Progress but no end to holy wars

Progress but no end to holy wars

By Amir Sidharta

JAKARTA (JP): The coming of the third millennium was
appropriately celebrated as a global phenomenon. Starting with
the Chatnam Islands and Kiribati, moving westward at an hourly
rate, passing Japan, China, Indonesia, India, Egypt, Paris, the
United States and finally, Samoa.

As we celebrated, occasionally watching CNN's live coverage,
we reflected on the past century, and the past millennium. What
was the second millennium to us? It was certainly a millennium of
knowledge, marked initially by the Renaissance. This cultural
movement, which started in Italy and influenced much of Western
Europe, found its basis on science, and led to many advances in
scientific knowledge. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Copernicus
found that the universe was heliocentric rather than geocentric;
Galileo discovered the laws of falling bodies from the leaning
Tower of Pisa; and Newton formulated the laws of motion and
gravity.

Technological progress could be seen as a result of the
advances in scientific knowledge, and in the 19th century, Europe
enjoyed the Industrial Revolution. In the 20th century,
Einstein's theory of relativity advanced science significantly.

It was also a millennium of exploration. In the 13th century,
the Viennese Marco Polo visited China. Almost 150 years later,
the Chinese Admiral Zheng He marked his presence and dominance
over the seas between Asia and Africa through seven voyages.
After having sailed westward instead of eastward from Spain,
Columbus reached the West Indies in 1492. Many great voyages
around the globe happened thereafter.

On the other hand, the second millennium was also a millennium
of conquests.

Starting with William the Conquer's conquest over England in
1066; Genghis Khan's campaign over Asia about 1200; the Ottoman
invasion of the Balkans in the 14th century, and its capture of
Constantinople in 1453; the Aztec and Inca invasions in the
Americas in the 15th century; and finally, the European
colonization of Asia starting in the 16th and 17th centuries.

It was a millennium plagued with war. Of course, the invasions
and conquests mentioned above all involved wars. In the last
century alone, the world had experienced two world wars, and many
others. While we can still feel the aftermath of the Vietnam war,
the wars in Bosnia have not completely ended, and as we
celebrated New Year's Eve, Chechnya was still being raided.

Closer to home, a few days before New Year's Eve we heard of
fresh clashes in Ambon. This civil war in the Maluku islands
leads us to reflect how significant the war of the Crusades is to
this millennium.

Comparatively speaking, the struggle between communism and
capitalism which affected the world so much this century, and
also effected politics in Indonesia, is much less significant.
The communist-capitalist struggle lasted for a little over 150
years, ending with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the
disintegration of the Soviet Union.

Started in 1095, the Crusades was a "holy war" in which
Christians from Western Europe fought to retrieve their holy land
from the Muslims. The struggle between Christians and Muslims
continued for another 400 years. The Crusades ended by the end of
the 13th century, and finally the Ottoman Empire seized
Constantinople from the Christians in 1453.

However, after the declaration of the independent state of
Israel in 1948, following the partitioning of Palestine between
Arabs and Jews, religious conflict once again surfaced as a
global issue. Every decade, wars erupted in the region, and even
today the conflict has not died down entirely. Yasser Arafat
vowed to declare the independent state of Palestine in 2000.

While it is an avenue to peace in the region, at the same time
it may also become another trigger for war. Serious effort on the
part of Israel and Palestine will be necessary to foster peace
between the two countries.

The crumbling of Yugoslavia and the wars in Bosnia alerted
Indonesians that following Soeharto's strong rule over the
country there would most likely be similar disintegration. Sure
enough, like Bosnia, it was ethno-religious conflict between the
Christians and the Muslims that sparked unrest in Ambon. Once
boasted as the most tranquil places on the planet (Sarah Ferguson
retreated to the province following her separation from Britain's
Prince Andrew a few years ago), and where religious harmony was
to be a model for the rest of Indonesia, now the Malukus has
become shattered with religious warring.

In radio coverage just before New Year's Eve, a Halmahera
resident connected via telephone with the station was asked what
it would take to end the violence there. He answered: "Only if
either one of the parties involved, whether it be the Christians
or the Muslims, are finished, will it all end."

What sparked Ambon? Perhaps, most significantly, it was the
conflict in Ketapang, Jakarta, in November 1998. There were
rumors of a group of Christian Ambonese youths who intended to
destroy a mosque. Hearing this, Muslim youths killed the men they
suspected and vivid photographs of this incident appeared in the
Dec. 8, 1999, issue of Time, and later the Ketapang Church was
burned.

In an interview with CNBC in early 1999, in which he was asked
to comment about the amount of churches burned during his term,
the then president B.J. Habibie turned to the interviewer to ask
how many mosques where destroyed before his rule. Hopefully, now
Habibie understands that is not the point. One mosque, or one
church, destroyed or burned, is one mosque or church too many.

What can be done about restoring peace between Christians and
Muslims? That is the point, and that should be our agenda for
this third millennium. Hopefully, it does not have to take one
entire millennium to accomplish this; the sooner, the better. Let
us hope that the end of the second millennium also signifies the
end of religious conflicts around the globe.

The writer is a museum specialist and freelance writer.