In his dialog with the religious minority communities, the minister promised to look into irregularities in government rules and regulations that contravene the spirit of religious freedom.
Source/Credit: The Jakarta Globe
By Johannes Nugroho | July 21, 2014
On July 15 the new Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin broke the fast with representatives of minority religious communities, which to date remain legally unrecognized by the state. The gesture was a milestone in terms of efforts to put the religious freedom guaranteed by the Indonesian constitution into practice. It is also a breath of fresh air emanating from a ministry that, despite its name, has been the bane of religious freedom in the country.
Present at the dinner at the minister’s official residence were representatives of the persecuted Muslim minorities such as the Ahmadis and the Shiites. The minister had also invited members of various indigenous religious groups such as the Sunda Wiwitan and the Batak Parmalin.
In his dialog with the religious minority communities, the minister promised to look into irregularities in government rules and regulations that contravene the spirit of religious freedom.
In the minister’s tacit agreement that religious freedom should be upheld lies a marked departure from his predecessor’s predilection. The disgraced Suryadharma Ali was criticized by Human Rights Watch last year for his failure to protect religious minorities against discrimination and persecution.
HRW particularly highlighted Suryadharma’s public statement in 2011, whereby he urged members of the Ahmadiyah community to recant their erroneous beliefs.
Only by the total dissolution of the community, the former minister said, their persecution would end.
During Suryadharma’s tenure, the ministry indeed became the grave of religious freedom as he leaned heavily towards fundamentalist groups. Hence, the new minister’s inclusive outlook points to a new determination to restore the ministry’s idealism as an impartial body that defends the constitutional right of every Indonesian to their religious beliefs rather than one that favors the majority at the expense of minorities.
In its idealistic role as vanguard of religious freedom, the ministry should pioneer the legal process to recognize all religious beliefs, starting with the right to specify every Indonesian’s religious identity, or even its absence, on official state documents such as mandatory identity cards, or KTP.
At the moment, the Indonesian government only recognizes six religions: Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Confucianism. Curiously, while both Catholicism and Protestantism should be categorized as Christianity, most Indonesians would mistakenly apply the word “Kristen,” or Christian, to Protestants only.
Even more anomalous was the process that saw Confucianism restored to state favor in 2003 after being banned by Suharto in 1967.
In order to qualify Confucianism as a religion, the Ministry of Religious Affairs apparently asked whether it possesses the tenets of recognizing one almighty god, having a prophet and so on, which, if common sense prevailed, are actually the characteristics of Abrahamic religions namely Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Thus in order to meet these historically inept requirements, Confucians in Indonesia append the title prophet for Confucius and heartily praise the one almighty god in their rituals. By contrast, Confucians elsewhere never refer to their grand teacher as a prophet and while Confucianism recognizes divinity and divine beings, it is by no means the same monotheistic god Abrahamic religions subscribe to. In fact, some would argue that Confucianism is more a philosophy rather than a religion.
The championing of Abrahamic tenets of religion is by all accounts discriminative towards other religious beliefs.
Indonesian Confucians, for example, say their prayers at the local Chinese temple or klenteng and consequently the majority of Indonesians believe klenteng-goers are all Confucians.
The truth is klenteng-goers comprise Confucians, Taoists and Mahayana Buddhists. Most Chinese temples honor Taoist gods and goddesses and while Indonesian Taoist organizations exist, it would be difficult for them, due to their polytheistic beliefs, to qualify as a religion as understood by Indonesian bureaucrats.
Similarly, the indigenous beliefs of many Indonesian ethnic groups such as Sunda Wiwitan and Batak Parmalin do not meet these partial criteria of what constitutes religion prevalent in this country.
The Abraham-centrism in religion in Indonesia is so strong that both Buddhism and Hinduism, entrenched here even before Islam, have had to make concessions.
In order to meet the one almighty god precept, Indonesian Buddhists dug deep into their sutras to produce an allusion to this undefined, unborn essence of being as evidence that Buddhism is not an atheistic belief. Indonesian Hindus, on the other hand, have had to produce the being of Sang Hyang Widhi as personification of God Almighty.
So these are the complex issues that the new minister of religious affairs has to come to terms with before he can truly uphold religious freedom in the country. It is unfortunate that Lukman only has four months in office before a new administration takes over.
His presence, however, bodes well for the future of the ministry, and hopefully the same spirit will be embraced by whoever sits in his chair in the next government.
Read original post here: Old Rules, Not People, Stifle Freedom of Religion
This content-post is archived for backup and to keep archived records of any news Islam Ahmadiyya. The views expressed by the author and source of this news archive do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of Ahmadiyya Times.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for your comments. Any comments irrelevant to the post's subject matter, containing abuses, and/or vulgar language will not be approved.