Tolerant religion

Tolerant religion

Having waited in vain for more than a week for any reply from
Mr. Mochtar Buchori concerning my comments (The Jakarta Post,
Jan. 6, 1995) on his article, It looks now I have to address
myself to a response from Ms. Rahayu Ratnaningsih who quickly
came to his defense.

All of us Moslems are taught by our religion to be tolerant to
others, but not in the demeaning way in which Mr. Buchori has
been conducting himself. It therefore did not come as a surprise
to me why Mr. Buchori, who so obsequiously announced in public
that he was suffering from an inferiority complex about
Christians, is admired by Ms Ratnaningsih and certain westerners
who evidently have negative views regarding Islam. The important
point is, since religious tolerance should be mutual in order to
mean anything, what is the use of all the tolerance and good
intentions of such subservient people like Mr. Buchori and Mr.
Abdurrahman Wahid or other normally tolerant Moslems in the world
if their tolerance is not reciprocated and if Moslems continue to
be persecuted or discriminated against in various parts of the
world.

In Bosnia-Herzegovina, for instance, the appeal by the Moslem-
led government for a tolerant multi-ethnic and multi-religious
state was simply rejected by the Orthodox Serbs. They murdered
hundreds of thousands of Moslems and destroyed hundreds of
mosques, while the supposedly civilized Christian Europe has just
looked on.

In the Palestine and the Middle East in general, it is
admittedly true that excesses involving the killing of innocent
civilians have been committed from time to time by both Israeli
and Arab sides. But thousands of other Palestinians who put up
the fight merely to try to regain their lands which had been
stolen by the Jews have been denounced in the most intolerant
manner by the Christian West as extremists, terrorists or
fundamentalists.

In the case of Indonesia, I agree with Ms Ratnaningsih that it
is probably one of the most tolerant countries in the world.
Unfortunately, this tolerance has been abused by certain
Christians, who in their overzealous efforts to spread their
gospel, have built churches in residential areas or neighborhoods
where the vast majority of the population are obviously Moslem.
This is despite the Indonesian government regulation that no
building permit shall be given under such circumstances and that
no attempt shall be made to convert any Indonesian who has
already professed one of the acknowledged religions. Perhaps some
of our Indonesian Christians could learn something from the
Islamic principle of religious pluralism and coexistence.

It is evasive of Ms Ratnaningsih to dismiss this issue and
hide behind her words "What is the point in measuring who is most
tolerant and who has committed most killings in the past."
Indeed, acting like a self-appointed Christian apologist (she is
not a Christian), she excused the Christians for having committed
"humiliating and disgraceful" acts of intolerance in the past,
and then continued with her preposterous suggestion that the
Moslems are likely in the future to continue those disgraceful
acts perpetrated by the Christians.

Of course no one knows what will happen in the future, but
judging from the past and present records and the tolerant
teachings of Islam, I would think that Moslems are the least
likely to commit those shameful acts in the future. I am not
saying that Christianity is necessarily an intolerant religion,
but I think it is safe to say that many Christians, either in the
past or at the present time, are a lot more intolerant than most
Moslems.

I am certain that the real motivation of her keen defense of
Mr. Buchori in the current discussion is not so much that she
admires Mr. Buchori's views or Christian and Jewish cultures, but
a deep-seated fear that the ascendancy of Islam in this country
is perceived by her as a threat to the small minority to which
she belongs. I can categorically assure her that her fear is
completely unfounded.

MASLI ARMAN

Jakarta