ID :
155456
Thu, 12/30/2010 - 17:42
Auther :
Shortlink :
https://oananews.org//node/155456
The shortlink copeid
Year-ender: GROWING INTOLERANCE CHALLENGES INDONESIA'S UNITY IN DIVERSITY by Rahmad Nasution
Jakarta, Dec 30 (ANTARA) - Members of minority faith groups Ahmadiyah and Christians continued to experience acts of violence and vandalism in 2010 with certain observers viewing the incidents as signs of a decline in religious tolerance at the grassroots level.
In Garut district, West Java, for instance, a few hundred residents last July sealed a local government office building because some of the tenants were alleged to be Ahmadiyah followers.
In September, two members of the Huria Batak Christian Protestant Church (HKBP) in Bekasi, West Java, were attacked by an unidentified group of people while they were on their way to attend a church service.
In the incident, Asiah Lumbuan Toruan, 49, and HKBP preacher Luspida, 40, sustained injuries. Asiah suffered a stab wound in the right side of his abdomen and Luspida suffered a blow on her head. The attack was condemned by various civil society figures of different religious backgrounds.
As Indonesia has internationally always been recognized as one of the most tolerant nations in the world, incidents like those in Garut and Bekasi are regarded as a disturbance to the country's pluralism.
During his less-than-24-hour visit to Jakarta last November, US President Barack Obama reminded Indonesians of the true meaning of their state ideology, "Pancasila" (Five Principles), and their national motto "Bhinneka Tunggal Ika" (unity in diversity).
In his address at the University of Indonesia (UI), Obama, who had studied at two different public schools in Jakarta when he was only six to ten years of age , said Indonesia's "spirit of tolerance" as one of the country's foundations was "an example to the world".
The spirit of tolerance, which was reflected in the "Bhinneka Tunggal Ika", clearly written into the country's constitution, and symbolized in mosques and churches and temples standing alongside each other, had remained alive and embodied in Indonesians, he said.
"This is the foundation of Indonesia's example to the world, and this is why Indonesia will play such an important part in the 21st century," President Obama said.
What Obama had put forward is not new to Indonesia's public figures and ordinary citizens. However, the acts of violence and intolerance that minorities in the country still feel and undergo could become a serious challenge to Indonesia's pluralism in the future.
Noted Indonesian poet and columnist Laksmi Pamuntjak said the sense of intolerance that had grown in Indonesian society in the 12 years since the advent of the reform era was threatening the unity in diversity principple as one of the nation's idelogical foundations.
In a phone interview with ANTARA when she was participating in a "WordStorm" program in Darwin, Australia's Northern Territory, in 2008, Laksmi said the phenomenon of intolerance was even threatening the construction of the pluralist Indonesian nation.
"Indonesia itself is diversity because Indonesia is a nation constructed from a wide diversity of elements," said the writer of "Perang, Langit dan Dua Perempuan" (War, Heaven, and Two Women).
Therefore, she argued . the biggest challenge Indonesia was facing was how to enable its people to interpret the idea behind Indonesia's construction in the correct way.
In her opinion, Indonesia was actually the outcome of the artificial construction of 17,000 islands and 450 different languages and ethnolinguistics that were united under one national language, Indonesian.
Apart from the melting of those different languages into Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian language), it did not mean that a certain group of influencing or authorized people could dictate the country's pluralistic society with a "single value", she said.
For late former president Abdurrahman Wahid, one of the nation's serious challenges was those that he called fundamentalists -- the people who liked using the acts of violence in responding to the country's problems, such as the followers of Ahmadiyah sect.
All Indonesians - whoever they were -- should consistently hold the state constitution, which had guaranteed each citizen to live in peaceful co-existence, said the noted figure whose popular nickname was Gus Dur.
This late leader did believe that by consistently holding the state's constitution, the moderate elements of the Indonesian society could pass the tests of the fundamentalists.
END
In Garut district, West Java, for instance, a few hundred residents last July sealed a local government office building because some of the tenants were alleged to be Ahmadiyah followers.
In September, two members of the Huria Batak Christian Protestant Church (HKBP) in Bekasi, West Java, were attacked by an unidentified group of people while they were on their way to attend a church service.
In the incident, Asiah Lumbuan Toruan, 49, and HKBP preacher Luspida, 40, sustained injuries. Asiah suffered a stab wound in the right side of his abdomen and Luspida suffered a blow on her head. The attack was condemned by various civil society figures of different religious backgrounds.
As Indonesia has internationally always been recognized as one of the most tolerant nations in the world, incidents like those in Garut and Bekasi are regarded as a disturbance to the country's pluralism.
During his less-than-24-hour visit to Jakarta last November, US President Barack Obama reminded Indonesians of the true meaning of their state ideology, "Pancasila" (Five Principles), and their national motto "Bhinneka Tunggal Ika" (unity in diversity).
In his address at the University of Indonesia (UI), Obama, who had studied at two different public schools in Jakarta when he was only six to ten years of age , said Indonesia's "spirit of tolerance" as one of the country's foundations was "an example to the world".
The spirit of tolerance, which was reflected in the "Bhinneka Tunggal Ika", clearly written into the country's constitution, and symbolized in mosques and churches and temples standing alongside each other, had remained alive and embodied in Indonesians, he said.
"This is the foundation of Indonesia's example to the world, and this is why Indonesia will play such an important part in the 21st century," President Obama said.
What Obama had put forward is not new to Indonesia's public figures and ordinary citizens. However, the acts of violence and intolerance that minorities in the country still feel and undergo could become a serious challenge to Indonesia's pluralism in the future.
Noted Indonesian poet and columnist Laksmi Pamuntjak said the sense of intolerance that had grown in Indonesian society in the 12 years since the advent of the reform era was threatening the unity in diversity principple as one of the nation's idelogical foundations.
In a phone interview with ANTARA when she was participating in a "WordStorm" program in Darwin, Australia's Northern Territory, in 2008, Laksmi said the phenomenon of intolerance was even threatening the construction of the pluralist Indonesian nation.
"Indonesia itself is diversity because Indonesia is a nation constructed from a wide diversity of elements," said the writer of "Perang, Langit dan Dua Perempuan" (War, Heaven, and Two Women).
Therefore, she argued . the biggest challenge Indonesia was facing was how to enable its people to interpret the idea behind Indonesia's construction in the correct way.
In her opinion, Indonesia was actually the outcome of the artificial construction of 17,000 islands and 450 different languages and ethnolinguistics that were united under one national language, Indonesian.
Apart from the melting of those different languages into Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian language), it did not mean that a certain group of influencing or authorized people could dictate the country's pluralistic society with a "single value", she said.
For late former president Abdurrahman Wahid, one of the nation's serious challenges was those that he called fundamentalists -- the people who liked using the acts of violence in responding to the country's problems, such as the followers of Ahmadiyah sect.
All Indonesians - whoever they were -- should consistently hold the state constitution, which had guaranteed each citizen to live in peaceful co-existence, said the noted figure whose popular nickname was Gus Dur.
This late leader did believe that by consistently holding the state's constitution, the moderate elements of the Indonesian society could pass the tests of the fundamentalists.
END
