Flaws in understanding role of religion in Pancasila?

By J. Soedjati Djiwandono

JAKARTA (JP): Recent events show certain fundamental flaws in understanding religion as related to Pancasila. Unless corrected once and for all, these flaws may seriously alter the future of the nation.

One flaw concerns the position of religion in the Pancasila state. Many people tend to be ambivalent as to whether Indonesia is a secular or a religious state. The most common answer is that it is neither. It seems typically Indonesian to come up with a "neither this nor that" answer to questions of definition or conceptualization. This, I think, is a characteristic that Dr. William Liddle has aptly called "inbetweenness and incompleteness".

It is a well accepted and established in the Pancasila state, as clearly stipulated in the Constitution, that every citizen has the right to religious freedom. Yet there seems to be an unwritten law that every citizen must profess a religion. This conviction must be seriously challenged. The Marriage Law orders, for example, that one must marry in accordance with one's religion. This implies that one without a religion cannot get married in this country. Worse still, one must profess only one of the five officially recognized religions.

Religious freedom surely implies the right to choose, not only which religion one wishes to have but also to change religions at any time and for any reason whatsoever. Whether or not one really believes in what one claims to believe, heaven knows. Besides, who cares? One is free to believe or not to believe anything, insofar as one does not encroach on the rights of other people or disturb public order; for which the institution of state has been designed and created.

Equally important is that religious freedom also entails the right to choose whether or not one wishes to embrace a religion at all. To enforce religious adherence is to cultivate hypocrisy. In fact, to enforce religion is as morally wrong as to ban it. They are two sides of the same coin.

Religion does not require official recognition by the state. If the state has the right to recognize a religion, it also has the right to ban it. This is simple logic. Human rights are God- given, no power on earth can deprive anyone of those rights.

Moreover, what is the basis for recognition? If it is based on the first principle of Pancasila, why then is the Judaism, the oldest monotheist religion, not recognized?

The state has no right, competence, power or obligation to grant official recognition to any religion. Nor does the state have the right to determine whether or not a form of worship is a religion. By the same token, the state, or any institution for that matter, cannot arrogate the right to judge if any religious movement deviates from the mainstream. It would be pretentious to claim a monopoly over divine Truth. If the state intervenes at all, it must be based on evidence of criminal acts, not because of what it regards as "religious deviations".

Another fundamental flaw concerns Pancasila as an open ideology. Contrasted with closed ideologies like Communism or Nazism, Pancasila has no direct operational value by which to judge a person's behavior. Any form of indoctrination, which characterizes a closed ideology, is therefore irrelevant.

Pancasila is the source of state laws. It has been called the "source of all sources." Thus, Pancasila is to be implemented through the enactment and enforcement of laws. Therefore, unless a person is proved guilty of violating any law of the state, they do not violate Pancasila.

One serious problem is that there is no judicial review system to judge whether or not a law is correctly based on Pancasila or the 1945 Constitution that embodies it. If it is not, the law must be declared unconstitutional.

The writer is a member of board of directors at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.