Religiously based parties

Religiously based parties

I much appreciated Lance Castles' article Voting pattern may
change in your March 22 edition and was encouraged to learn that
the Netherlands is no longer a religiously polarized society.
However, I feel that Indonesia is sailing toward the stormy
waters of religious politics rather than away from them, and this
raises a number of concerns.

From a religious perspective, there is the danger that
religious symbols and ceremonies will be abused as tools of
personal ambition. From a political perspective, there are
several hazards for democracy.

One is the tendency of extremism. This can be seen in the
Hindu party of India, the Jewish parties of Israel and the
Christian fundamentalist lobby in the United States. Core values
like tolerance, compassion and self discipline are common to all
religions and most political parties. So parties seeking support
among devotees of only one religion tend to emphasize superficial
differences rather than shared foundations and pursue social and
cultural privileges for members of their particular religion.
Whether they exercise power as a majority party, a minority party
or merely as a pressure group, they encourage the idea that there
are first-class citizens and the rest, and this idea is inimical
to justice.

A second danger is to freedom of speech. Many religious people
do not respond to criticism with reason and argument. They prefer
to cry that their religion is being insulted. This hinders
rational discussion of any policies which are claimed to be
religiously motivated. In countries like Iran, any criticism of
the government's policy or its leaders can be dismissed or
suppressed as an attack on the national religious ideology, much
as criticism of Soeharto was twisted into an attack on Pancasila.

A third danger is that of sectarianism. This can undermine
democracy through instability and also through a monopoly of
power. The Shona supported ZANU party in Zimbabwe and the United
Malay National Organization in Malaysia, have won every election
since independence. Voters belonging to the ethnic majority are
reluctant to support the opposition, which is identified with
other ethnic groups, while political alternatives from within the
ethnic majority are stifled by the need to preserve the status
quo.

JOHN HARGREAVES

Jakarta