In August 16, 1999, Kompas, arguably the most influential newspaper in the country, conducted a poll on issues of national disintegration. Respondents were taken from the country’s eight biggest cities. Question of the polling opinion is: Concerning all problems in Indonesia, what is the main concern that will happen as a cause of national disintegration? (see table)

 Table 4. Main concern that will cause disintegration

The results were no surprise. The respondents’ view that the conflict among religions is the main concern that could cause national disintegration is not without reason.  By August 1999, hundreds of people have been killed in a widespread conflict in Moluccas which was started in January 1999. Widely believed that the conflict was triggered by a mixture of politics and religious tension.

Good and Bad

Religions exert a profound influence, good or bad, on nearly all societies, including Indonesian society. Throughout history, religions have played a significant role in providing many societies with moral teachings that motivate their followers to develop spiritual qualities, inspire them to live in peaceful and meaningful ways, and empower them to contribute to the betterment of their societies. Those universal spiritual principles which lie at the heart of religion -- tolerance, compassion, love, justice, humility, sacrifice and unity -- are the foundations of progressive society.

Central to the dogma of religions is the existence of a Creator or a Supreme Being or God who is sovereign over an orderly universe and with a specific purpose for humankinds.  The Creator is firmly believed by religious followers as a loving, tender, faithful, just, righteous being and possesses unlimited power.  By definition, religions declare to know what God wants and it is the duty of human beings – the creation – to emulate the God’s traits of character. Theoretically, with such a noble goal there can be no better vehicle to bring harmonious change than religion.

While this role is positive and constructive, religions however tend to be divisive making them vulnerable to manipulation. Through a dogmatic exclusiveness - by promising rewards to those who follow their teachings and punishment to those who don’t - religions have been associated with serious divisions and bitter animosities.  It must be acknowledged that the perversion of religion has been a primary cause of social disintegration, intolerance, hatred, oppression and warfare throughout the history of humankinds. Many of today's seemingly intractable problems can be traced to the corruption and misuse of religious authority.

Forget about the conflicts from centuries ago. Many religion-driven conflicts in the last decade are enough to show that misunderstandings and misinterpretations about religion and religious teachings have brought atrocities around the world. All is in the name of some "righteous" cause. In just the first few years of the 1990s the world has witnessed Sikh violence against Muslims in India; Serbian Orthodox Christians against Croatian Catholics and Bosnian Muslims in the shattered Yugoslavia; the extremism of Muslim holy laws throughout Africa and the Middle East; Catholics against Protestants in Northern Ireland; Hindus and Buddhists engaging in violent clashes in Sri Lanka.^[i]

And sadly, it not only occurs, but also it is widespread in Indonesia.

 

Religion in Indonesia

 

The freedom of religion in Indonesia is granted by the country’s Constitution.  Chapter XI, Articles 29 of the Indonesian Constitution stipulates that (1) "The nation is based upon belief in one supreme God" and (2) “the state shall guarantee freedom to every resident to adhere to their respective religion and to perform their religious duties in accordance with their religion and that faith.”

The Government generally respects these provisions. Law No. 1/1965 states that the Government "embraces" Islam, Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Confucianism. In January 2000, Presidential Decree No. 6/2000 revoked the 1967 law which restricted severely the practice of Confucianism. While the law formally "embraces" only these six religions, it explicitly states that other religions, including Judaism, Zoroastarianism, Shintoism, and Taoism are not forbidden. The Government has given official recognition in the form of representation at the Ministry of Religious Affairs to five major faiths –Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Hinduism and Buddhism. Religious organizations other than the five recognized faiths are able to register with the Government, but only with the State Ministry for Culture and Tourism, and only as social organizations.

The Government permits the practice of the indigenous belief system of Kepercayaan, but only as a cultural manifestation, and not as a religion. The followers of Aliran Kepercayaan must register with the Ministry of Education’s Department of National Education. Because the first tenet of the official state ideology, “Pancasila”, is belief in one supreme God, atheism is forbidden. Although individuals are not compelled to practice any particular faith, all citizens must classify themselves as members of one of the six officially recognized religions.

The Government requires that official religions comply with a number of Ministry of Religious Affairs and other ministerial directives in their registration and activities. One of them is the Regulation on Building Houses of Worship (Joint-Ministerial Decree No. 1/1969).  The 1969 regulation dictates that before a house of worship can be built, agreement must be obtained from local residents living near the site, and a license must be obtained from the regional office of the Ministry of Religious Affairs.  Although the regulations implemented under the decree apply to all recognized religions, minority groups--especially Protestant--claim that the law is enforced only on religious minorities, and that minority faiths have difficulty obtaining the proper licenses and permits to build houses of worship.

Notwithstanding the vast majority of Muslim population, the country is not an Islamic state. Over a half of century, however, Islamic groups have attempted to establish an Islamic state. Proponents of an Islamic state argued unsuccessfully in 1945 and throughout the parliamentary democracy period of the 1950’s for the inclusion of language the so-called "Jakarta Charter" in the Constitution’s preamble, making it obligatory for Muslims to follow Shari’a.

During his thirty-two year rule, President Suharto successfully managed to relegate Islam to the periphery of politics in Indonesia. He well understood that politics and religion were a dangerous mix in a multi-cultural, multiethnic and multi-religious country. He also understood that Indonesia needed stability, without constant undermining from Islamic factions, as had happened during the chaotic years of the Sukarno presidency of the 1950s and 1960s.  After assuming power in 1965, Suharto united existing Muslim political parties into the PPP (United Development Party), which became the only official political vehicle for Islam. In keeping the nation united, during the Suharto regime, advocacy of an Islamic state was forbidden. In 1983 Suharto issued a regulation that all political organisations must adopt Pancasila, the state ideology, as their sole principle (asas tunggal). “Pancasila”.

But with the fall of Suharto in May 1998 and the reintroduction of democracy to Indonesia, Islam has reemerged as a political power.  A number of new Muslim political parties emerged in 1998, which challenged the dominance of the main Muslim party, the PPP. With the loosening of restrictions on freedom of speech and religion that followed the fall of Suharto in May 1998, proponents of the "Jakarta Charter" have resumed their advocacy efforts. But they are failed.  Two of the country’s mainstream and influential Muslim communities, the Muhammadiyah and the NU, reject the idea of Islamic state.  The nationalist political parties such as PDIP and Golkar also reject the idea of amending the Constitution to include Shari'a.

Religious Demography

The available data for 1990 indicate that 87 percent of the population were Muslim, 6.0 percent were Protestant, 3.6 percent were Catholic, 1.8 percent were Hindu, 1.0 percent were Buddhist, and 0.6 percent were "other," which includes traditional indigenous religions, other Christian groups, and Judaism.^[ii]  In 1998, Muslim 88%, Protestant 5%, Roman Catholic 3%, Hindu 2%, Buddhist 1%, other 1%.^[iii]

Muslims are the majority population in most regions of Sumatra and Java. Muslims also predominate in regions of Sulawesi and Kalimantan and are present as minorities in most other parts of the country. Most Christians reside in the eastern part of the country. Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion in the provinces of Nusa Tenggara Timor, southeast Maluku and southeastern province of Papua, while Protestantism is the predominant religion in central and north Maluku, the easternmost province of Papua, and Protestants are predominant in North Sumatra, main bases of the influential Batak Protestant Churches. There also are significant Christian populations in west and central Java, and in Kalimantan. A large percentage of Chinese-Indonesians adhere to Christian faiths as well.

Most Hindus live in Bali, where they account for over 90 percent of the population. Among the country's Buddhists, an estimated 70 percent practice the Mahayana school, Theravada followers account for another 20 percent, with the remaining adherents belonging to the Tantrayana.

For the last three decades, the religious demography of the country has changed due to an internal migration of population, both government-sponsored and spontaneous. The percentage of Muslims in the previously predominantly Christian eastern part of the country, for example, has increased during the last three decades. By the early 1990’s, Christians became a minority for the first time in some areas of the Moluccas. Regardless of the government’s intent of the transmigration, the economic consequences of the transmigration policy contributed to the current religious conflicts in Papua, the Moluccas and Sulawesi.

Religious tensions and conflicts

While the freedom of religion is granted by the Constitution and respected by the Government, realities often reveal a different story. Religious intolerance within society has become increasingly dangerous and more visible which was manifested in various violent incidents in many parts of the country, notably in Moluccas, Poso and Lombok.

One of the indications is the increasing number of the destruction of religious buildings. Taking the destruction of churches as an example, more than 500 churches were destroyed in less than three years from 1996 to 1999, a very sharp contrast to the less than five similar cases within a time span of more than a half century, 1945-1996. According to the Indonesian Christian Communication Forum, from January 1999 to April 2001, 327 churches were closed or destroyed, while the Ministry of Religion reported that 254 mosques were attacked or destroyed during the same period. Most of the attacks and destruction occurred in the Moluccas. From July 1, 2000 to May 31, 2001, there were 108 reported incidents of destruction of churches including 21 attacks on churches in Java; 20 in Sumatra, 10 in Lombok; 9 in South, Central, and Southeast Sulawesi; and 5 in North Sumatra (Medan).^[iv]

The violence erupted in the Moluccas in January 1999 is one of the most brutal religious conflicts in the country. Several hundred houses of worship, both mosques and churches, were destroyed and more than 5,000 people were killed as Christians and Muslims waged an internecine conflict.^[v]  Is it estimated that over a half million of people are displaced since the conflict began in 1999.^[vi]    

As the intensity of the violence declined in the Moluccas, it exploded in the Central Sulawesi district of Poso at the end of 2001. There had been sectarian clashes in Poso, where the Christians constituted a majority or substantial minority, since 1998. Large-scale violence between the Muslim and Christian communities broke out in April 2000, following a brawl between a Christian and a Muslim youth. In the first stage of the conflict, attacks by Muslims on Christians culminated in killings and destruction of hundreds of Christian homes.  Hundreds of Muslims were killed in retaliatory attacks by Christian “Black Bat” raiders in May 2000.  After three years of episodic fighting, death toll estimates range from 1,000 to 2,500, with thousands more injured. Scores of churches and mosques have been torched. Nearly 100,000 have fled their burning homes, leaving the capital of Poso district described at one time as a 'dead city'.^[vii]

In January 2000, there were anti-Christian riots in Mataram, Lombok. Several rioters were killed and numerous persons were injured in the violence. Christian homes, businesses, and other property are destroyed, damaged, and looted. Thousands of Christians fled the violence.

The total number of people killed due to the recent religious conflicts is likely well beyond 10 thousands with about a million of people are displaced. Not only have the conflicts created a massive and profound misery to millions of people in the country, but also left a bigger worry whether a much worse conflict will ever occur again. This begs a question as to why the conflicts occur.

Causes

Indonesians generally tend to identify themselves and to interact with others on the basis of ethnicity, religion, race, or social class. The country is a multiethnic, multireligious society that, historically, has experienced outbursts of ethnic and religious intolerance and violence in the past. Nevertheless, the concept of religious freedom is generally accepted within society. Religious organizations, nongovernmental organizations (NGO's), and individuals regularly conduct programs and activities aimed at promoting tolerance and cooperation between different religious communities. Moderate political and religious leader such as the former President Abdurrahman Wahid regularly addresses the need for interreligious harmony. Major political parties such as PDIP and Golkar are nonsectarian.

While religious tensions have been the main sources of intercommunal warfare, many Indonesians still generally view that there is no such thing as a religious tensions. They point to the fact that most of the recent horrific conflicts occurred during the period when the country was experiencing a combination of economic and political crisis.  But, it could be also because they have no clue of what was really going on.  As Agus Rachmat wrote,

Many people would like to believe that there is no religious tension in Indonesia. Even after the bloody conflict in Ambon and the Christmas bombing of several churches last year, a teacher from Ambon wonderingly said: "We were living previously in peace. We never experienced religious hatred before." A great mystery grips the whole country: who is the cunning mastermind behind the series of bombings, riots, bloody ethnic cleansing, mysterious murders and violent religious clashes that take place much more frequently in the post-Suharto's era? In desperation…people like to say that they are the products of a Siluman, namely, a great evil spirit having neither name nor form of its own.^[viii]

While political manipulation cannot be discarded as a cause of the violence, especially in the Moluccas and Poso, there are deeper reasons for the conflict.^[ix] Besides rooted in religion itself, the conflicts are partly rooted in social, political, and economic grievances among the many diverse communities. In the Moluccas, Central Sulawesi, Papua and Kalimantan, economic tensions between local or native peoples (predominantly non-Muslim) and more recently arrived migrants (predominantly Muslim) were a significant factor in incidents of interreligious and interethnic violence.  Moreover, as the central leadership that was function as a centrifugal force holding the nation together grew weaker, it eroded the local leadership, leaving conflicting groups without a respected and effective mechanism for resolving intercommunal and interreligous tensions.

But why are the conflicts so widespread and horrific in the post New Order regime? Is it the case that people once lived a peaceful religious coexistence during the New Order era and, given the economic and political crisis in the post era, it drastically degenerated into a ferocious coexistence? That is not the case.

While political situation has changed drastically, from the previously enforced stability to the present fluid instability, religious situation may have not change so drastic or perhaps the same level of “stability”. But combined with the economic, value and leadership crisis, the previously less harmful religious tensions suddenly transformed into horrifying conflicts.  In other words, the various crises have precipitated the transformation of less harmful religion tensions into atrocious conflicts. Conflict in Poso for example is often described as an ethnic or religious conflict. But the NGO LPS-HAM’s report concluded that the Poso crisis was caused by the accumulation of economic, criminal, social, and political factors. ^[x]

Adeney-Risakotta for instance wrote,

Religion is a powerful force in Indonesia and has played a part in much of the violence, as well as in attempts to stop it… However, religion is never an autonomous force that acts independently from other factors… Violent conflict in Indonesia is usually precipitated by political, economic, and social changes that are influenced by volatile tensions between traditional power structures, religious world views, and modern institutions. Since virtually all Indonesians are religious, violence often appeals to religion for justification. Similarly, all Indonesians are religious. Religious institutions, ideas, and practices shape the identities and practices of all, not least of which includes those who resist the dominant trends in religion.^[xi]

Religious tensions are also due to the mixture between politics and religion. In Indonesia, religion and politics are often intertwined. Just like race and ethnicity, religion has also been used as a vehicle to achieve a certain political aim. In the context of religious tension, it means that due to its amplifying ability religious emotion and bond has been used in order to support or to overthrow a certain power structure. Religious conflict is part of a larger power struggle. A report by Muslim academics described the causes in very similar terms. Religion and ethnicity, they concluded, became "political vehicles for certain elite interests."^[xii]

Other contributing factor to the religious conflicts in the country is an external force. As Poso residents told Human Rights Watch, it was primarily people from other villages who were involved in the violence. One Christian displaced person from the village of Matako explained that "the Muslims in the village are all good people. We didn't have a problem with them. It was always people from outside the village, riding by, screaming, shooting guns. We were terrorized, so we finally fled in July 2001." A Muslim man from a village near the scene of a May 2000 massacre at Kilo Nine said he sought refuge at the army post after Christian neighbors warned him of the coming attack.^[xiii]

The origins and the complexities of the conflicts, particularly in the Moluccas have been succinctly summed up by the ICG which states:

 

“Though often described in terms of a Christian-Muslim fight, at the core of the Maluku violence lies economic and political competition between local interests. Wrapped around this core is a series of external problems ranging from the national agenda of a resurgent group of Muslim politicians to efforts by some segment of the military to undermine the [former] government of President Abdurrahman Wahid.”^[xiv]

 

However, these three deeply-rooted causes do not explain why the conflict was suddenly exploded into such extend that killed about 10 thousands of people and displaced more than a million. That the politicians use religions to achieve their political ambitions indicates that there must be a religious issue they can exploit in order to provoke people’s emotion and bring the people to their side. Such tactic or strategy is not something new. In addition, the political, economic and social tensions are not exclusive to the regions in conflict. The involvement of the external force must also explain something. The external force must have seen an opportunity to exploit the “sleeping” tension and convert it into a full-blown chaos. The political, economic and social crises then add the fuel to the fire. By being framed within that mutual suspicion, a trivial accident could explode into a mass and brutal violence.  This mutual suspicion is a "hidden time-bomb", so to speak, that could easily be triggered to explode by almost any incident involving people from these two religious communities: Islam and Christian.

This brings us to a third cause – the perception about other religion. Why religion lends itself quite easily to be provoked into violence? Perhaps there is an unconscious distrust, a hidden enmity toward the other religion deeply seated in the development of each religion itself.  The latent mutual distrust among religious followers has enabled factors such as political, economic and social tensions including external forces to create such a horrible and uncontrollable violence. In Poso for example, there were those on both sides who were eager to frame the conflict as entirely religious, sometimes using scriptural language.^[xv] Here we are particularly being confronted with the ever haunting phenomenon of Islamization versus Christianization. There is a latent suspicion covertly cherished by each religious community toward one another, particularly among Muslism and Christians of the problem of "Islamization" and "Christianization.

The Christian community, being a minority, is often feared of being an easy target for social frustration of the masses. This is not without reason. Minority, both in terms of religion and ethnic, has often been the victims of many social chaos occurred during the few years. Living in the largest Islamic population and observing a gradual trend of social and political development, Christian community also worry of a potential sudden change in the nation’s ideology from Pancasila to Islam. This is the kind of fear that arises when observing something has changed without knowing for sure what it will ultimately bring to oneself: the fear for a radical shift. That perception arises by observing the phenomena of the Islamic resurgence and the radicalization of Islam in Indonesia.

It is a fear of uncertainty about the future.

The Islamic community, on the other hand, is fear of Christianization. For the Indonesian Muslims, Christianization is a basic intention of Christianity to convert (Islamic) people to become Christians. The perception among Muslims is Christian missionaries (both local and foreign) are conducting an active and aggressive religion that wants to conquer the world to its faith.  Finally, Christianization is also identified with several closely associated ideas: modernization, westernization, and secularization. In this context, the meaning of Christianization has become so broad and vague as to be practically identical with everything that is against Islam. That practical identification, however, has a very specific connotation in Indonesia: Christianity is any idea coming from the western world that weakens Islam, either though penetration (e.g. Human Rights, feminism, separation between state and religion)

It is a fear of number although statistics tells us a different perspective. In 1990, about 87 percent of Indonesian population was Muslims and in 1998, the percentage was up to 88%.

As reported by the Human Right Watch of the conflict in Poso,

“In Palu, prominent Muslim legal advocate Tajwin Ibrahim explained the roots of the problem as a long campaign of "Christianization." Ibrahim argued that after seeing the percentage of Christians decrease in the district, the strategy shifted from missionary activity to economic inducements, and then to violence to chase away Muslims. Other Muslims have argued that reports of forced conversion, destruction of houses of worship, and attacks on local Muslims as well as migrants demonstrated the religious nature to the conflict. Christians, especially solidarity groups abroad, depicted the conflict as an Islamic "holy war" against the Protestants.^[xvi]

Clearly, the religious nature of the conflicts cannot be ignored. If there were a solid trust and cooperation among religion in the country, any external forces or socially, economically and politically driven tensions which are trying to destabilize community or provoke people into committing communal warfare would not be successful.  Social tensions that are caused by economic and political differences are stressed by religion, which acts as a catalyst for communities to believe and do what is preached to them. It is logical that in building and promoting a united Indonesia, a solid trust and cooperation among different religions must be one of the paramount agendas of the nation.