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)