Clergymen vow to address 'moral crisis'

A'an Suryana, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Top religious leaders vowed on Wednesday to work together to lift the country from what they consider the prevailing "moral crisis".

Emerging from a two-hour closed-door meeting, the chairman of the 40-million-strong Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama, Hasyim Muzadi said that they would set up a working committee to address the "acute moral illnesses afflicting society".

"We shared our concerns in the meeting and agreed that the nation is heading for all-out moral destruction," he said, about the meeting attended by representatives of various religions.

"We are sitting together here to convey our commitment that we need to do something for our country," Hasyim said, in a brief media conference at NU headquarters in Central Jakarta.

The leaders, he said, had agreed to form working committees to carry out "real and concrete" steps to dampen the moral crisis.

Muhammadiyah and NU had together assigned six figures -- three from each organization -- to follow up the establishment of the committees.

The two Islamic organizations have a combined membership of some 70 million.

Indonesia has been reeling under an economic crisis for four years with mounting separatist movements in Aceh and Papua and conflicts between Christians and Muslims in Poso and Maluku.

Hasyim said the movement should take a more hands-on approach rather than simply intellectual discourse.

Hasyim said the meeting was a follow-up of the Jan. 2 landmark meeting by the country's two largest Islamic organizations.

In the meeting, both Muhammadiyah and NU -- which often differ in their opinions regarding religious and social affairs -- reached an agreement on two issues.

The first was that they would unite to solve the country's pressing problems and second they would cooperate to promote a true and moderate face of Islam.

"People warmly welcomed the last meeting," Hasyim said, "and there were suggestions later from several parties that the meeting should be followed by another meeting, which would include other religious leaders".

Prominent Muslim scholar Nurcholish Madjid told journalists after the conference that the committees would deal with real issues like how to deal with neglected children, how to raise nutrition for the poor and so forth.

The committees, he said, would later include individuals from other religions.

Nurcholish said he believed that concrete steps would bring real social and religious harmony to society.

"Issues like poverty or unemployment are a source of social chaos," said Nurcholish.

Elucidating what the leaders meant by moral crisis, he said that currently there were many people who claimed that "they had done right deeds, when in fact they had done bad deeds".

This, according to Nurcholish, had left the country "morally bankrupt".

Among the leaders present in the meeting were Syafi'i Ma'arif from Muhammadiyah, Julius Cardinal Darmaatmadja from the Indonesian Bishop Conference (KWI), Weinata Sairin and Andreas A. Yewangai from the Indonesian Communion of Churches (PGI), Hajriyanto H. Thohari from Muhammadiyah, Ketut Wirdhana representing Hindu believers, Haksu Tjhie Tjay Ing representing Confucianists (Konghucu).

Also present were Father Mudji Sutrisno, representing intellectuals and Djohan Effendi, representing the Indonesian Conference on Religion and Peace (ICRP).

Roeslan Abdul Gani, a veteran freedom fighter and nationalist, hailed the meeting and urged all members of society to support what he called "non-violent moral rearmament".

"Nationalists and religious followers should work together to resolve the moral crisis through moral rearmament," he said, adding that this would help solve the nation's ongoing multidimensional crisis.

Yewangai said that it was important to revive high moral standards, which would ease the crisis.

"The moral crisis not only harms individuals, it harms the whole of society," he added.