U.S., Indonesia and religious tolerance

Muhamad Ali, Manoa, Hawaii

Christmas is coming soon; Christmas trees with all their trimmings and lights have been placed in offices, shopping centers, streets, and campuses. For many Americans, Christmas appears to be secularized, but for others, it is still a deeply religious celebration. While the nature of the state is admittedly secular, the American identity remains overwhelmingly religious.

Like America, Indonesia is overwhelmingly religious, although the nature of the state is not admittedly secular. Both America and Indonesia guarantee freedom of religion, and therefore the challenge is quite the same: How to uphold religious tolerance?

For many, "the American Creed" was initially religious. Within the new, radically different global context many Americans have turned to religion. Historically, religion has become a crucial element of American national identity. Christianity, especially Protestantism, has become the vital element of the American Creed. As Samuel Huntington has eloquently argued in his Who Are We? The Challenges to America"s National Identity (2004), American identity was and still is predominantly Anglo- Protestant, despite some internal and external challenges.

Arthur Schlesinger, as Huntington quotes, maintained that the language, law, institutions, political ideas, literature, customs, precepts, and prayers were primarily derived from Britain. Britain was historically Protestant, in opposition to the Catholic French during the 17th to the early 19th century, despite the current secularizing trends. But America is still predominantly Protestant.

Huntington quotes Gunnar Myrdal (the American Dilemma, 1944), who argued that Americans had something in common: A social ethos and a political creed. Myrdal wrote about the dignity of the individual human being, equality of all men, freedom, justice and fair opportunity. Alexis Tocqueville found that American people agreed on "liberty and equality, the liberty of the press, the right of association, the jury, and the responsibility of the agents of government." More recently, Daniel Bell described individualism, achievement and equality of opportunity as American values.

Huntington concurred: "the Protestant emphasis on the individual conscience and the responsibility of individuals to learn God's truths directly from the Bible promoted American commitment to individualism, equality, and the right to freedom of religion and opinion...it also promoted moralistic efforts to reform society and to secure peace and justice at home and throughout the world."

It should be added that the 2000 and 2004 elections have been partly religious as well. Religious factors -- clothed in moral issues such as abortion, gay marriage, and the emphasis on "family values" -- has helped the victory of George W. Bush. Many religious figures have attempted to shape the path toward which national and state politics should be directed.

In the economic field, "it was Anglo-Saxon Protestants who created the gospel of wealth and the ideal of success," Robert Bellah maintained.

As Huntington pointed out, the words "separation of church and state" are not found in the Constitution, although the line between the two has been drawn to ensure religious freedom. But, interestingly in America the prohibition of an established national religion promoted the growth of religion in society.

About 90 percent of the Americans believe in God. Some 60 percent of Americans claimed membership in a church. Voluntary religious organizations have played a crucial role in deepening civic, economic and national values.

Minorities, including the significant Catholics, have been assimilated into the dominant Protestant culture. Catholics are proud of their American identity too. "Americanization", Huntington believes, has been largely successful. The Protestant character of America remained unshaken. The bulk of Americans are still Christians.

The emergence of different religious communities is one of the big challenges that American identity has to face and has not been resolved. Both the Protestants and the minorities have to redefine their identities. Multiculturalism reflects such a challenge.

Muslims in America for example love the American constitutional guarantee of religious freedom, despite the fact that it has never been of perfect equality. For example, Christmas is still the most popular and most celebrated holiday, while the Jewish Hanukah and Islamic Idul Fitri, for example, represent only a peripheral phenomena.

Americans have generally attempted to tolerate and accommodate the practices of non-Christian groups.

If American history is unique, so are the histories of other countries, including Indonesia. Indonesia was once animist, then predominantly Hindu-Buddhist for centuries, and has now become predominantly Muslim. But Indonesian religious history is quite similar to the American religious history that Huntington has spoken of. In Indonesia, it is Pancasila (the five pillars consisting of belief in God, civilized humanism, national unity, representative democracy and social justice) that has become the Indonesian creed. The Indonesian creed is also largely religious as reflected in the belief in God, albeit interpreted differently.

Like America, Indonesia guarantees freedom of religion, although for many non Muslims it is more difficult now to believe that the principles are truly implemented as they perceive more intolerance now in daily government policies and practices.

Some scholars have recently suggested that America has increasingly become pluralistic with the coming of Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists, and others, and therefore has challenged the Protestant American identity. Trans-national, diasporic, and ethnic identities have also challenged the salience of the American identity.

Indonesians have had a tradition of civil society and strong tolerance has been displayed by the country's two biggest Muslim organizations, Nahdlatul Ulama and the Muhammadiyah. But the challenge of religious tolerance is still so pressing to the new government and the already existing civil society. The meaning and application of religious tolerance is still far from being revolved. New generations of Indonesians should redefine what religious tolerance implies and how it should be applied in different and changing contexts.

The writer is a lecturer at the Hidayatullah State Islamic University (UIN); he is pursuing his Ph.D in History at the University of Hawaii on Manoa and is a fellow at the East-West Center. He can be reached at muhali74@hotmail.com