, The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Tue, 06/20/2006 1:27 PM | Opinion
Mirza Tirta Kusuma, Chicago
Plurality, including plurality of religions, is a fact of our contemporary world, both on a global scale and often on the level of specific societies. Throughout most of recorded history, humanity has experienced a rich plurality of religions. This is due to the manifoldness of the divine revelation and of its human pursuit in different cultures.
Plurality is also the very texture of Indonesia. In terms of religion in Indonesia, many researchers maintain that there is a demographic paradox: despite the huge Muslim majority population, Indonesia is constitutionally not an Islamic state.
On the other hand, it is not a secular state either. Constitutionally it is a unitary state which embodies and simplifies a philosophy called Pancasila (""Five Principles"").
Therefore, Muslims' acceptance of Pancasila is no doubt one of the most important Indonesian Islamic roots of pluralism.
Despite its religious diversity, Indonesia has until recently been generally known as a country where a number of great world religions meet and develop in peaceful coexistence. The region is also known as one of the least Arabicized areas throughout the Muslim world.
In the vast archipelago, with its many islands, tribes, languages and cultures, the Indonesian state wants to create a modern and stable nation with a firm national cohesion. One of the aspects of the ideology of Pancasila is the promotion of this national unity.
Pancasila can be viewed as a secular as well as an equality definition of monotheism since religion is defined as ethics and separated from the state. This is the foundation which made it possible to overcome the tension between Islam and a secular national state in Indonesia, and to demonstrate a successful pattern for harmonious unity of culturally, ethnically and religiously differing communities.
This Pancasila definition of monotheism is a clear-cut deviation from the traditional Islamic dhimmi principle. A dhimmi may be defined as a person with accountability and inviolability, granted human rights and constitutional rights. In classical Islamic jurisprudence the term dhimmah means accountability and inviolability, which is usually termed personhood in modern legal discourse. Dhimmah is also commonly understood as ""protection"", ""treaty"" and ""peace"" because it is a treaty that puts non-Muslims under the protection of Muslims (it is the concept of the rights of minorities), but used to be misunderstood as second citizens.
Pancasila puts Muslims, Christians, Hindus and Buddhists on an equal level. That is not only a revolution in Islamic thinking but also a translation of the mystical ideas of the great Sufi Muslim Ibn Arabi into a political program. Sufi Islam's tolerance and its rejection of any dogmatism has become a basis of political reality in Indonesia.
In Indonesia, non-Muslims are not dhimmis but citizens of equal standing. This offers a model for an equal definition of Islam and Christianity, which is expanded also to Buddhism, Hinduism and Confucianism, religions which are not mentioned in Islamic revelations.
The religious harmony demonstrated by Indonesia exceeds by far the parable of the three rings; it has to embrace the other world religions.
Indeed, most Indonesians are Muslims, and the rest are Christians (Catholic and Protestant), Hindus, Buddhists, Confucians and even a very small Jewish community. The reality of religious pluralism is not just a matter of the historical past, but also a reality of the living present, reflected in curiosity about other religions, studying them at various levels and reading each other's scripture.
As we do so, we are often inspired by each other's insights and practices. Sometimes we find that our various traditions share some of the same fundamental values that each of us cherish in our own religions, albeit expressed in different ways.
One might say that, to be religious today in Indonesia is to be inter-religious. Avoiding pluralism is avoiding the reality of different points of view and beliefs in society.
The writer is a Ford Foundation and Cardinal Bernardin Scholar in Chicago. She can be reached at mirzatk@yahoo.com.
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