institute report was even more damning, with a total of 193 instances of religious discrimination and 133 cases of nonviolent religious intolerance recorded, up approximately 50 percent from the year before.

Among such instances, forced church closures and disruptions of worship services were the most commonly reported complaints, including the firebombing of an Ahmadi mosque and violent attacks on its worshipers.

At first glance, this paints a frightening portrait of religious life in Indonesia, especially as these kinds of stories are the ones most commonly reported in Western media.

Articles that focus solely on violence against religious minorities depict Indonesian Muslims as angry and destructive individuals who restrict the freedoms of others, despite the Constitution’s formal guarantee of the right to believe and practice one’s religion.

While highlighting real problems in Indonesia, this picture of the country’s citizens is misleading: most Indonesians are accepting of other faiths, and most parts of the nation are currently in a state of peace.

In Jakarta, the Istiqlal Mosque and Cathedral Church stand opposite each other in harmony.

In Yogyakarta, Muslims and Christians worked together to help victims of Merapi’s recent eruptions, which forced many citizens to flee their homes.

And in many parts of the nation with large minority religious groups, such as North Sumatra, North Sulawesi and Bali, inter-religious harmony is the norm.

We cannot close our eyes to acts of religious intolerance.

With the vast majority of Indonesians supporting peaceful coexistence among different religions, acts of discrimination often provided the impetus for citizens to develop programs and initiatives for peace-building.

For example, the Paramadina Foundation — founded by a Muslim reformer, the late Nurcholish Madjid — recently published an Indonesian translation of American University professor Mohammed Abu-Nimer’s 2003 book, “Nonviolence and Peace Building in Islam: Theory and Practice.”

In his book, Abu-Nimer counters the stereotype in Western media that the Muslim world is intolerant and warlike and that Islam as a religion and culture is contrary to the principles of peace.

According to him, the main problem is that many analysts are obsessed with acts of violence and terrorism committed in the name of Islam, thus Islamic values and practices of peace-building go unnoticed.

By translating this book into Indonesian, the Paramadina Foundation aims to promote Islamic perspectives and principles of peace-building with Indonesian readers, based on a model of nonviolence, like the approaches successfully employed in Poso, Aceh and other places around the country to resolve episodes of religious conflict.

True, Indonesia today is in a state of democratic transition. Nevertheless, it is recognized as the third-largest democracy in the world and the most democratic Muslim-majority country.

In the authoritarian New Order period, the country was rated by Freedom House as a “partly free” state — free from violence only because people were afraid to voice their opinions.

But since 2005, Indonesia has entered the ranks of “free” states, with the liberty for all to express opinions.

Unfortunately, some individuals have interpreted this as a right to violate others’ freedoms — for example, by expressing an opinion that goes against the right of others to build a house of worship.

The critical issue now is to help foster a healthy public debate on religion and how Indonesians can best promote pluralism and respect for others’ beliefs, without infringing on others’ freedoms.

The democratic transition that has been taking place since 1998 still leaves a large amount of work to be done yet, including protecting the right to freely practice one’s religion.

This is a responsibility that must be tackled by government, religious leaders, civil society activists and lovers of peace and freedom to paint a better picture of ourselves in 2011.

 
Testriono is a researcher at the Center for the Study of Islam and Society (PPIM) at the State Islamic University (UIN) Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta.

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