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COMMENTARY ON US-INDONESIA COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENTS FROM THE AMERICAN INDONESIAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

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Monday, October 18, 2010

Rising Intolerance

Indonesia’s President, SBY, has asked President Obama to do something about intolerant acts against Muslims and Islam in the United States. But, perhaps now is the time for Obama to ask the same of SBY on behalf of Christians. SBY protested the possible burning of a Koran by a Florida pastor and the many US candidates running against the Islamic cultural center planned for New York (near ground zero) are just part of the growing Islamaphobia in the US. Although it does not appear to be at the level of France and Holland, a continuing high unemployment continues to feed the scapegoating impulse: when 30% of Americans believe Obama is Muslim, we have a problem. Indonesia observers are concerned about the growing number of violent attacks on Christians and Muslim subgroups such as Ahmadiyah. In certain communities in Jakarta, Christians have been attacked en route to a place of worship and the police have stood by. The respected Indonesian Survey Research Institute (LSI) found that 30% of Indonesians supported violent actions against Ahmadiyah, a group that believes Muhammad was not the last Islamic prophet. More shocking to those of us that often tout Indonesia’s marvelous tolerance is that 57.8 percent said they were against the construction of churches and other non-Muslim places of worship – the highest level recorded since 2001. Just this week, a group of youths calling themselves “Laskar Jihad” broke up a traditional Javanese shadow puppet performance (wayang). Perhaps its “Islam” is not pure enough or some spectators were imbibing. Non Muslim leaders are disturbed because the new National Police Chief is reported to have ties to the vigilante group Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), a group that has ransacked bars, attacked peaceful demonstrations, and broken up meetings of gay rights groups. More recently, pressured by hard liners, Indonesia’s Supreme Court upheld the indecency conviction of the founder of Indonesia’s Playboy although the magazine had no nudity. Indonesia’s President has spoken out against the violence and provided a reasonable analysis of why there has been more of it: “In a large-scale transformation, there might be disorientation and resistance,” he said. “It often causes uncomfortable feelings [and leads to different groups] blaming each other. It happens because the old values have been abandoned while the new values have not been properly established.” VP Boediono went a little further in remarks at a recent conference when he said “our state ideology tells us to respect people holding different religious beliefs. If we deviate from or contradict our basic ideology, the nation will come to ruin." It may be time for Indonesia to launch a more vigorous counterattack and for Obama to encourage him to do more to protect the rights of other religions. A start would be to ban incendiary groups like FPI and to more actively facilitate the construction of churches.

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President of the American Indonesian Chamber of Commerce, a private not for profit membership organization based in NY.

These views do not necessarily represent those of the American Indonesian Chamber of Commerce or its members.

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