Sectarian mapping of cities to prevent conflict, as another church, in Bekasi, is closed.
Having lived in Bekasi, West Java some years ago, the Jakarta Post article about ‘religious mapping‘ holds interest. The very idea that you need to map an area to provide for peaceful sectarian co-existence, never mind integration, sums up what is wrong with Indonesia. It can be better summarised in two words: Muslim clerics, as in this story of protests against the construction of a Protestant church in Bekasi recently:
Rusli, 38, a moderate Muslim, was in a quandary when local clerics recently asked him and other residents to sign a petition against the building of the Batak Christian Protestant Church (Filadelfia Huria Kristen Batak Protestan (HKBP)) church in their neighborhood in Jejalen Jaya.
The clerics said that if we didn’t sign, they wouldn’t recite prayers at our funerals. I insisted on not signing it, but most of my neighbors were cowed by the threat.
With local clerics still playing a pivotal leadership role in rural parts of Bekasi, people in the Muslim-majority region are easily dragged into conflicts sparked by religious tensions. The spat between the HKBP and the Jejalen Jaya residents only escalated once Muslim clerics in the subdistrict began inciting opposition to the construction of the church.
All Muslim clerics in this subdistrict have agreed the construction of the church must desist immediately
says protest leader Nesan.
So what’s their problem? Murhali, Bekasi FPI leader said on TVone on Sunday that there were 6 churches in the area.
At night, their singing disturbs the locals’ sleep
They can hardly be serious in saying that church-bells and hymn-singing ‘disturb’ Muslim residents, since their own mosques emit cacaphonous ululations again and again every day, not least when normal folk are abed and asleep.
Bekasi ’45 Islamic University sociologist Andi Sopandi points out such faith-fomented conflicts are to be expected. Such disputes, he says, occur frequently in developing rural or suburban areas across the country, where the influx of newcomers with a more diverse background has grated on traditionally more homogeneous communities.
Locals and newcomers get along well only if they share similar basic values, and for most Indonesians, that would be religion
says Andi, who advised former vice president Jusuf Kalla during the latter’s mediation to end the deadly inter-religious clashes in Poso, Central Sulawesi. Given the situation, he goes on, the establishment of an interfaith communication forum alone is never enough.
True enough, Andi, but what is to be done?
Andi believes it is paramount for all regional administrations in the country, including in Bekasi, to produce a map, updated each year, that shows the spread of religious clusters in the area.
The map shouldn’t just list the populations of each religion, but should also point out their homes and nearest houses of worship. Using such a map, the local administration can work with its Interfaith Communication Forum to allow for houses of worship to be established where the population of any particular religious group is high.
It might, one would think, be easier just to let people build a church, or temple, or mosque, subject to parking needs etc., and allow for freedom of religion to proceed, but not here. The ignorant savages who hold court in the mosques direct their flock to hound anybody who doesn’t share their beliefs.
Why, we have to ask again? And it does seem to come back to the paranoid fear among these clerics that their flock will jump ship. Repeatedly, we hear the horrified fanatics speaking of ‘conversion’. Sometimes they use the term ‘Christianisation‘ of areas, as if there’s some Rome-directed plot to flood Bekasi with Catholics or perhaps American evangelists are master-minding wholesale Protestant indoctrination of the Bekasi masses. No wonder Islamic spokesmen often prescribe the death penalty for anyone who converts out.
Are rank-and-file Muslims truly so weak in their faith that only such barbaric threats keep them bending the knee to bearded ignoramuses? I doubt it. Most people need a pretty heavy reason to change the religion they were born into.
The menace of proselytisation was also the excuse in last week’s report from Taman Galaxy, which is a nice little housing estate there where I occasionally did some work about seven years back. Everybody seemed civil enough, no signs of irrationality, at least no more than usual. But this year, we have 16 Islamist outfits up in arms because Galilea Church has a little Sunday fair.
One Murhali said that there were allegations that the church was carrying out a mission to convert residents.
We received reports that church officials often held a charity bazaar for locals but they were asked to say that Jesus is their God. I think it’s a violation.
Sounds unlikely, but what the heck, even if they were asked, they can ‘just say no’, nobody forced them to go there, and given Islam’s record of forcible conversion, a charity bazaar is pea-nuts.
I’m sure Andi Sopandi is a well-meaning man, but maps will only show that non-Muslims are in a minority just about everywhere in Bekasi and in Jakarta. The kind of bigoted clerics we’re talking about here don’t care at all if it’s 2% or 20% – backed up by the kind of Islamist zealots who run the political show in Bekasi, they want to stamp out any alternative source of spiritual guidance that might seem preferable to their own unpleasant brand.
had promised a post on the changed status of women since the 1950s. but they will need to wait.
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I’ll wait this, Ross.
@Ross:
The original dispute between Oigal and me was whether life in general was better in the 1950s, which I do think it was. With specific reference to women….
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I add my context a little bit at first. Since I have limited resources about what happened during 1950s in Indonesia and its impact to women, I will use personal experience as the basic to describe whether women were happier and more content at that period than now.
1950s was the time when my parents were around 1 and 3 yrs old. All my grandmas were housewives, my grand-grandpa had more than one wife, all were living close to each other (extended family type), main food resource was from the farm, and kids were nurtured by more than one person. I mean, the responsibility for taking care of kids was sometimes distributed between the extended family members; not only by moms.
Were those women happy? From the story they’ve told me, I can conclude that they were happy. Everything was in harmony. The farm produced more than enough crops & grains, the air and water were pretty much very clean – less polluted, kids were healthy, the social status as religion leader family gave them more power and flexibility when interact with the society, and economic status enabled them to give better education to their children (of course for girls, less chance to have higher formal education because they would marry soon at a relatively young age, between 15-16 yrs old).
A slightly different thing happened to my mom. She had relatively higher education than her peers, and when she married she decided to be a full-time housewife rather than working. It was completely different situation compared to my grandmas era, since my dad was working as a government staff and we lived far in urban area; not much economic support from the extended family, and the income source was completely from my dad’s salary.
Was she happy? Yes, she was happy and content. But she was also vulnerable since she had no job, which means she didn’t have any alternative for income resource and she had to make sure everything was running well; my dad’s job was stable and expenses were less than the income. Once the stability was disturbed, her happiness was also disturbed.
Now I move to second quote:
I was thinking more in terms of contentment. Are for example Aussie or North American or British women truly happier now that they’ve been liberated?
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I need to read more about what happened during that period in North American for example, before deciding whether they were happier or not. Because, if I assume that women actually felt more content by doing their traditional role at that time (as a housewife and their husbands as the bread-winner), I think the same pattern will appear. Their happiness were pretty much also depended on their husbands. As long as their position as bread-winner were stable, less conflict arose in their house, and less worries for women. Once the economic messed up, e.g. layoff, industrial shifting into more mechanical than human labor, etc… women got the impact first and had to get out from the house to work; which means adding burden to them because they still had to take responsibility on the household chores. When the burden was too much, we cannot expect them to live happily except some adjustments were made, for example men doing the household chores while their wives working.
I still not mention cases based on the liberal/feminism movement – maybe later. However, there are 2 articles that discuss in why women now are less happy than before (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/26/business/26leonhardt.html?pagewanted=print) and (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6395879.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1). From those 2 articles I make simple conclusion that if women are assumed to be happier at 1950s era, it maybe related to the different expectation. Right now, women face higher expectations, both from themselves or from the society. They have more choices, but also face challenges when they have to harmonize it.
But are they really less happy than women before their era? I don’t think it will be easy to answer this because happiness, first, it is very subjective; and second, it is affected by many conditions.
If I’ve been asked whether I choose to live at 1950s than now, I choose to live right now because despite all of the challenges that I have to face, I see more opportunities in front of my eyes that my mom and my grandmas never ever dreamed about. The chance to choose what’s best for me; either being a full housewife, having career, or pursuing my other dream. But I do feel that sometimes when a woman choose to be a full housewife, she doesn’t get enough appreciation from the society. It is quite an irony; when a woman gets more opportunities and at the same time she should bury her original dream about being a housewife just because it is not a “respectful” job at this modern era.
Just my 2 cents. Let me know whether I grasp your point or not.
I was going to say something along the line of immigrants/ guestworkers/expats etc but now that I’ve read Venna’s great response to Pak Ross, I decided to shut up.
Bravo Venna!
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Timdog, your comments have successfully let us all go off on a different tangent yet again, but I had hoped you might oblige, as this is a very big issue for both Indonesia and ourselves as Westerners.
Illegals are ipso facto queue–jumpers. Most of the Anglo-Saxon countries (and other places like Holland, Sweden and France) have allowed in far too many legal immigrants, but given that they have democratically approved procedures for immigration, it is manifestly unfair for thousands of ‘asylum-seekers’ to get past those who have applied for and wait patiently for, admission under the proper rules.
In cases like Afghanistan, and Iraq, it is moreover quite offensive that fit and able citizens of those countries are sneaking into Aussie and the UK ( to Oz via Indonesia, which would be a culturally and religiously more appropriate destination if they just wanted to migrate to ‘safety’) while young Aussie and Brit servicemen are over there at horrendous risk, fighting to make those countries safer and better for Afghans and Iraqis.
Sending one’s women and kids out of harm’s way is one thing, but running out on your country when it’s in dire straits is another.
There is also the disturbing aspect of terrorist infiltration. I believe that 25% of those brought in for questioning after a recent UK terr episode were ‘asylum-seekers,’ and it diesn’t surprise me. Britain certainly has opened its doors to Islamofascists (incredibly, Britain took in a Taliban afraid of the government we are supporting!) and Communists. Both these types are unwelcome guests in anyone’s home, of which the UK (and Australia) already has more than enough.
There is much to add to these opening gambits, but I’ll let the pack get into it as I need to get to work.