Our freedom of religion

Benny Susetyo , Jakarta

An interesting issue that should warrant our curiosity in relation to the new government is its view on religion and the problems inherent in it. In this context, many of us are waiting to see what policies the new religious affairs minister will take to ensure the protection of religious plurality in Indonesia.

Our experiences show that in this regard, these policies must at least be focused on a fundamental matter, namely, the realization of religious practices with a dimension of plurality within the framework of a unitary state.

It must be borne in mind that our national unity will survive if religion becomes a spiritual inspiration, not simply an aspiration. When religion becomes an inspiration, it will appreciate collective devoutness, not merely individual devoutness. In this perspective, those professing a different faith will be viewed as relatives and friends, not foes.

When religion becomes an aspiration, it will tend to view everything outside its own group as its foes. Friendship will be made only for formality's sake and will never be deeply rooted in everyone's mind. As a result, religion has frequently been turned into an issue used to despise other groups. Plurality is hardly appreciated when religion is viewed only as an aspiration that one must fight for. When it is construed as an aspiration, religion will be dragged into the political domain and agenda.

It is in this context that the policies of the Ministry of Religious Affairs should be focused on how to strengthen religious plurality in Indonesia. It must, at least, be increasingly stressed that the orientation of the religious affairs ministry is to serve as a communication link for various religious institutions. This means that the government assigns itself the job of mediator for existing religious institutions and will not intervene in these institutions. In the future, therefore, the ministry must focus itself more on drawing up policies that will make religious followers more mature and prevent them from taking the law into their own hands or demonstrating an arrogant and overbearing attitude.

It is only to be expected that the ministry should be able to foster the values of humanity, unity and justice. Religious followers must make these values their common reference in establishing a new world order. Only when the government ensures that its policies are nondiscriminatory can this new world order come into being.

It follows, then, that the central role that the ministry can play will be to encourage Indonesians to better understand their religions authentically. For this purpose, the ministry must be able to take a neutral stance and stay away from religious differences.

The differences that are found in society must be well managed by developing multicultural education. The idea is that the ministry must start changing its paradigm as "a regulator of religions" into that of a "religious communicator."

In carrying out all these tasks, some things must be looked into.

First, the ministry should serve the public. In this sense, this ministry must be able to take care of public interests, not just the interests of a particular religion or group. Public interests concern the right to perform a religious service and profess one's faith. If problems arise that will disrupt interfaith relations, the ministry must serve as the mediator for the conflicting parties and must never come in defense of a particular group.

Second, it is necessary for the ministry to stay away from any particular political interests. The policies that this ministry draws up must reflect the notion of "unity in diversity".

Third, it is expected that the ministry can develop communication with other religious institutions in Indonesia. Continuous communication will be very helpful to build mutual trust in religious practices in Indonesia.

Fourth, it is also expected that the religious affairs ministry can develop multicultural education in various studies about the practice of plurality in Indonesia. This is a very clear task indeed because a religious education that respects plurality must be oriented toward the value of togetherness as a nation.

Fifth, it is expected that the religious affairs ministry must adopt a more transparent attitude in issuing various policies concerned with the lives of religious followers. It is now the time to replace exclusiveness and "hide-and-seek" practices with transparency, tolerance, honesty and justice. It is obvious that every policy that the religious affairs ministry draws up should be known by the people as a whole and should involve them. Otherwise, the impact that these policies will exert will always be worse than expected and will always be detrimental to a particular group.

Finally it is expected that we should not be trapped in individual cases but should be concerned with the substance of these case, which is none other than how we translate Pancasila into reality consistently, with a particular emphasis on the value of the principle of "Belief in One Supreme God", as a reference in our endeavor to inculcate the values of humanity and justice on our minds.

Once again, religion should never be used as a means to accommodate our aspirations. Instead, it is a means for spiritual inspiration in building solidarity and humanity. It is this authentic religious orientation that must serve as a foundation on which our religiosity will be put in order.

The writer is executive secretary of Interfaith and Belief Commission of the Indonesian Conference of Bishops (KWI).