Education 'needs to promote pluralism'

M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Arguing that the New Order's legacy of intolerance is still prevalent, an expert has suggested that it is high time for the government to design new curricula that will promote pluralism among students.

Sociologist Melanie Budianta said on Friday that as a result of more than 30 years of the "selective pluralism" promoted by the New Order, which only recognized certain groups in society, educational institutions had been turned into vehicles for suppressing differences in society.

The professor at the University of Indonesia said that among the first things that needed to be done to overcome this legacy was to draw up pluralist curricula

"Rewrite Indonesian history to allow more room for acknowledging the contributions made by groups that have been marginalized in cultural memory or written history," Melanie told a two-day seminar jointly organized by the International Center for Islam and Pluralism (ICIP) and the European Union (EU).

Melanie said that history also needed to be rewritten from the points of view of those who had fallen victim to religious or ethnic conflicts.

She also said that in the midst of differences between students, a new type of education was needed to facilitate personal and cross-cultural experiences.

However, the government also had to improve the quality of the teachers who would be tasked with relaying messages of multiculturalism. "Even if books on multiculturalism are produced, who can teach and use them? Our teachers still need to free themselves from prejudices," she said.

In a country of around 300 ethnic groups and many religions, the regime of former President Soeharto formally acknowledged diversity, but excluded a number of groups and disowned a number of religious beliefs adhered to by many in the community.

The government also dissuaded people from talking about intercommunal differences (known by an Indonesian acronym as "SARA", or ethnicity, religion, race and class), fearing that these could spark conflicts.

Since the fall of Soeharto and the loosening of his regime's grip on society, a series of communal clashes have shaken the country.

Melanie also said that the media could play a role in dismantling cultural biases and intergroup prejudices.

The Jakarta Post's chief editor Endy M. Bayuni said the media could teach the public about how people of different religious beliefs and from different ethnic groups could co-exist in peace.

The media, however, could also aggravate conflict, said the head of Kompas daily's research and development department, Daniel Dhakidae.

"There were two different newspapers owned by the same group that were targeted at the two conflicting communities in Maluku, and both tended to exacerbate the conflict between the two communities," he said.

Daniel also said that the need to always seek news and promote novelty had often led the media to sideline the issue of multiculturalism.