Bhimanto Suwastoyo – Activists and experts on Wednesday said that the national government, including its officials and laws, were to blame for rising intolerance in the country.
Indonesia, a pluralist nation spread over thousands of islands, has been witnessing rising intolerance that has led to violence against minorities, including religious ones.
Father Benny Susetyo, a Roman Catholic priest and executive secretary of the Indonesian Bishops Conference, said a lack of leadership in the country was a key reason for the rising intolerance.
Speaking at dialogue on pluralism and tolerance hosted by the Strategic Review think tank, Benny said the number of incidents of violence against minorities had risen from 216 in 2010 to 371 last year and said that there were several explanations for the rapid rise.
"The first factor is the factor of politics, the lack of firmness of the rulers in taking actions" in dealing with cases of violence, Benny said, adding that this lack of firmness provided no deterrent.
He also pointed to the absence of government authority whenever violence took place against minorities. "The state has no courage to take actions against those perpetrators of the violence," he said.
Benny added that religious educations that were narrow and taught students hatred against people outside of their religion contributed to the rise of intolerance. He said that religious educators did not focus on a united Indonesia, but solely on the interests of their religion. He said the country needed a leader who was firm, had "an Indonesian soul" and could manage diversity.
Jalaluddin Rakhmat, an Islamic scholar and lecturer at Paramadina University, agreed that the government had an important role in promoting and safeguarding tolerance.
Most important, he said was for the government to avoid stereotyping minorities. He said that stereotyping, the first step toward persecution, attempted to cast a negative image of the group in question.
Jalaluddin said it would lead to vilification, marginalization, criminalization and finally persecution.
He added that there was a need for all Indonesians to work together to stem intolerance. "Laws that regulate religious life in detail should also be revoked," he said, adding that such laws provided a base for intolerance.
Golkar Party lawmaker Nusron Wahid, who is also chairman of GP Ansor, the youth wing of Islamic group Nahdlatul Ulama, said politics had a "very thick" role in strengthening intolerance.
He said that some of state regulation of religious issues provided the "incentive to engage in intolerance." He said institutions such as the Indonesian Ulema of Council (MUI) provided instruments that promoted intolerance through their fatwas, or religious edicts.
Yudi Latif, who heads the Center for Islamic and Nationalist Studies, said basic social integration of minorities was paramount for any democracy.
He said the current political system – which no longer includes specific representations of ethnic, religious and professional groups in the legislature – meant minorities lacked representation in institutions that drive public policy.
He said that grassroots intolerance usually exploded into violence if people were politicized, blaming in part government officials.
"Almost all indications of intolerance, directly or indirectly, relate to the low level of understanding of the principles of public life of the state apparatus," he said.
He added that state officials tended to position themselves as agents of particular groups, reflecting a lack of understanding of public morality.
All speakers at the event agreed that pluralism and tolerance were vital characteristics of the nation.