Moslems view themselves as a 'minority': Scholar

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesian Moslems see themselves as a minority group even though they make up the majority of the population, a speaker at a seminar said here yesterday.

"Non-Moslems stress statistics (when talking about their minority status), while Moslems stress economic and political power," said M. Thoyibi of the Surakarta-based Muhammadiyah University.

In looking at riots over the past 30 years involving Moslems and Christians, including cases in which only indigenous Indonesians were involved and cases in which indigenous Indonesians clashed with nonindigenous minorities, Thoyibi said he was convinced that economic disparity was the root problem.

"At the heart of these riots lies serious underlying factors that consistently come up, namely social jealousy resulting from economic disparity," he told a seminar titled Islam and the West: Minorities.

Most Moslems living in rural areas of Java and some other islands live in poverty, he said, and those who live in urban areas are often just as poor. These factors, combined with the fact that trustworthy leaders are in short supply, leave Moslems feeling frustrated and helpless, prompting them to identify themselves as a minority group, he said.

Some riots taking place over the last 30 years have nothing to do with majority-minority issues, he said.

"They reveal social jealousies wrapped in ethnic and religious prejudices resulting from economic disparity among different community groups," he told the seminar, which was jointly organized by Yayasan 2020, the Goethe Institute and Friedrich- Naumann Stiftung at the British Council's rooftop auditorium.

A participant from eastern Indonesia, which is predominantly Christian, offered a different view.

"In the eastern part of Indonesia, what religious group constitutes the minority?" asked Marianne Katoppo, who is from North Sulawesi, while noting an example from her hometown of Minahasa.

"We have Moslems who came from Java more than 150 years ago," she said referring to the supporters of national hero Prince Diponegoro who took refuge from the Dutch in the province. "They were dubbed the Jaton, for Jawa-Tondano, since they finally settled in Tondano (a region in North Sulawesi). These Jaton do not feel that they are a minority group," she said.

Thoyibi also said that Indonesian society was suffering from cultural alienation.

"Groups in society do not really know each other. The Javanese do not know much about the Chinese. The Christians do not know much about the Moslems. This cultural estrangement among societal groups brews prejudices," he said.

Other speakers in the two-day seminar included Dr. Friedemann Buttner of Berlin's Free University and Dr. Mely G. Tan of Jakarta's Atma Jaya University. Today's speakers will include Dr. Tan Sri Dato Seri Ahmad Sarji bin Abdul Hamid of the Institute of Islamic Understanding, Dr. Kate Zebiri of the University of London and Dr. Rizal G. Buendia of De La Salle University. (hbk)