Showing posts with label pluralism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pluralism. Show all posts

Friday, March 13, 2009

The fact of Conflicts on Poso



Conflicts on Poso, Central Sulawesi-Indonesia

Maybe, The National Intelligence Agency (BIN) has to take apart with this condition or they already know the main problem then they only see and take it easy with the conditions. (Indonesia, The land which full of intrigue and conspiracy. We have to change this condition)

Most of the sectarian violence in Central Sulawesi, both during the Moluccan conflict and at the present time, has been concentrated on the coastal town of Poso and its surrounding district. What marks Central Sulawesi as special is that it is more or less divided equally between Muslims and Christians. On Poso, there is an imbalance weighted in favor of Muslims. Muslims number 44.99% of the total population in Poso regency, Christians are 39.10%, Catholics 2.5% while the rest are Hindu and Buddhist.

The protagonists of violence on Poso were not only members of Lashkar Jihad, according to The International Crisis Group's Asia Report No 43 of December 11, 2002 (full pdf document can be obtained from HERE, with registration required).

The terror group Jemaah Islamiyah was behind some of the Islamic militia groups active on Poso. These had names such as Laskar Jundullah (army of Allah). There were several groups of this name, but one was formed in September 2000 as the military wing of KPPSI, the Preparatory Committee for Upholding Islamic Law. This was headed by Agus Dwikarna, later imprisoned as a JI member in the Philippines. Though officially based in Makasar, it had its military headquarters at Poso. It recruited members of another Islamic 'army", Laskar Mujahidin, and also the group Darul Islam.


Darul Islam, founded in the 1940s with the aim of establishing a Caliphate in southeast Asia, had provided Jemaah Islamiyah with many of its core members. From 1953 to 1962, Darul Islam launched a rebellion on Aceh in northwestern Indonesia. It also had rebellions in West Java and South Sulawesi in the 1950s. It still exists, and a cell on West Java has links with Noordin Top, the JI financier and recruiter.

Link on: 
Darul-Islam: Kartosuwirjos Kampf um einen islamischen Staat Indonesien (Beitrage zur Sudasienforschung) (German Edition) 
Traditional Authority, Islam, and Rebellion: A Study of Indonesian Political Behavior 
Gerakan Islam tradisional di Malaysia: Jamat Tabligh & Darul Arqum 
Islam in Indonesia: A survey of events and developments from 1988 to March 1993 (Seri INIS) 
M. Natsir dan Darul Islam: Studi kasus Aceh dan Sulawesi Selatan tahun 1953-1958

JI was founded in Malaysia around 1995 by Abdullah Sungkar. Sungkar in the 1970s also founded the Pondok Ngruki (also called Al Mukmin), the Islamic pesantren in Solo, about 250 miles east of Jakarta. He had co-founded this school with the "spiritual leader" of Jemaah Islamiyah, Abu Bakar Bashir. About 30 known or suspected Islamic terrorists have attended this pesantren.

Bashir was arrested and jailed for "giving his consent" to the 2002 Bali bombings. Currently there are three conspirators involved in the 2003 bombings, who are awaiting imminent execution. One of these, Amrozi, had attended the Pondok Ngruki school, led by Bashir, and said that it was a "JI institution". Another of those awaiting death by firing squad is Imam Samudra. The Laskar Mujahidin was linked to the Ngruki school and the MMI, the Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia (MMI), which had been founded by Bashir and others in August 2000.

According to the International Crisis Group, Samudra was directly involved with recruiting for the "jihad" on Poso and the Moluccas.

From his base in a training camp in Cimalati, Pandeglang regency in Banten province (West Java), Samudra would send JI operatives who were to recruit people for jihadist operations in Poso and Ambon. These would approach students, and would invite them to meetings, where they would be shown video CDs of the wars in Ambon and Poso. These videos would be produced by Mujahideen KOMPAK, an affiliate of JI, and would document atrocities supposedly carried out by Christians. After this, there followed about four months of study and discussion about the impending darkness that would come unless they fought for jihad. When the recruits were considered ready, they would be sent to fight in Poso and Ambon.

Other groups involved in the fighting on Poso included Adnan Arsal's Komite Perjuangan Muslim Poso ( KPMP). By the time Lashkar Jihad disbanded in early October, 2002, it had chased out the fighters of the smaller group Laskar Mujahidin from Poso.

Link on:  
Tafsir - Ul - Qur'an, Translation and Commentary of the Holy Qur'an, 4 Vols. 
Kebangkitan Islam Di kalangan pelajar
The Message of Al-Quran

The initial trigger for the violence in Poso and the Moluccas began in 1998, when the dictator Haji Mohamed Suharto was finally forced to resign in 1998. During his rule of twenty-one years' duration, he had forcefully suppressed Islamist groups in Indonesia. Under his rule, the tradition on Poso was to have the regional governor or bupati alternate from a Muslim, then to a Christian and back, to keep some sense of impartiality and equilibrium. In 1998, the Muslim bupati, Arief Patanga, announced that his successor was to be a member of his family, rather than a Christian, breaking the tradition.

In the Christmas period of 1998, a minor fight broke out in Poso, outside a small mosque. As a result, Poso erupted into violence. The city was left a smoldering wreck as a result of the first conflict (below).
The fighting which took place led to churches being burned, such as the Oikumene Iradat Puri Church in Palu. The Reverend Irianto Kongkoli, who was shot dead on October 16, placed the blame for the Poso violence on the regent or bupati, Arief Patanga, who officially held his post from 1992 to 1997. As we noted earlier, he said: "The one who should be severely punished is Arief Patanga. "Christian homes and churches continued to be destroyed sporadically until April 2000 when the Muslim on Christian violence reached another peak. Then, there was mounted a retaliation.

A group called the Black Bat was involved in the Christian attacks, as was another called the Red Group. As jihadists had either voluntarily come to Poso to engage in the violence or had been sent by JI and Lashkar Jihad, an influx of Christians had also come to take part in the reprisals.

Among the individuals who had come to Poso in April-May to join the counter-attack against Muslims were Christians from East Nusa Tenggara province, which lies south of Sulawesi island. Three individuals who came to Poso at this time were Catholics, Fabianus Tibo, Dominggus da Silva and Marinus Riwu.
Their alleged involvement, and their subsequent fate, are instrumental in understanding some of the excesses of the Poso conflicts from the time of the Moluccan war, and also in understanding the violence which is currently engulfing Poso.

 Link On:
De Oorsprong van de Priestertaal in Poso
Jihad in Paradise: Islam and Politics in Southeast Asia
Religion, Civil Society and Conflict in Indonesia (Nijmegen Studies in Development and Cultural Change (NICCOS))
Between Cross and Crescent: Christian and Muslim Perspectives on Malcolm and Martin (History of African-American Religions)
Dutch Colonialism and Indonesian Islam: Contacts and Conflicts 1596-1950. Translated by Jan Steenbrink and Henry Jansen. Second Revised Edition. ... Encounter 7) (Currents of Encounter Series)

The three men are said to have gone into an area where violence was raging to evacuate children from a church-led school in the village of Moengko, Poso City. A Muslim mob came to the church on May 23, 2000 and burned the church down. The children and the three men escaped before the building was razed.
These three men were, however, accused of inciting murders of Muslims, and orchestrating the violence which happened in the phase of the conflict during May 2000.

The Christian on Muslim violence was as horrific as anything mounted by the Muslims. In one village, Sintuwulemba, an estimated 300 Muslims were massacred. Their bodies were thrown in the Poso river, where they floated out to sea.

A peace accord was signed in August 2000, and though the conflict did not cease, it subsided substantially. However, in April 2001, Fabianus Tibo, Dominggus da Silva and Marinus Riwu were sentenced to death in a court case that was marked by crowds of Muslims calling for their death. It has been argued that the three men received an unfair trial, and that the judges ordered their deaths to appease the baying Muslim mob surrounding the Palu courthouse.

The death sentence caused a resurgence of the conflict, and in August 2001, Lashkar Jihad arrived in force to wage their war, burning Christian villages around Poso. Other Islamist groups had already been operating for some time by then. Many of the Christians took refuge in the highland lakeside town of Tentena, which is predominantly Christian.

The government intervened and the Malino Accord was brokered in December of that year. In January and February large stockpiles of weapons grew as fighters surrendered them to provincial authorities, but soon, the terms of the Accord were being breached by both sides. The Christians of the region were now without weapons, even though killings of Christians continued.

One individual who had signed the Malino Accord in December 2001 became a victim of its "justice" in August 2002. In mid August, two Muslim attacks took place upon villages near Poso. Three Christians were killed in Peleru, and Mayumba came under siege shortly after. Reverend Rinaldy Damanik, the head of the Protestant Church in the Central Sulawesi region, had helped to evacuate Christians from both villages. He was arrested on August 17 as his lorry was being besieged by jihadists. Police arrested him, and claimed that he was transporting 14 rifles and explosives. Under the terms of Malino, trafficking in weapons carried a sentence of either 12 years' jail or death by firing squad.

While in prison in Palu, awaiting trial, an attempt was made to poison Rev. Damanik on December 26, 2002, the fourth anniversary of the start of the Poso conflict. He was hospitalized as a result. He was placed on trial on February 3, 2003 and on 16 June, 2003, he was given a three year jail term. He was finally released in November 2004.

The main conflict only came to end in October 2002, when Lashkar Jihad announced that its main fighting wing in Poso, the Zabir, would leave the region of conflict. It was at this time that Laskar Jihad was voluntarily dissolving itself. It has been suggested that this had happened because Jafar Umar Thalib, who had been arrested in April 2002 for a speech made at Ambon mosque, in which he threatened not only Christians, but the government, was awaiting his trial. It was suggested that the group dissolved itself as a measure to stop Thalib becoming jailed. Whether the group is really inactive, or merely dormant, is not so clear.
Source: http://www.westernresistance.com/blog/archives/003258.html

Link:
Religious Diversity in Southeast Asia and the Pacific: National Case Studies

Book's review:

Ethno-Religious Violence in Indonesia: From Soil to God (Routledge Contemporary Southeast Asia Series)
Islam Beyond Conflict (Law, Ethics and Governance)
 
Islam Beyond Conflict (Law, Ethics and Governance)
Islam Beyond Conflict (Law, Ethics and Governance)
READ MORE - The fact of Conflicts on Poso

The needs of Multicultural education in Indonesia


Written by: Setiono Sugiharto

As a nation-state with a pluralistic society, Indonesia is prone to social unrest and intra-group tension in terms of race, ethnicity and religion. Recent media headlines reported that discrimination and intolerance toward other religions were on the rise, the latest case being the closure of a Jewish synagogue in Surabaya, East Java. This was done in a show of solidarity with Palestinians being attacked in the Gaza Strip.

This, however, is just one indication of the fragility of our democracy, which upholds freedom of choosing different faiths. Another case of religious intolerance was the barring of Ahmadiyah followers from disseminating their religious dogma, which is considered heretical and blasphemous by hard-line Muslims.

Still another case was the Islamic Defenders Front's (FPI) ambush of a peaceful rally for religious tolerance at the National Monument, Central Jakarta.

Instances of opposition against religious pluralism prevailed long ago and are likely to continue to prevail in the future.

As part of its concerns about the real threat against pluralism, education practitioners once proposed that multicultural education be part of the school curriculum and be made a compulsory school subject.

The discourse on multicultural education was voiced in an effort to counteract growing radicalism in the country and to instill a sense of inclusiveness in the young generation.

When effectively implemented in a multiethnic society like ours, multicultural education provides the opportunity for young and adult learners to learn fundamental principles that help them critically evaluate and respond to what they see and experience as they live in a culturally heterogeneous society.

These principles include learning for the acquisition of social skills important for interacting with students from other racial, ethnic, religious and cultural groups; learning to understand universal values shared by all cultural groups such as compassion, justice, equality, tolerance, peace, freedom and care; learning about possible stereotypes and other related bias that could produce deleterious effects on racial, ethnic and religious relations.

In practice, teachers can, for example, assign students with meaningful tasks such as a case study, problem-solving approach and discovery learning, which will help students demonstrate universal values shared by other religious and ethnic groups, and critically analyze, weigh and evaluate prejudices.

As schools here are now experimenting with multicultural education, it is perhaps too premature to arrive at a definitive conclusion that they are doomed to failure in implementing multicultural education.

However, the increasing rate of violence against minority religious groups and the rise of radicalism among both youth and adults is a test case that poses a challenge to schools in effectively implementing multicultural education.

What is more, regional autonomy granted by the central government has made it possible for all regions to impose local ordinances that tend to favor the dogmas of the dominant religion. This is just antithetical to multilingual education, which respects and values freedom and differences in all walks of life.

In fact, the country has been embroiled in a seemingly never-ending spat regarding the imposition of sharia bylaws, with opponents arguing that it can destroy the spirit of pluralism in the country.

Another potential challenge is that teachers might not be ready, if not unsure, how to teach multiculturalism. Multiculturalism is a highly intricate and elusive concept, demanding teachers to learn about the multiple perspectives from multidisciplinary studies such as education, sociology, psychology, politics and history.

Mary Stone Hanley, a proponent of multicultural education, warns that knowledge construction drawn from this multidiscipline is imperative because before teachers can effectively teach multiculturally they must reconstruct their world views.

Diminishing cultural pride is also important for teachers to be able to teach effectively. In a primordially-rooted culture, doing so is difficult, if not impossible.

It is also important to note that as multiculturalism embraces an assimilationist ideology, it contradicts both teachers' and students' community cultures where homogeneity and commonality are highly valued, and where ethnocentricity is deeply rooted.

Not all teachers and students are willing to take the risk of losing their ethnic identity and being socially and politically alienated within their cultural community simply because they are invited to adhere to assimilationist ideology.

As a final remark, multicultural education has the potential to equip students with skills needed to interact with others from different faiths, ethnicities, races, cultures. But without a deeper and sound understanding of it, and political commitment to support its implementation, we are just trivializing its goal -- the transformation of society via education.

The writer is chief editor of the Indonesian Journal of English Language Teaching and teaches English composition at Atma Jaya University, Jakarta. He can be reached at setiono.sugiharto@atmajaya.ac.id.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/01/22/multicultural-education-indonesia-opportunities-and-challenges.html

READ MORE - The needs of Multicultural education in Indonesia
 
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