Celebrating Ramadhan and Xmas with religious tolerance

Celebrating Ramadhan and Xmas with religious tolerance

Mochtar Buchori, Educator, Legislator, Jakarta

Do Muslims resent Christians in Indonesia? And conversely, do
Christians hate Muslims in Indonesia? On the surface at times it
is the way it looks like, but I do not think this feeling of
mutual enmity permeates throughout all layers of Islamic and
Christian communities in the country.

I do not know precisely how the situation is among Christians,
but I know that among Indonesian Muslims there are those who can
get along, and even become friends, with Christians, beside those
who hate them.

In the eyes of the tolerant Muslims, Christians are fellow
Indonesians, fellow human beings, who happen to have a different
belief system. In their view, attitudes towards followers of
other religions should not be based upon the "otherness" of their
religion, but upon their religiosity and their "character"; upon
the extent to which they consistently observe the values
prescribed by their religion and by society.

A real "good" Christian will, in their view, exhibit a
character, a personality that is very much similar to that of a
really "good" Muslim.

The attitudes of Muslims in Indonesia towards Christians
covers a broad spectrum, ranging all the way from feelings of
enmity or hostility to feelings of amity or friendship. Between
hatred at the one end of the spectrum and friendship at the
other, there are innumerable nuances in the middle.

The general rule in this regard is that whenever a group of
Muslims view Christians as a group of a faceless crowd, the
sentiment that usually arises is that of encountering an unknown
social entity, toward which they cannot foster any feeling of
sympathy.

This kind of mindset can easily develop into a feeling of
animosity. I know of persons who disliked Christians and
Christianity so much that they refused to use words whenever they
wanted to refer to Christians as a whole. They just made a cross
sign, using their right and left forefingers.

Could you imagine what might happen if these persons meet
their "counterparts" from the Christian side, especially when
such persons happen to have followers who harbor similar rancor?

This is an important question, because, according to my
Christian friends, there are also militant zealots within
Christian communities who are always ready to be parts of a
violent mob.

What makes tolerant Muslims abandon their animosity against
Christians? It is when Muslims begin to perceive Christians as
individuals, as human personalities. When you reach this stage of
humanity, the feeling of facing an unknown social entity in the
face of a group of Christians vanishes, and its place emerges the
feeling of facing real individuals, real human beings, who are
endowed with positive and negative traits, showing pleasant and
less pleasant characteristics.

A case in point was the late Romo J.B. Mangunwijaya, a
Catholic priest, architect, novelist, and an ardent defendant of
marginalized people. Indonesian Muslims who knew him, myself
included, respect him. No one among us hated him. What we saw --
and still see -- in him was first and foremost a great humanist.

We, his Muslim friends, either overlooked or ignored the fact
that he was a Catholic priest. In a Catholic church in
Yogyakarta, when a requiem mass was held to honor him, many
Muslims, friends and admirers of the late priest, attended the
service to show their reverence for him.

At the end of this Catholic service, this group of Muslim
friends chanted in unison the Islamic verse, "Allaah hu Akbar!
Inna lillaah wa innalillahi roji'un!" Great is Allah! From Allah
thy come, and to Allah thy shall return." At that moment the line
that divides Muslims and Christians vanished. What was hanging in
the air was a deep sense of grief, arising from the feeling that
a beloved friend had departed.

At this juncture of our history the question is how to
eradicate the feeling of mutual hostility and nurture feelings of
goodwill among members of these two major religious communities?
Failure to do this will certainly thrust this nation into an
endless chain of religious conflicts, which ultimately may cause
this country to collapse.

What do we have to do to make ourselves move from the present
chaotic condition into a more orderly and civilized life?
We will be able to chart the path toward this goal only if we
understand the origin of animosity, both among Muslims and among
Christians.

I often ask myself, "Where do the seeds of this hatred come
from among Muslims? Does Islamic education consciously purport to
make young Muslims hate Christians?" I do not accept, and refuse
to accept the assertion implied in this last question. But
somehow this impression persists in my mind.

In my case, I was never told to hate Christians. Yet there was
a time in my life when I felt uneasy, inferior and a little bit
jealous towards Christians.

In hindsight, I think it was the oft-repeated message that
Islam is the only right religion -- meaning that other religions
are less right -- that might be the origin of my negative
feelings in the past towards Christians and Christianity. This
was reinforced by my social experiences during the Dutch colonial
time, and at the end my aversion toward Christians and
Christianity was shaped.

For five years I harbored the feeling that Indonesian Muslims
were treated less favorably by the Netherlands Indies colonial
administration. Everything in my personal life stressed my
inferior status. My school, of the Muhammadiyah organization, was
housed in a shabby rented building, situated next to a Catholic
church that looked very mighty in my eyes.

The words Soli Deo Gloria were written with protruded letters
above the main gate in an arch form. They are still there today.
This church was located on a high ground, while my school's
location was at a lower level on the verge of a river.

Every Sunday I felt the pains of being a member of a
politically discriminated against group. When I went to school on
Sundays -- Muhammadiyah schools were open on Sundays and closed
on Fridays, I would see people visiting the church for morning
masses, all well dressed. And on my way to my school I had to
pass a Christian school that was equally close to the same river
near my school, but located in a two-story long building with its
name Hollands Inlandse School Met De Bijbel, written with big
letters across the long wall of the upper floor.

This kind of daily experience led to a feeling of inferiority.
I felt inferior towards my friends who studied at Christian
schools. I had the feeling that they received better instruction
than I did. One day, when a Catholic friend and I walked and
played in a field outside our village, he took a flower and
explained to me the anatomy of that flower, explaining the
function of each part. I felt so dumb, because we were formally
at the same grade level, but enrolled in two different schools.

It took quite a long time for me to overcome these feelings.
It was my social experiences in my village community and later in
a multi-religious boarding school that softened and finally
erased my negative feelings toward Christians.

One of my teachers in the village was a Catholic, and he was a
good teacher. My father, known by the population in the entire
sub-district as the kyai or religious teacher of the area, got
along very well with this Catholic teacher of mine.

It was my father who repeatedly told me to be tolerant,
religious and otherwise. He often quoted one quote from the
Prophet's saying or the hadits, "Don't look at who is saying
what, but listen to what is being said".

This instruction to be tolerant was later repeatedly
reinforced in my boarding school. It was there that I learned to
respect and to live harmoniously with friends from other
religions.

Can we create, in this pluralistic society of ours,
opportunities for learning to know each other, for learning to
conquer our rancor, and for learning the art of living together
peacefully and harmoniously?

May this holy month of Ramadhan and the spirit of the coming
Christmas light the fire of tolerance in the hearts of our
political leaders, so that they will be able to lead the people
towards religious reconciliation that will ensure the survival of
this nation. Amien!