World misinformed about RI

By Lance Castles

YOGYAKARTA (JP): The international community has expressed concern over religion-related conflicts in Indonesia but they need to know more about what has really happened in the country.

The World Council of Churches (WCC), at its last assembly in Zimbabwe's capital city of Harare, for example, listed Indonesia as one of the worst countries in the world for interreligions conflict.

The mass media carried reports in their Dec. 24, 1998, editions saying: "RI ranks world's worst for religious disharmony"; "Indonesia became the central topic of the WCC congress"; "They expressed concern over... political oppression of religious minorities" and "The government... just let things happen... on the basis of the pattern of riots such as in Ketapang, Kupang, Ujungpandang, etc, we are looking at well- organized crimes".

The U.S. Congress, under a draft law, also threatened to impose sanctions on Indonesia if its government did not protect its people (read: Christian people) adequately from religious persecution.

In the past 32 years, 516 churches have been damaged, including 415 in the last 30 months. During the first seven months of President B.J. Habibie's reign alone, 45 churches were damaged -- representing an average of 6.3 churches per month, as compared to 16 per month in Soeharto's last two years of presidency.

It is interesting to note that most of the attacks on churches involved only the breaking of windows and smearing of paint. Unless a church was made of inflammable timber or contained valuable objects that could be destroyed or stolen, there was not much else that attackers could do.

But the morally heroic WCC was apparently more attracted to this, rather than the case of Bosnia, where over 200,000 Muslims are supposed to have been killed in cold blood, the case of Sudan, where a prolonged, bloody civil war is being fought over the enforcement of the syariah on non-Muslims .

Compare this to Indonesia, where the majority of political parties are vigorously rejecting the enforcement of religious law -- the case of Lebanon, where during the civil war to have the "wrong" identity at a roadblock meant instant death, Iran, where reportedly the top leadership of the Baha'i community has repeatedly been liquidated or Pakistan, where a bishop committed suicide to protest the anti-blasphemy law under which the death sentence is mandatory and leading Sunni and Shiite figures are gunned down in sectarian killings.

And did they remember the case of Punjab, where probably more than a million died when the British left just because they were Muslim, Hindu or Sikh?

Just what are the facts behind this international stigmatization on Indonesia?

Nothing whatever. It is true that at the beginning of the war of independence, there were people (priests at Muntilan, a small town near Borobudur Budha temple) who were killed purely because they were Christians. But most of the victims were those regarded as working for the Dutch, such as being suspected as spies, employees of the Dutch regime or even those who seemed conspicuously European in their way of life.

Since then, it is impossible to name any person who was killed just because he was Christian. In a riot in Situbondo, East Java, a family died tragically in a burning church just because they were afraid to face the mob outside. But if they had gone out, they probably would have been safe, as the crowds were not murderous.

Indonesian Muslims know perfectly well that Christian worship, though based in their view on an erroneous understanding about Jesus, is absolutely guaranteed under the Islamic law.

What about a number of Ambonese killed during the Ketapang rioting in Central Jakarta? They were condemned for operating an immoral establishment, not for being Christian.

What about the accusation that the government does not protect Christians? This is a fallacy. No government, no matter however well organized, can protect citizens and their property from random acts of violence. It is impossible to have armed police officers guarding all the churches and all the parishioners all the time.

The fact that this is constantly being said in the media, also by people who are not thinking of the protection of minorities, simply reflects the current dominance of the oppositionist discourse according to which the government never does anything right. But readers or viewers should realize that there is an irreducible minimum of random or background violence in every society which no government can prevent.

Many Christians are obsessively worried that since the rise of the Association of Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals (ICMI), they are being discriminated against. If one points to the large number of Christians in important positions, they claim that they have to work twice as hard as a Muslim to get such a position. Muslims likewise see Christianization everywhere and refer to the long period of oppression they suffered under "Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) domination".

The fact is that the Christians cannot show that they are underrepresented significantly in any area of national leadership, while "proportionalization" which Muslims claim they are practicing, is perfectly politically correct, under the name of "affirmative action".

In Indonesian history, there has never been a Cabinet in which Christians were not represented disproportionately. The last two Cabinets are exceptions, with only one or two Christians. But it can be predicted that they will be well represented in the next lineup.

Curiously, it is probably easier to show that there have been more victims of Catholic fanaticism than Muslim. There were several instances in Flores, East Nusa Tenggara, and East Timor, where people were killed on the spot because of perceived blasphemy, usually desecration of the host.

A non-Catholic going to Mass out of curiosity, for example, was given the wafer and then, apparently becoming afraid suddenly, spit it out or crushed it underfoot. The person was then beaten to death by an enraged mob. Such an incident has occurred more frequently in Flores than in East Timor and the victims have more often been Protestants than Muslims.

Nevertheless there have been, at least, three instances where angry Christians burned Muslim kampongs -- at Pante Makassar in Okusi Ambeno, where East Timorese imagined a priest had been insulted, at Kupang in West Timor, and previously at Ende, Flores. In the last-mentioned case, the desecrator was sent to the police for legal process. But when the sentence, regarded as maximum punishment under Indonesian law, was announced, enraged followers of Jesus regarded it as trivial, rioted and burned the homes of Muslims in the neighborhoods.

It is understandable that East Timorese should resent immigrants, while Muslims in East Nusa Tenggara, like those in the Dayak region of Kalimantan, are perceived as exclusive and money-oriented, unwilling even to take the hospitality of a non- Muslim local.

Of course, such refinements are unknown to political consumers all around the non-Muslim world, who firmly believe that Indonesia is the land of government-sponsored terrorism, massacres, religious and racial persecution and organized rape. It is all very mysterious and depressing.

Recently we have been saddened by the senseless bloodshed and destruction on Ambon, an island with a reputation for interreligious harmony. It is nearly always depicted as Christian versus Muslim violence, though the evidence points to the politicization of the issue of immigration from South and Southeast Sulawesi as the root of the problem. But in any case, it does not alter the general point that interreligion relations are generally good.

It is necessary to note that, at least, 10 times as many people died in similar hostilities between the Dayak and Madurese in West Kalimantan two years ago. This was almost invariably referred to as "ethnic strife", even though the adversaries belonged to different religions. In fact, the recent strife in the Singkawang, Kalimantan, area has been between immigrant Madurese and locals, but they are equally Muslim and Malay. Perhaps, we can only hope that a newly elected government with unchallengeable legitimacy will be able to bring calm to such areas.

Dr. Lance Castles is a visiting lecturer of political sciences at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta. He has written a number of books on Indonesia, including Indonesia, Political Thinking 1945-1965."

Window: Indonesian Muslims know perfectly well that Christian worship, though based in their view on an erroneous understanding about Jesus, is absolutely guaranteed under the Islamic law.