By : A. Sabir, Postgraduate Student at University of Indonesia

The characteristic of Indonesia with pluralistic society is considered as a form of national pride as one of the so-called big countries in the world. It is reflected in the country’s constitutional guarantees which provides freedom for its citizens to embrace any religion or faith acknowledged by the government. Thus therefore, that diversity of faith is believed to be one of the fundamental bases for the establishment of the Indonesia’s national identity, “Diversity in Unity” – Bhinneka Tunggal Ika. Nevertheles, this religious diversity at the same time is also a point of threats that could potentially cause a disunity in the life of nation, if not managed in the proper way. 

Rising of Religious Intolerance

In the first quarter of 2016 period, Indonesia has consistently faced various problems regarding religious harmony. In the 2014 president election, religious issue had become a campaign consumption for the two sides – Prabowo and Jokowi – which unexpectedly aggravated the condition of inter-religious tolerance in the country. Since then, various intolerance actions incline significantly until the end of 2015. National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) in its report revealed that there was a rise of cases of inter-religious intolerance during 2015. Meanwhile, according to Setara Institute’s report – Jakarta-based Democracy and human rights watchdog - on intolerance violations, at the same period, there were 197 cases of religious freedom violations with 236 forms in various regions in Indonesia. The incidents incline significantly compared to 2014 with “only” 134 cases and 174 acts of violations. The highest number of violations occurred in West Java with 44 incidents, followed by Aceh with 34 cases, East Java 22 incidents, DKI Jakarta 20 and Yogyakarta witnessed 10 incidents. Whereas, in the aspect of victim, Shia community suffered the largest number of violations with 31 incidents, then Christians come to second with 29 cases. Surprisingly, Muslims came in third with 24 incidents, followed by religious sects with 24 incidents and Ahmadiyah with 13 incidents.

Places of Worship Issues

The action of violation is often carried out along with the acts of violence, which implemented into negations, demolitions, and burning of places of worship. The incident of Muslims attacked by church communities while performing Eid Fitri prayer in Tolikara region, Papua, on July 2015 as well as the burning of a church in Singkil region, Aceh, 3 months later are only few examples indicating the poor condition of inter-religious tolerance in Indonesia. These piteous incidents are not yet including many other incidents, such as the refusal of the constructions of Mosque in Bitung, North Sulawesi, by the locals, the burning of Kerekatan Gereja Protestan Minahasa (KGPM) church in Sigi region, Centre Sulawesi and the rejection for Christians to perform prayer in Kranggan district, Bekasi. Intolerance action is not merely indicated by the issues regarding the building of places of worship, but also in the reports of media, such as the report of Radar Malang Post that published an advertisement titled “Jesus Entering Mosque” and later on trigging protests by the Muslims community in Malang.

In response to the issues, a number of elements of society have conducted public dialogs and demonstrations to assert their aspirations. The members of christians community, GKI Yasmin in Bogor and HKBP Filadelfia in Tambun Bekasi for instance, showing their disappointment to the government by performing prayer in front of the National Palace every sunday morning. They judge the government has no seriousness and willingness to solve the problem suffered their members as the rejection issue on the building of GKI Yasmin and HKBP Filadelfia is yet showing a positve progress.

Beside those sort of efforts have been done yet gives no significant result, the victims of intolerance actions have also undertaken political lobbies in order to encourage the issuance of regulations which fully ensure a freedom of the construction of places of worship. This issue however, has also been used as commodity by various pressure groups such as Human Right activists to denounce and critisize the government of its absence or inability to solve the problems. In a public dialog entitled “Increasing of Religious Intolerance in Indonesia”, Zulfah Lindan (The coordinator of Gerakan Penerus Bung Karno) said, the actors of religios discrimination are not only come from community groups but also government authorities such as regional and distric leaders, The Civil Service Police Unit (Satpol PP), police officers, the courts, and the ministry of religious affairs.

The Root Causes and Effective Handling

Generally speaking, one of the reasons behind the emergence of various acts of intolerance is a waywardness to implement and to obey the Joint Ministerial Decrees (SKB 2 Menteri) Number 8 and 9 2006 Between Minister of Religion Affairs and Domestic Affairs which regulates issues regarding inter-religious harmony as well as the construction of places of worship. Whereas in fact, the regulation is principally aimed to protect the rights of worship in order to preserve the harmonization between inter-religious lives. However, some people including the Governor of Jakarta, Ahok, have questioned the objectives of the regulation as it is considered to be discriminative towards the minority religions. Ahok once has urged to revoke what he called "discriminatory" regulation, according to merdeka.com.

Additionally, some local government officials from village level to region and city level are allegedly being passive in dealing with the issue. On the other hand, in spite of the anarchic action of the society when delivering their aspirations or assertions in a demonstration event is still sporadic, it has also indicated dissatisfactions of the people on the government policies as well as the performances of security forces regarding the issue.

It is therefore; preventive as well as preemptive actions are urgently needed by optimizing the implementation of the Joint Ministerial Decrees on the construction of houses of worship. Various forms of actions can be done such as conducting inter-religious forums or dialogs whose main goal is to widely socialize the regulation especially to the middle and lower class of societies. Furthermore, religious leaders as well as community and traditional figures need to be encouraged steadily to promote dialogs and cooperation in dealing with religious conflicts. Moreover, security forces must also perform professionally and adequately when conducting law enforcement on religious intolerance cases. They should keep themselves away from anarchic actions. We need to understand that this issue is too sensitive and complex, which might also contain any particular interests brought by actors involved. Certain interest groups could exploit it as well, in order to demonize the image of government or even worse to intentionally create national instability and to divide the unity of the nation.