Students want more freedom to talk ideology

Students want more freedom to talk ideology

JAKARTA (JP): Student leaders and young intellectuals from
various religious organizations have demanded more freedom to
discuss the state ideology.

"We need a wider public sphere to discuss ideology," said
Abdul Mun'im DZ of FKGMNU, a youth organization under the
Nahdlatul Ulama, a powerful Moslem organization.

An ideology "should be very open ... allowing discussion on
social transformation," Mun'im said at a seminar entitled "The
Future Trend of Ideology: Between Secularism and Fundamentalism"
on Saturday.

So far, he said "only the BP7 has the right to interpret
Pancasila," referring to the government agency which runs courses
on Pancasila, the state ideology.

Mun'im, who is also an editor at the Institute for Social and
Economic Research and Education, was responding to calls from
participants for more discussion between adherents of different
faiths.

It was difficult to exchange ideas on social transformation
while people feared holding open discussions on Pancasila, he
said.

More intensive discussion was needed to develop a more
"familiar, humane" impression of ideology, he added.

President Soeharto said in a speech last week that Pancasila
had been fully accepted by the people of Indonesia as the state
ideology and that questions about its relevance were no longer
heard of nowadays.

Firman Daeli of the Indonesian Christian Student Movement
(GMKI) said, however, that the present political climate
partially explained the absence of questioning.

"Every effort at greater political participation, cultural
creativity and intellectual debate on Pancasila ... is regarded
as being connected with leftist ideologies," said Daeli, one of
the seminar's moderators.

The seminar, he said, aimed to find "an orientation of
humanity and nationalism" from the perspectives of various
religions.

Wulandari Supardan of the Indonesian Council of Churches said
the seminar reflected "the yearning of the Church to implement
the theme of realizing a pluralistic society in the
implementation of Pancasila."

Another member of the organizing committee said discussion was
needed to evaluate the government's stance that Indonesia was
neither a secular state nor a state based on a certain religion.

Sulaiman Manguling, invited to represent the Protestant
perspective, said that Pancasila was "a very ideal ideology, with
its inclusive and non-discriminative character."

However, he said that "people have waited a very long time for
the values to materialize," leading to the need of more
discussion.

Participants also raised fears about "narrow religious
perspectives," although Mun'im said Indonesia lacked fertile
ground for extreme religious fundamentalism.

The speakers, including E.A. Embu Henriquez of the Atmajaya
Ethics Institute, who presented the Catholic perspective,
reviewed the evolution of fundamentalism and secularism.

They stressed the need for the religion and science to be
joined to achieve both faith and rationality.

Mun'im said that currently there was a "lack of depth" in
understanding religion, leading to both secularism and
fundamentalism.

"Without spirituality, religion has lost its morality in its
responsibility towards society and humanity," Mun'im said.

He said that science and ideologies had also "lost orientation
because of their removal from their philosophical roots."

While science was now in the hands of technicians, he said,
ideology was a "closed matter" and "in the hands of politicians."
(anr)