Hi guys,

Let me share something with you all….

If my boy friend is one of the candidate of the president election in the  next five years, should I have to convert to his belief in order to make the religious zealots happy? It is supposed my bf is Muslim. Also, can I, as an agnostic, be appointed as president  in this country? I doubt of it. Religion always matters in this country. And, i dislike much this fact.

  Can we just leave religion be our own business? Why religion always matters in this country? Even "what is your religion" has been the most popular question will be asked when someone say hi to you. Then, what religion you embarce is also must be put in the KTP/national ID in Indonesia. This sucks because it creates discriminative behaviour. Anyway, what is the relevance of putting religion in KTP? I am really fed up with the religion things.

Besides most of the countries dont have religious affiliation on their citizens ID.

Questions surrounding one's religion is not quintentisentially Indonesian. It is a question that is rampant being posed in most coutries that failed to separate state and religion, such as in most countries in Asia in general, and in Indonesia in particular.

To be perfectly honest, this question will remain in most bureaucratic forms for a very long time. Its sister, the ethnicity question that normally appears after religion, will also take up permanent residency on most government forms just to confuse people like me, whose parents are the direct result of 'salad bowl' or 'cobek gado-gado' in terms of blood lines.

To answer your question, I personally think it has no relevance what-so-ever. I think initially it was for satistic puposes but now it is outdated. Just mytwo cents.

Unjaded said :

To be perfectly honest, this question will remain in most bureaucratic forms for a very long time. Its sister, the ethnicity question that normally appears after religion, will also take up permanent residency on most government forms just to confuse people like me, whose parents are the direct result of 'salad bowl' or 'cobek gado-gado' in terms of blood lines.

@unjaded

Yeah, I know how does "being salad bowl" feel...The problems with primordialism, it creates discrimination and injustice. For so long, the ethnicitiy and religion have been used as part of "black campaign" amongst politicians. They are succesfull in firing up people because most people are still thinking in their own boxes. Otherwise, why should these people bother if  Boediono's wife is Catholic, Hindu, Buddhist, agnostic, ...whatsoever.

IMHO, the 'first cause' of this religion things in Indonesia is in the taken for granted, unchangeable, undebatable: Pancasila itself, the dasar negara/ideology of the state. It's the number one, sila pertama: Ketuhanan yang Maha Esa/Believe in One Supreme God.

So, the state ideology has started the discrimination right here. It implies that Indonesia is a state whose peoples believe in One Supreme God. They can not be atheist nor doubt the existence of God, like agnostic, nor believe in many Gods or Godesses (although there's no God in budhism, AFAIK, the state consider their adherents as Pancasilaist and categorized budha as one of the official religions). 

The state itself has no religion, and can not have religion, because the state is not a human being.

It would be very difficult to change the Pancasila, but probably we could interpret it as: Indonesian has somewhat spirituality, they are not puritan materialistic. Sort of. But this is not the state, the government, nor the parliament did and does all this time. In the future, I don't know.

Evenmore, I'm not sure exactly where the state puts it, in what kind of regulation, surely not in our constitution, but there're some official religions in Indonesia: islam, protestant, catholic, hindu, budha, and Gus Dur adds one more: kong hu cu/confusianism. Honestly, I never know what 'official' means here. That each religion has national holidays? Or those religions have office in the government bureaucracy, in Ministry of Religion, while the rest of religion such as kejawen, kaharingan, etc will be considered as 'culture' and their office is in Ministry of Cultural Affairs and Tourism.

Frankly I don't know how government decided which one is religion and which one is culture, apart from the statistic of its national or international adherents. For all I know, letting state or government makes decision about religion is dangerous. Peoples will look at government to ban Ahmadiyah, which is considered as  for instance.

Further, there's a ministry of religion. What's this ministry does? Dealing with haj pilgrims transportation and facility in Mekah and Madinah? Puuhlleesss…. 

So, before we could erase religion part in KTP, three things we need to do–as Indonesian. First, change Pancasila, or at least make new interpretation of Pancasila acceptable. Second, wipe out 'official' religions category, just make important religious day as national holiday base on statistic; and lastly, dissolve (bubarkan) Ministry of Religion.

But to start this, Indonesian peoples have to change their view about religion, they have to make it personal affair and not state affair. They have to change their attitude too so they are not so nosy about someone else's religion or irreligiousness.

Where to start? Better education? Sure. Better law and law eforcement? Impartial justice system? Sure. Better public service, such as free healthcare? Better economy? There's some influence, of course. I mean, in a bad economy situation, when the gap between the riches and poors is so wide, peoples would be easily blame other peoples with 'wrong' ethnic, or religion, that's why many peoples still needs religion column in KTP. Some candidates who ran for presidency or parliament seat also played this religion-ethnic card in their campaign, and they'll keep this card to preserve support. This also adds to why we still have the religion column in KTP.

It will take a very very long overhaul.

I guess.