6 Comments on “North Sulawesi”

1. Sputjam says:

   October 22, 2007 at 12:51 pm

   There is no such thing as tolerance in religion. Tolerance can be achieved once religion is abolished.
   In north sulawesi, tourist trade is their bloodline. It is blessed with an abundance of undersea flora and fauna.
   The government should encourage more direct flights to this region (Manado). Because the tourist trade is lucrative, the locals are less inclined to be religious fanatics than say, a region with no economic activity (central sulawesi).

2. colson says:

   October 22, 2007 at 2:18 pm

   I have no talent nor taste for religion whatsoever, but I don’t think the abolition of religion will be more successful than the abolition of hunger, thirst or lust. It isn’t possible because it’s part of the human condition. Even Lenin and Stalin did not succeed.

   The best we can hope for is that the inherent intolerance of monotheistic religions will be contained by prosperous conditions. Some epochs and some conditions prove this can turn out to produce a pretty well established co-existence of atheists and believers of several kinds of denominations.

3. Anita McKay says:

   October 22, 2007 at 6:33 pm

   It’s probably because most Christians live in manado and most moslem live in Gorontalo, which recently becomes its own province. There’s another example from Surabaya, where kampung Arab & kampung Cina are located back to back since 19th centyry. http://www.indie-indonesie.nl/content/documents/papers-urban%20history/timoticin%20kwanda.pdf

4. Janma says:

   October 24, 2007 at 9:20 am

   Anita said;

   It’s probably because most Christians live in manado and most moslem live in Gorontalo, which recently becomes its own province.

   Actually the people in manado mix well and pride themselves on getting along, it is not a matter of segregation but a matter of local pride on not giving into these prejudices. Kudos to them I say! Keep it up!

5. Anita McKay says:

   October 24, 2007 at 2:41 pm

   Janma,
   I’m not saying that people from manado aren’t tolerant, they’re the mos friendly, cheery, happy ethnic group in Indonesia, to my opinion.
   My point is Surabaya is a better example, and kampung arab, kampung cina and kampung madura has been in the city since 19th century and the harmony continues until today. You should go there and visit those kampung, very interesting to see. Where else in Indonesia you could go to Kya-kya?

   Surabaya is 1 city and very multicultural, and North Sulawesi is now divided between North Sulawesi province (with Manado – most Christians) and Gorontalo province (with most moslem inhabitants). So I choose Surabaya as a better example of religious harmony.

6. Moi says:

   January 29, 2008 at 6:07 am

   Recently there has been an influx of moslems into the city of Manado, especially due to instability of the neighboring central Sulawesi and Maluku. Nevertheless, there was no religious conflict. The one and only conflict I heard was when the ‘newcomer’ refused to stand in line at the local bank. Well, I wouldn’t call that a conflict indeed, but it became the talk of the town that the newcomers ‘seenak jidat’nya in their new adopted town. Nothing about religion differences popped up- people live side by side peacefully.

   During christmas mass, the moslems are in charge of the security outside of the church, and vice versa during idul fitri. I guess it’s all part of the culture- being open and welcome to differences and other cultures. It didn’t surprise me why the javanese used to call North Sulawesi as ‘anjing belanda’, who, compared to other parts of Nusantara, gave the least resistance towards the colonial master. Instead, the locals adopted plenty of dutch words into its dialect and culture. Have fun, work hard, live in peace. After all, life is short!