Religious-based groups should hold more dialogs
Religious-based groups should hold more dialogs
JAKARTA (JP): The Armed Forces (ABRI) has called on all five religious-based intellectual organizations to hold regular dialogs to strengthen the national culture.
Addressing a seminar jointly organized by the five groups, ABRI Chief of Sociopolitical Affairs Lt. Gen. M. Ma'ruf said members of these associations are in a position to promote the development of national culture, provided they can put aside their own religious attributes.
"Intellectuals and their organizations should articulate their social responsibility in a critical, creative and objective way, without being hampered by their own cultural attributes," Ma'ruf said, quoting Edward Shils in Encyclopedia of The Social Science.
The cultural attributes should be "neutralized" to allow these organizations to hold creative dialogs, he added.
The seminar on national culture, which was opened by President Soeharto on Friday, is jointly organized by the Association of Moslem Intellectuals (ICMI), the Association of Catholic Graduates, the Association of Christian Intelligentsia (PIKI), the Forum of Hindu Intellectuals and the Association of Buddhist Intellectuals.
The seminar at the Sunlake Hotel, which winds up today, look at the national cultures from various perspectives.
Ma'ruf, who provided the security perspective, said that the religious attributes used by these organizations could also become a source of division and conflict.
"If not neutralized, the cultural attributes can lead to disputes not only between intellectuals and their organizations, but also between the communities they represent," he said.
A number of politicians and analysts have warned that the growing influence of ICMI in the political arena could revive the highly divisive sectarian politics in Indonesia.
While not fully ascribing to this theory, Ma'ruf said that more dialogs among these religious-based intellectual organizations would promote greater tolerance among the various religious communities they represent.
"With and through such dialogs, the intellectual organizations can develop religious tolerance, solidarity and brotherhood among themselves and religious communities," he said.
For its part, ABRI is also prepared to hold periodic dialogs with the organizations, to discuss ways of enhancing national security and ways of solving various problems the nation is facing, he said during the questions and answers session.
"Our door is always open to your organizations. Let us hold constructive dialogs on various issues and problems the nation is facing," he said.
PIKI Chairman Cornelius Ronowidjojo, who also chaired the session, quickly hailed Ma'ruf's offer as the beginning of ABRI- civilian dialogs that had never taken place in the past.
"This is progress in the nation's history," Cornelis said.
Ma'ruf said Indonesia's cultural diversity could strengthen, or weaken the national culture, depending on how society, and particularly its intellectuals, treat the issue.
"The challenge for intellectuals is how to interpret heterogeneity into reality, so that it becomes a strength for the nation," he said.
He said Indonesia must learn lessons from Yugoslavia and the former Soviet Union, two nations that disintegrated along ethnical lines.
Indonesia, with approximately 350 ethnic and sub-ethnic groups and different religions is quite prone to disintegration, he added.(rms)