Tolerance culture in Indonesia

Source image : Click

An article written by Prashanth Parameswaran challenges the statement of Indonesia’s vice president Jusuf Kalla claiming that “Indonesia is the most tolerant Muslim-majority in the world” on his speech in Aceh. The author suggest the opposite relying on a study conducted by Phew on September 2012 who collected data from 2007 - 2010. Aside from the years that the research conducted, Parameswaran argues that nowadays the tolerance over Indonesia people toward non-Muslim people is getting worse.

All I can say about this article is indeed religion is still big issue in Indonesia. Since 1945 when Indonesia founding fathers was formulating our constitution, religion has been an issue at that time. They deliberated whether the constitution should be based on Al-Quran or not. As conclusion they were agree not to include any religion principal in the constitution. Not all of Indonesian is Muslim, but religion has become principal basic education in Indonesia family.  Furthermore, twenty years ago Indonesia people did not give much attention toward any practicing of any religion in their neighborhood. Nowadays, religion has been driven by some of political parties in Indonesia to raise some issues in order to gain many support. 

Democratization which grows fast after 1998 has encouraged the people to express their idea in many ways. Because the majority of Indonesia people are Muslim, they look more prominent in expressing their thoughts compare to non-Muslim. Meaning they have more participants. 

Along with the growth of democracy in Indonesia, many thoughts have been brought by different group of people. Those thoughts, I assume, might not appear before 1998 because the government regime was so strict about any emerging new idea. 

Regarding with Indonesian Muslim’s aggressive actions toward non-Muslim, it is because Indonesia people still do not understand what democracy mean is. All they know is freedom of expression. I cannot say those aggressive actions showing that Indonesia is heading to restrictive Islamic country. Indeed, compare to the last sixteen years there are more Indonesian people wearing their religion identity like hijab (scarf). However, globalization also has role in bringing western life style which can be seen with Indonesia teenagers today who have been accustomed to appear on public wearing sleeveless and short and dying hair. So, we cannot conclude that nowadays Indonesia has become religious country.

Therefore, toward the aggressive actions which can be interpreted as intolerance action, Indonesia people only have to know the meaning of democracy. The government must take part in educating its people about democracy. I also suggest that Indonesia people should at least try to live where they will be the minority. Then, they will know how they struggle to fit in. 

Democracy contains freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of information, etc. Democracy means tolerate. Democracy does not mean we have to strike the minority. Democracy means we have to hear others opinion and idea. If we use democracy as tool to eliminate minority that means we are heading to dictatorship era.