Don't politicize religions, says Gen. Feisal

JAKARTA (JP): Armed Forces (ABRI) Chief Gen. Feisal Tanjung warned social groups yesterday against politicizing religions, citing the risk of national disunity.

"The ethics and morality taught by religions should become the foundation for political activities (whereas) politicizing religions, where a religion is used to merely legitimize, is inappropriate," Feisal said in an address when he inaugurated the postgraduate school of Islamic studies at Muhammadiyah University in Cirendeu, South Jakarta.

In a paper titled "the role of religious groups in building national resilience", Feisal described how religions could become either a uniting or a polarizing force.

"Religions can unite, but can also divide if people fail to understand them properly and responsibly," he was quoted by Antara as saying. He added that the country's diversity -- in ethnicity or language, for instance -- may add to the threat of national disintegration.

He cited an urgent "agenda" to be met if the nation is to maintain its unity, namely helping religious groups comprehend "religious ethics" and how to apply the ethics to preserve unity, and their role in national political order.

Feisal also declared ABRI's commitment to usher in greater openness. "It's regrettable, however, that at the same time we still have groups in the community who politicize the issue (of openness) and say that there's no democracy in Indonesia," he said.

"These groups talk a lot about democracy without really understanding what democracy is all about. The standards they use are those of liberal democracy, which are different from the democracy based on the state ideology Pancasila," he said.

Feisal did not specify any groups, but said that judging with the wrong set of standards would surely fail to help the people achieve "the goals of the nation".

Moslems account for 87 percent of the roughly 193 million population of Indonesia, which has more than 300 ethnic groups and almost 500 languages and dialects. Roman Catholics, Protestants, Buddhists and Hindus make up most of the remaining 13 percent.

Until very recent, ethnic and religious tension still occurred in the highly diverse regions, such as in densely populated Java. Indonesia handles social, ethnic, religious issues very carefully given their polarizing forces.

Time and again experts and community leaders take up the call against the politicization of religions. One of the most recent to take up the call was leader of the 30-million Nahdlatul Ulama Moslem organization, Abdurrahman Wahid.

Abdurrahman, who is also chairman of the World Conference on Religion and Peace, said that once religions are used for political interests, social conflicts are bound to occur.

"Religion can only bring peace to the people if it accepts plurality," he said in July.

A number of incidents arising from religious tension have occurred last year and earlier this year, including the attacks on a number of churches in some Moslem-predominant areas and the attacks on Moslems in Christian-predominant areas. Abdurrahman believed that they stemmed from some people's insistence that they be given special treatment and poor tolerance of plurality.

However, he also attributed the tension to economic, educational and sociocultural disparities. (swe)