The Jakarta Post

Indonesians are becoming more religious and, at the same time, intolerant of different religious identities, which threatens the basic foundation of pluralism in Indonesia, an international seminar in Jakarta concluded.

“No country is free from religious intolerance. It is the collective responsibility of both government and society to ensure that religious intolerance is roundly rejected,” Canadian Ambassador to Indonesia Mackenzie Clugston said in his welcoming remarks at the international conference on the “Religion in Public Spaces in Contemporary Southeast Asia” on Tuesday.

The two-day conference was organized by the Embassy of Canada and the State Islamic University (UIN) Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta to celebrate 60 years of Canadian-Indonesian diplomatic relations and 35 years of the Canada-ASEAN relationship.

Thanks to the Islamic revivalism trend worldwide in general and in Southeast Asia in particular, religion has become an important element in public spaces in recent decades. Read more