Personal journey towards religious tolerance

By Mochtar Buchori

JAKARTA (JP): Christmas, 1943.

It was for the first time in my life that I attended a Christmas ceremony. It was not mass, just a celebration. This festivity was organized by Christian and Catholic students. Preparation for this festivity was done under the guidance of two teachers, one Catholic, and one Moslem. I was involved in the preparation of the event. I was a member of the work group preparing the stage and my particular assignment was helping our teacher assemble the lighting system.

I was then a student at a boarding school for teachers' training. Students of this school were originally enrolled at three different schools: Muhammadiyah, Catholic, and Protestant. The Japanese occupation brought us together into this one school, after our original schools were deemed closed.

I still remember accurately how I felt that evening. It was not an ordinary feeling, but a feeling that just would not come from ordinary life situations. There was a religious atmosphere in the air. I enjoyed the choir immensely. I was more or less familiar with the characters and the story enacted in the play, but somehow it contained new elements and a new message for me.

I come from a very strict Moslem family, and was brought up in a very orthodox way. I was never told by my parents or any other member of my extended family how I should interact with people from other religions. Before coming to this school, I had a strong feeling of inferiority and equally strong prejudices towards Christians. In my family Christians were considered "outsiders", who enjoyed special privileges from the colonial government.

It was in this inter-religious all male boarding school that my feelings about religion and religious life slowly changed. I enrolled into this school in January, 1943. Every day, at meal times, we were all required to be silent for a few minutes, while my Christian friends said their prayers. I became good friends with one Catholic boy, and he told me what was said for every type of prayer. From other Catholic friends I learned how they were educated at their previous schools. Very slowly these Christian boys became ordinary people to me. Their strangeness disappeared gradually. And with it my feeling of inferiority and reservation towards them also gradually vanished.

Christmas 1947.

It was a time of revolution. Differences in religion did not matter very much. Moslem, Catholic, Protestant, and Balinese republicans fought hand in hand against the Dutch. And collective narrow escapes from death bound us tightly together.

First experience

On Christmas night this year my Catholic friends took me to a midnight service at a cathedral. That was my first experience of being inside a church. I will never forget how I felt that night. There was a real pipe organ, beautifully played. By this time my understanding and appreciation of "classical music" had sufficiently matured. Again, I enjoyed the boys' choir tremendously. To me, that night, they sounded like angles' voices from heaven.

After mass was over, everybody congratulated everybody else. Everybody said "Merry Christmas". I did the same. I shook hands with people I did not know, and said "Merry Christmas". Somehow it did not feel strange that I, a Moslem, did these things. I did not feel that I transgressed any rule of my religion, Islam. I never told my father about this event. I did not want to hurt his feelings. He was aware of my love of music, and he also knew I would go anywhere to satisfy my thirst for musical enjoyment.

Christmas 1956.

I was at a midwestern university in the U.S., writing my master's thesis. An American friend invited me to celebrate Christmas with his family. I was very touched, and very grateful.

We went to his family home, and together we went to Christmas mass. It was a Presbyterian church, if I remember correctly. It was a very solemn ceremony. Again, the boys' choir was beautiful. My American friend stood next to me, and shared his book of Christmas carols with me. By then my enjoyment of Christmas songs was genuine.

I asked myself: Am I not making a mistake? I, a Moslem, being in a church, and singing Christmas carols? I knew I wouldn't do these things back home. It would be improper. But I was at peace with my conscience. I felt religious feelings to be universal in character. I felt that my religious feelings which originated from Islamic teachings could also accept religious expressions generated by Christian civilization. I felt that I had become a different person, and that I would have difficulties in my interactions with fellow Moslems on the campus who came primarily from Iran -- Shah Pahlevi's Iran, that was, -- Afghanistan, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, and Sudan.

Christmas 1994.

It was Sunday. I turned on my television, and tuned to CFI. It was a live broadcast of a Christmas service in a Paris Cathedral. Everything was in French. I switched to RCTI, and found a live broadcast of a Christmas service from the Vatican, led by the Pope himself. The choir was from Warsaw, and there were comments/explanations in English and Indonesian. I followed the whole ceremony. I was carried away by the whole religious atmosphere. The choir, the organ; the whole ceremony touched my deepest emotions, and tears flowed down my face.

Again I asked myself: Am I not making a mistake? I probed deep into my conscience. I feel that my feelings in this regard are the product of my cultural journey. I feel fortunate that I had the opportunity to make this long cultural journey, and ended up being what I am now.

Oh, God, show me the Way, and protect me from wandering aimlessly in this life!

The writer is rector of the IKIP-Muhammadiyah Teachers' Training Institute, Jakarta.