Empowering the moderates, pluralists

Empowering the moderates, pluralists

Bondan Winarno, Jakarta

Peaceful communities and religious tolerance will be the focus
of a dialog on interfaith cooperation themed Community Building
and Harmony to be held from Dec. 6 to Dec. 7 in Yogyakarta.

In a recent speech welcoming the end of the holy fasting month
of Ramadan, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said: "We would
truly feel sad if world opinion, deliberately or not, aimed to
put Muslims in a corner as identical with violence and
terrorism."

Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, has been
a victim of terrorism.

"Certainly, Muslims will reject being regarded as the
masterminds of terrorism in this world," said Susilo, who took
office last month, vowing to fight such violence.

Over the past two years, Indonesia has been hit by three major
bombings that authorities blame on the Jamaah Islamiyah regional
fundamental Islamic network. The most serious attack killed 202
people in October 2002 on the resort island of Bali. An attack on
the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta last year killed 12, while the
most recent attack in September killed 11 people outside the
Australian Embassy, also in the capital.

The idea for the dialog was first aired by Minister of Foreign
Affairs Hassan Wirayuda at the 2003 APEC Summit in Bangkok, and
reiterated in July during the ASEAN Regional Forum in Jakarta.
The idea gained the support of Australian Foreign Minister
Alexander Downer, who agreed to co-sponsor the event.

The successful staging in February of the International
Conference of Islamic Scholars here -- organized jointly by the
country's largest Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama, and the
foreign ministry -- must have set a good precedent that resulted
in Indonesia's winning the wholehearted support of its Australian
counterpart.

In his APEC speech last year, Wirayuda floated an argument
that the discussion on curbing terrorism must not stop within the
bounds of theology, but must also cover economics.

"Poverty is one of the root causes of terrorism," he said,
implying that Muslims faced an ideological conflict between
fighting injustice and oppression, and promoting and preserving
life.

He is not too far off the mark here.

It is no coincidence that Messrs. Amrozi and Imam Samudra, two
of the convicted Bali bombers, both come from underprivileged
families. On the other hand, almost all moderate Muslim leaders
in Indonesia have evidently pursued graduate studies in Western
countries.

The empowerment of moderate Muslims must therefore be promoted
further. In this imminent dialog, Indonesia must take the lead in
soliciting the support of developed countries to assist Muslims
in developing countries with livelihood programs, such as
education and small and medium enterprise (SME) training. The
program to achieve this does not need to be reinvented, either.
The much neglected -- if not forgotten -- Agenda 21, for
instance, is an obvious choice among several others.

President Susilo also said Islam taught peace and justice: "We
are prohibited from committing violence and arbitrary acts."

The Koran, like other sacrosanct religious tomes, teaches
mankind to be compassionate, not aggressive. It is unfair to
focus on those sections of the Koran that speak of holy war,
because they constitute only a minor part of the religious text.

Unfortunately, many fundamentalist leaders deliberately use
this highly sensitive subject -- spiked with sermons covering
disparities and injustices. In the process, they steer their
followers away from the religion's principle tenet of tolerance. One
moderate Indonesian Muslim leader, not long after President
George W. Bush was reelected, said on a personal occasion: "It
will be difficult for the war against terrorism to succeed if the
U.S. continues with their current strategy. The Muslims will have
no choice but to continue to be defensive, because in their eyes
the U.S. sustains what they call 'terrorism by the state' to
disguise what they call the 'war on terror'."

Thus far, the nonviolence dictated by religion has been mere
theory, for Muslims and Christians alike. Both religions -- and
all religions, for that matter -- need to put it into action.

Next month's interfaith dialog in Yogyakarta must also focus
on the similarities that exist among all religions and faiths,
not on their differences. Greater likenesses prevail between
Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism and Hinduism than
discrepancies.

The delegations of religious leaders from participating
countries -- Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia,
Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the
Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor Leste and Vietnam -- that
congregate at the dialog must discuss the universal values of
humanity they all share.

Nuts and bolts may be different, but they become an
indispensable tool only when assembled.

Living together in diversity is indeed a challenge. However,
through a constructive, interfaith dialog, the spiritual beliefs
of each individual can be heard and accepted in an atmosphere
free of dogmatism, discrimination, fear and hate.

Peace can be achieved through listening to each other with
love, tolerance, compassion and mercy. Surely, this is not an
impossible goal.

-- The writer is a Jakarta-based columnist.