Securalism: Is it that debased?
Securalism: Is it that debased?
By Rahayu Ratnaningsih
BOGOR (JP): Is Indonesia a religious or secular state? We are
always told that Indonesia is neither. It is a Pancasila state,
so we are informed; it does not recognize any religion to be its
official religion nor is any particular religious law officially
enforced.
However, the belief in one God is instilled as the first and
foremost foundation in the state ideology, Pancasila (Five
Precepts). It has a ministry that specifically deals with
religious affairs as well as the Indonesian Ulemas Council (MUI).
The main function of this government sanctioned body is to issue
fatwas regarding matters considered haram (forbidden) or halal
(allowed), Islamic or non-Islamic.
In the New Order era, the government ruled that there were
only five sanctioned religions in Indonesia: Islam,
Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism and Buddhism. School
curriculums have religion as one of the obligatory subjects,
along with physical and social sciences. Teachers of the
Pancasila subject, also a mandatory subject from elementary
school right through university, would tell students that there
was no place in Indonesia for those who did not believe in God,
or did not have religion, defined and dictated, absurdly enough,
by the state. (So in the process, with no apparent thought for
consistency of argument, students were told that Confucianism was
not a religion.) Thus, what we have are children who grow up
taking this unchallenged premise for granted.
Other than all the above, it is safe to say that Indonesia is
quite secular and tolerant regarding a secular life style,
especially compared to other Muslim countries, such as Malaysia,
and particularly those hard-line middle eastern countries.
The debate of secularism versus religion, Islam in this case,
has recently been brought to the forefront by the proliferation
of Islamic or Islamic-oriented parties, especially during the
campaigning season prior to the general election.
Islam is a commodity that is in high demand these days.
Whether or not they use Islam as the party's foundation, all
Islamic-based parties have declared their allegiance to Islamic
principles. The National Awakening Party (PKB), founded by
Nahdlatul Ulama's Abdurrahman Wahid, popularly known as Gus Dur,
is one of these parties which, despite their indisputably Islamic
orientation, established inclusive nationalism and pluralism as
its foundation. It has gained wide support from both Muslims and
non-Muslims, indigenous and nonindigenous Indonesians.
Gus Dur maintains the need for a separation between religion
and the state, which is the philosophy of secularism, without
abandoning religion. He purports a version of Islam which is
inclusive, friendly, open-minded, protective toward minority
groups and secure in its majority status. He strongly believes
that true spirituality transcends religious differences and
should be the personal matter of each individual citizen without
state interference. He argues state interference will only result
in religious politicization, which in turn will only bring
disaster, as can be seen in many countries adopting this system.
Gus Dur believes this approach will not necessarily eradicate
Islamic values from people's lives. He readily admits the most
unfortunate fact that many Muslim groups are so narrow in their
struggles and in their vision that they ostracize their non-
Muslim brethren. The fact that this comes from the most prominent
Islamic leader of the most prominent Islamic organization is
refreshing. Despite his many opponents who fall short of his
level of wisdom, many regard him as the true father of the
nation.
On the other hand, the Crescent Star Party (PBB) founded by
Yusril Ihza Mahendra, firmly declared Islam as its foundation and
its antisecularism philosophy. In its view, secularism is the
source of moral degradation of a nation, and thus, unacceptable
for a state which is predominantly Muslim. Furthermore, PBB
strives for the elimination of secularism from Indonesian
society. Though, in a common move shared by all Islamic parties,
it stops short of seeking to establish an Islamic state.
Recently The Jakarta Post published a letter from Vleugeuls
who, perhaps in a rather insensitive straightforward manner,
expounded on the need for Indonesia to have a president who did
not have a religion. Not surprisingly, in a society where people
are conditioned or indoctrinated to believe that atheists or
people with no religion can do all sorts of evil, his probably
not too uncommon opinion in the west has sparked emotional
reactions from religious Indonesians who cannot fathom what life
is like without religion. They accused him of being an evil
atheist, generalized that westerners lead an immoral lifestyle,
or even called for his deportation from the country on the
grounds that his view could corrupt the Indonesian people.
It should be recognized that those who profess religious
beliefs, Muslims in particular, generally have a very low opinion
of secularism. There is even a tendency to demonize secularism by
focusing only on the perceived negative side effects, without
taking into account what it really strives to achieve.
Secularism, which came into being during the Renaissance period,
was an answer to the failure of religious states that had brought
Europe into a dark age 500 years earlier. During that time witch
hunting was a sport and executions were a just desert for
straying. Pre-Renaissance Europe was characterized by incessant
warfare, corruption, lawlessness, obsession with strange myths
and an almost impenetrable mindlessness.
For one thousand years European accomplishments in the realms
of science and exploration had been negligible. Throughout the
Middle Ages, the vast majority of human intellectual energy and
effort was diverted to questions of doctrinal minutiae and "holy"
wars.
Secularism does not -- and never did -- promote the total
abandonment of religion in people's lives, let alone hostility
toward religion or its followers. Securalism seeks something
quite opposite: to grant every person their basic freedoms,
including freedom of belief -- or its lack thereof -- to the
point that in fact in many secular countries religion, even ones
not originating from those countries, blossoms and gains a large
following over time. Houses of worship from all kinds of
denominations are allowed almost unlimited growth, something that
ironically would not be found in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan.
What secularism seeks to establish is that no dogma is too
sacred to be analytically and critically questioned and
investigated. Secularism promotes freedom of human reason and
humanity in general.
The revival of arts, human rights movements, science and
technology, human excellence and human dignity, other than the
already mentioned religion, are thanks to secularism, for it sees
all citizens as equal, despite their color, gender and creed.
True, all of these are not without cost since secularism is
not perfect. But all in all, the benefits far surpass the costs.
And pray tell, which system is perfect or can perfectly be
implemented? It would be extremely tragic to throw the baby out
with the bath water.
The fact that materialism abounds, crime rates, alcoholism,
drug abuse, suicide rates, divorce rates and sexual crimes are
increasing are perhaps some of the side effects that can be
cited. However, they are not exclusive problems of secular
states, because even in oppressive religious states many of those
issues are present.
In those countries with a strong religious bias, the free flow
of information (a free press) does not exist so people can
easily, and mistakenly, infer that a lack of documentation
(statistics) shows a lack of occurrence. Take Indonesia and the
Pancasila state -- is it any better than secular India, for
example? Is India a more corrupt state? The last time we checked,
in terms of corruption, Indonesia still beat India hands down.
To be fair to Muslims, Nurcholish Madjid, the much quoted
prominent Muslim thinker, better known as Cak Nur, years ago
aired a concept that distinguished secularization from
secularism. Perhaps realizing the common negative viewpoint
toward secularism among Muslims, he suggested secularization but
not secularism. However, what he meant by secularization was not
much different than secularism in its essence.
As for the opinion that only those who do not believe in
religion or God can resort to evil deeds, it is not difficult to
show how superstitious and myopic this is. As our world
experience attests, time after time religion, while it has been
an eternal fountain of inspiration for many people and great
minds, doesn't always make good people. The same precept holds
that people without religion can make the most admirable
humanists.
Theists and atheists are equally capable of good and bad
deeds. Our history attests that at least 500,000 people were
massacred in an anticommunist purge led by Soeharto's New Order
in 1965. In many other cases, religion can and has shaped the
most horrendous human beings, whether or not they really adhere
to the true teachings of their religion. The reality still
persists that those people believe that what they do is in the
name of God, or according to their religious teachings. If
religionists abhor the generalization made by nonreligionists
that the opiate of religion can dupe people into insanity, they
should not fall victim to their own preaching by generalizing
that nonreligionists are all prone to evil.
The last point is, there is a distinction between religion, as
an organized institution, and spirituality. People can be
spiritual without strict affiliation to any particular religion.
So in other words, people always have "religion", though
outwardly they claim to not profess any belief.
It is high time to be open-minded and receptive to new ideas
and courageous enough to challenge, evaluate and test much of the
accepted theory, social taboos and dogma of our time. It is the
only way that guarantees progress in a society. Great minds ask
great questions. It is the time to independently question our
childhood indoctrination that only those who share our belief in
God are those with respectable morality.
The courage to question accepted truth was the foundation of
the Renaissance that gave birth to the era of enlightenment in
the west. Truth is never given and "truth" that cannot stand
scrutiny and investigation is not worth professing.
Hence, we should perhaps rephrase the question from "Is
secularism that debased?" to "Is secularism debased at all?"
The writer is director of the Satori Foundation, a center for
the study and development of human excellence through training in
mind programming and meditation techniques.