Education key to foster religious tolerance: Expert

M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

The close alignment between religion and politics has resulted in a decline in tolerance among the adherents of different religious over the past few years, aggravating the problems facing the country.

Franz Magnis Suseno, a professor of political ethics at the Driyarkara School of Philosophy, said on Thursday there had been a trend of turning religious teachings into rigid ideologies that deprived religions of their humanistic values.

"Among the indications of the ideologization of religion is the rise of fundamentalist groups ... which hold the view that minority groups have to bow down to the majority. The ability of people of different religious persuasions to live side by side has gone up in the air," Magnis told a seminar organized by Atmajaya Catholic University here.

The German-born scholar said that such notions were used to justify the use of extreme measures.

He said a dialog with the fundamentalists looked almost impossible due to their stubbornness in interpreting religious teachings.

"They (the fundamentalists) even close their doors to differences within their own groups," Magnis said.

Magnis said that this worrying tendency had disrupted the peaceful coexistence among religions that had been a feature of this country for centuries.

"Islam, for example, when it first arrived here blended nicely with local traditions. During the course of history, normal features of religion here have been tolerance and humanism. We can still see this legacy in Muslim organizations like Nahdlatul Ulama (NU)," he said.

Magnis said that intolerance was one of five problems that had aggravated the problems facing the country, besides violence, lack of discipline, mysticism and what he termed "instant" culture.

He said that amid the current dismal state of interfaith relations, education was the key to sowing the seeds of tolerance from the earliest stages.

"Education has to be developed so as to enable students to live in a pluralist society," he said.

Following the collapse of former president Soeharto's New Order regime, the country has witnessed a series of bloody clashes involving Christians and Muslims in Maluku and Poso in Central Sulawesi. Thousands of people were killed and hundreds of thousands of others displaced in the conflicts.

The religious and sectarian conflicts have given rise to antagonism and growing prejudice among people of different religious beliefs.

Muslim scholar Qomari Anwar, rector of the Jakarta-based Hamka University, said intolerance was a product of the narrow interpretation of religious creeds.

"There are people who only emphasize the ritual and formalistic aspects of religious teachings, overlooking the true substance that lies behind them," he said.

He said that the formalistic approach to religion resulted in low levels of social responsibility and the ignoring of others.

"They are only interested in personal piety and individual salvation. A person can pray five times a day, but can still have a black heart," he said.