Tue, 01 Aug 1995

A lesson for Abdurrahman

As reported in The Jakarta Post July 28, 1995, Mr. Abdurrahman Wahid, the Chairman of the 30-million-strong Moslem Nahdlatul Ulama organization, was at his controversial best, again. He said that he saw nothing wrong with Indonesia welcoming Israel participation in the international archery championships currently being held in Jakarta, stressing that religious belief should not be mixed up with sporting events. He even guaranteed that Indonesian Moslems would not protest if Israel participated since Moslems have no religious edicts preventing Israelis from coming.

The guarantee itself proved to be hollow because many Moslem organizations expressed strong protests soon after Abdurrahman Wahid spoke. More seriously, however, like many of his ridiculous pronouncements in the past, he again badly missed the point. For his enlightenment, I must point out that many countries are strongly opposed to Israel not because the Israelis profess the Jewish religion, or Judaism, but because of their repugnant ideology of Zionism and its unacceptable political implications.

In other words, religion has nothing to do whatsoever with the ostracism of Israel. But Israeli persecution and oppression of the Palestinians does. In any event, can Abdurrahman Wahid explain how can we conduct normal international intercourse with Israel or invite its citizens to play sports in this country while they continue to steal the lands which for hundreds of years belonged to the Arabs?

For Abdurrahman Wahid's further information, political considerations have been frequently used in the past to prohibit certain countries taking part in international sport events. For example, at the 1976 Montreal Olympics the Canadian Government refused visas to representatives of Taiwan because they were unwilling to forgo the title of the Republic of China, not because they were followers of Buddhism or Confucianism.

Four years later, many countries boycotted the Moscow Olympics purely in protest against the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. And at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, the United Nations banned Serbia and Montenegro (or rump Yugoslavia) from taking part, not because the Serbian Serbs were practicing Orthodox Christianity but because they were assisting the Bosnian Serbs in carrying out genocide and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia.

The above example should serve as good lessons for Abdurrahman Wahid.

MASLI ARMAN

Jakarta