Moslems view themselves as a 'minority': Scholar

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)