Religious Tolerance, Nah!

Indonesia would be our home if we were not currently residing in the Land Downunder. Yet, a recent story our of Tanjung Balai in North Sumatra has me wondering whether Indonesia is all that it claims to be when it comes to arguing that it practices a moderate form of Islam and that there is a constitutionally guaranteed right to the freedom of religion. To my mind, this piece of news out of North Sumatra suggests that not all religions are equal under the constitution, particularly if they are a minority faith. This piece of news is also indicative of a lack of leadership across all levels of government and the community.

The news relates to a rather large 6-meter statue of Buddha which finds itself sitting atop of a 3-storey temple located in the heart of Tanjung Balai. After a great deal of agitation by a local Islamic group, the Forum for United Muslims, there was allegedly an agreement reached that would see the Buddha moved to a more "respectful" location. More respectful seemingly means out of the eyesight of Muslims. I am not sure that there are all that many Muslims that would be tempted to convert to Buddhism based solely on seeing a large statue of the Buddha, but then again, perhaps the temptation is just too great that it is better to remove it.

However, the longer the statue remains where it is the more likely it is that there will be protests to see it removed with all haste. The local Islamic Community Council seems to think that removing the statue is all about maintaining religious harmony. Perhaps some other minority religions in Indonesia would beg to differ. This is about one religion using its numbers to dominate other religions by forcing compliance and issuing threats. If the situations were reversed and some followers of a minority faith linked together with others and demanded that all local mosques not use loud speakers to make the call to prayer as it disturbed them, what then would the likely outcome be?

Tolerance is a two-way street. It requires the ability to tolerate and be tolerated. Yet, I am not sure this current dispute evidences a two-way street. It seems more likely this is a one-way street where you do as your told or suffer the consequences of your non-compliance.

The cold hard reality here is that Buddhism is an officially sanctioned religion. Followers of the faith have a constitutionally guaranteed right to practice their faith. They also have a right to their religious symbols and deities in order to fulfill their religious obligations.

The government and courts at all levels must do all that they can to protect religious freedom. Unfortunately, another cold hard reality is that populism means that elected officials rarely maintain the testicular or ovarian fortitude that they extol as candidates.

I wonder whether this is another nail in the coffin of tolerance in Indonesia?

Blasphemy in Indonesia

Blasphemy is an issue that is always interesting to write about as the possibilities are endless, at least in terms of the hypotheticals - the what ifs? This is even more so the case in Indonesia where even the slightest hint of blasphemy leads to violence and the destruction of private property and the desecration of religious property in some instances, it is fair to say there is nothing funny about blasphemy in Indonesia.

Indonesia is still not at the point of trying, as Malaysia has, to ban the use of certain words and restrict their usage only to Muslims. Malaysia decided that "Allah" was a Muslim term to refer to God and because it was a Muslim term then no other religions had a right to refer to their God as Allah. I would guess that to do so would amount to blasphemy.

Nevertheless, Indonesians, at least in some instances, have voiced extreme opinions on the issue of apostasy. The demand is for death for all apostates. The issue has come to the fore yet again as the government is set to continue its pursuit, some might say persecution, of Lia Eden, the leader of a messianic cult, who by all accounts is as mad as a two bob watch, for blasphemy. The most recent arrest is hot on the heels of the arrest of a teacher for supposedly scorning the Prophet. For some background on the Eden cult you can go here, here, and here.

The teacher, Welhelmina Holle, sparked a violent protest that led to the burning of churches and homes on Seram Island in the Moluccas. It remains unclear exactly what she said but obviously for some it did not matter. The fact that the allegation was made was enough for some to set out on a violent protest.

The actual law on blasphemy was a Presidential Decree that was enacted into law in 1965 (No. 1/PNPS/1965) and the key elements have in essence been extracted and included in the current Indonesian Criminal Code (Kitab Undang-undang Hukum Pidana / KUHP) as Article 156(a). The combination of these laws is designed to prevent "deviant interpretations" or any challenge to the long-standing norms particularly with respect to Islam, and to prevent any public discourse on religion by outlawing any utterances that can conceivably be deemed hostile or abusive or insulting of any particular religion.

This is problematic in a secular state as it gives the government or its appointed proxies the power to make subjective interpretations of what constitutes blasphemy or heresy. In many ways the power is a similar one to what has been seen before, as granted to the Roman Catholic Church during the Inquisitions. For many this might be a difficult concept to digest. However, it is as simple as recognizing that there is not the same separation of Church and State or in this case Mosque and State that many of us from a Western democratic tradition would recognize.

Yet, there is some separation in Indonesia as the Indonesian Ulema Council (Majelis Ulema Indonesia / MUI) has the power to issue fatwas (edicts) on all things Islam but these fatwas are not legally binding. In that sense it is a toothless tiger whose growl is much bigger than its bite. Although, it is a brave government that aligns itself against the MUI as to do so would expose it to charges of being anti-Islam or not sensitive to Muslim issues and needs.

I guess the point of this little musing was that on a personal level I have a real problem with people being jailed for their non-violent religious beliefs no matter how crazy and left or right of mainstream they might be. For example, if a shaven-headed woman wants to claim that she is the Archangel Gabriel and people want to believe that and follow her then so be it. Similarly, if someone wants to claim that there was another prophet after Muhammad and there are people prepared to belief that then so be it.

I leave you with these random thoughts.

If God sends his only son, Jesus Christ, to earth to die for our sins, then doesn't this suggest that Jesus is the most likely candidate to have been the last prophet (at least until the second coming of Christ)? And, therefore, would it be blasphemy to suggest that God got it wrong by sending his only son and decided to have another go at getting it right by selecting some random fella, who in this case just happens to be a fella named Muhammad, to be his final prophet on earth and to bring Islam to the world?

Then, if it is to be accepted that Muhammad followed Jesus as a prophet, then why is it not possible that God could have had second or third thoughts and decided that another prophet was necessary in order to perfect any imperfections that may have arisen?

Would it be blasphemy to suggest that Buddha never really reached enlightenment by suggesting that the Buddha has been reincarnated for another stint back in the real world?

Oh well! As Uncle Ned once said, "such is life"!