Source: globalindonesianvoices.com | By: Global Indonesian Voices
Photo source: Kompas.com
GIVnews.com – Indonesia, a spectacular archipelago of over 13,000 islands, is a country that boasts a vast religious landscape, defined by its blasphemy law that provides equal official recognition, status and protection to six religions: Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Confucianism.
Although the country is often hailed as the ‘model of tolerance’ and praised for its protection of minorities, the growing rise of the Islamic State in the country belies that reputation. While the government and the Muslim community have openly denounced such action, it seems that there is still a discrepancy between what the Indonesian government preaches and what it practices.
Moreover, Indonesia seems to have opened a brand new chapter of sectarian violence. The world’s most populous Muslim country has long since struggled with terrorism and if the past decade is anything to go by, it has seemingly failed in putting a stop to the acts of blatant sectarian discrimination and violence. Now, as Indonesia recently made the transition from a military-entrenched government to a more democratic one led by Joko Widodo, the key challenge that the new president will face is how to recognize the impact of years of unprotected religious interests.
The former President Yudhoyono recently broke his silence on religious extremism only seems to accentuate and bring attention to his inadequacy in addressing this grave issue. Over the years, incidences of aggression and violence have largely gone ignored and unreported with only a rare few being highlighted and taken note of.
The prevalence of sectarian discrimination against religious minorities like the Christians or Hindus, as well as acts of violence against Muslim minorities like the Shiaites and the Ahmadies, and the lack of response from the government has seriously shaken their standing in the region and worldwide. The 16-foot white statue of Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of knowledge, which was erected on Washington’s Embassy Row and flaunted as a symbol of religious harmony by the Indonesian Ambassador, has now become a symbol of Indonesian hypocrisy. In the wake of the US State Department’s 2013 report on International Religious Freedom that calls out the Indonesian government on their disregard for the alarming issue of protection of the rights of religious minorities, Indonesian policies have now become a mockery.
The inter- and intra-sectarian violence in Indonesia has taken many forms over the years with Sunni vs. Ahmadi and Muslim vs. Christian at an all time high. These displays of violent discrimination have claimed many lives. Such dreadful loss of human life and the government’s blatant disregard for its consequences is nothing short of a tragedy.
Incidences of willful negligence by the law enforcers, which undermine the religious freedom of the minorities, are highly disappointing. There are plenty heartbreakingly disappointing examples of Yudhoyono’s inadequacy as a president in protecting the rights of his people
In February 2011, 21 Ahmadis were attacked by a mob of close to a 1500 people and three were killed while the law enforcement agencies stood helplessly, followed by the burning of two Christian churches, all within the same week.
In 2012, more than a thousand Sunni Islamist militants attacked a village of minority Shia Muslim community in Sampang regency in Madura Island, burning close to 50 homes.
In August 2013, a bomb exploded inside a Buddhist temple in downtown Jakarta.
The current year of 2014 has not been free from sectarian violence either. This past month has witnessed flashes of homes set ablaze and people killed in Ambon, the capital city Maluku province. In what people fear to be a flashback of the violence that has long since divided Protestant Christians and Muslims that caused hundreds of deaths in 2002, this display of bigotry could possibly mark the end of the peace treaty signed by two parties to control the violence.
Up until recently Yudhoyono has been known to grossly downplay the severity of past situations of sectarian discrimination with statements from his spokesperson dismissing Human Rights Reports as “naive”. His roundabout statement in an interview on August 21st of this year citing violent religious extremism as “shocking” is a welcome change but still much too little, too late.
If one looks at it objectively, it would seem the president is trying to wash his hands from the toxicity of his bequest of religious intolerance just before he stepped down. Here is hoping that under the guidance and the watchful eye of the new President Jokowi, Indonesia will fare better in tackling sectarian differences and curbing these shameful acts of inhumanity.
