.
It makes me think of Obelix‘s catchphrase in the famous French comic book series Asterix. He uses to say : “Weird guys, these Romans” (Ils sont fous ses romains). I wonder what he would say if he could meet with the lads at the Religious Affairs Ministry.
A Ministry of Religion is a peculiar phenomenon in a secular state. But not that odd in a society which is not very secular itself. It’s inevitable for any Indonesian government to deal with religions. The government will facilitate them, subsidize people’s Hajj or provide for free Holy Books. Actually these projects were on the priority list over the last two years. They involved considerable amounts of taxpayers’ money. And because politicians, officials and civil servants who work in this part of government are human, just like less pious and righteous colleagues, they did and do what greedy humans do when offered the opportunity.
One of them is Member of Parliament Zulkarnaen Djabar. However fate turned the tables on him. Now he considers himself to be a vexed man. He is being accused of involvement with three bribery cases. Including Qur’an-gate. Qur’an gate is a case of redirection of money which was meant to be spent on the distribution of free Holy Books. Redirection to the pockets of a few decision-makers that is. And to treasurers of some political parties and campaigns.
Zalkarnaen doesn’t deny the accusations, offered apologies and next complains he has to live through an ordeal. He’s just human after all, he said.
So?
I can’t deny I’m prone to the sin of malicious enjoyment. The most rewarding situations are when some haughty, arrogant bigwig or celebrity embarrasses his- or herself in public. I like it even better if people who claim the moral high-ground fall flat on their face for everybody to see.
So you just should see me smirk reading about members of the Commission VIII and the Ministry of Religion who have been caught in the act of embezzling a fortune on a huge Holy Books for free project. Correction: not “in the act” but “after the act”. Many acts actually. The ministry, that fortress of pious politicians and civil servants, has had already qualified for the Guinness Book of Records for professionally inappropriate behaviour. However now they have been corrupting even Al Qur’an. It surpassed the people’s imagination and caused genuine indignation.
Yet on the positive site: the irony of the situation is wildly hilarious.
I enjoy this schedenfreude very much. More please…
I meant schadenfreude*
@ triesti: Do we really share the sin of Schadenfreude, leedvermaak? Yes, I felt we had something in common
.
Indonesia is not a secular state. It is a multi-confessional state.
Here’s a piece of trivia for you. What nationalist leader stated in 1947 the following phrase?
“You may belong to any religion or caste or creed — that has nothing to do with the business of the State.”
How sad that in 2012, 65 years later and in the 21st century, these words are either considered utopian or dystopic. You incur in religion at your own peril.
someday there will be movie based on this *munching popcorn*
@ Mauricio: Those were wise words and they still are. I guess the first president of Pakistan was sincere. And he probably as well as we know that organized religions, especially organized majority religions, will have to overcome themselves to act according to such a commitment. The active, sensible minority has a dire duty to help them to do exactly that. Civic society that is. Which in Indonesia is already substantial but too modest perhaps.
@ calvin: If that day will be before I’ve deceased, I will be standing in the queue to buy a ticket to be among the first to see it the moment it is launched
I’d reckon those words would be offensive, subversive and beyond the pale–indeed, they’d be considered a Western abomination–by many religious people in Indonesia. Just like they are nowadays in Pakistan.
@ Mauricio: Today’s global Islam-discourse is remarkable indeed. Bashing and fighting any token of “Western”liberalism tells something about defensiveness and identity crisis on the part of some/many Muslims. Islam bashing on the other hand tells something about defensiveness and identity crisis of parts of the liberal world. And they have in common that the absence of appealing non-religious ideologies offers opportunities to populist politicians on both sides to exploit that void. Ina often dangerous way.
You’re right: conceptions that were mainstream all over the world in the first three or four decades after WWII, are subjects of controversy and worse now. Indonesia is no exception but, in my perspective, still a modest example.
There was a time in Indonesia, possibly as recently as the 1980s, when people of different faiths could freely intermarry. What changed? Suharto veered towards Islamic politics, and in order to pander to the mullahs, he forbade inter-faith marriage. You can be sure that if some politician were to raise this issue, the mullahs would be up in arms and the government–as well as a passive and religiously chauvinist population–would fall over themselves trying to rationalize the untenable.
On a separate through related note, the Religion Minister was once interviewed by AlJazeera, and asked about the violence and repression meted out to Ahmadiyah. He countered by saying that the violence and repression were justified because the Ahmadis rejected exogamy. Little did it occur to this intellectual midget that the state itself that he serves proscribes it. More than that, Islam itself proscribes exogamy for half of its adherents, women. Such as the absurdities and the abominations that are often rationalized under the banner of “religion” here in Indonesia.
@ Mauricio: From my viewpoint as non-believer I see life as absurd (yet adventurous and exciting) and religions as systematic absurd attempts to put some sense into life’s absurdity. Indeed resulting in stating of and believing the untenable. This applies to all three monotheistic religions.
Faith and the ( interpretations of) grand stories of the Holly Books may be comforting to many people in the private domain, but it’s a shame if they gonna rule the public one. I hope and trust the sensible part of civic society manages to let common sense prevail in the end. Which obviously is not easy because huge social discontent after many years of authoritarian government has been set free after ’98. It has chosen the one identity vehicle available to all: Islam. On the other hand no religion-based political party has been ( nor is, according to recent polls) very successful.
There’s the story of the frog that was cooked alive while he was sitting in a pot of water on top of a slow burning fire. It died because the increase in temperature was so subtle, yet relentless. I think a similar phenomenon plagues the exercise of religion here in Indonesia. Over decades the government has increasingly and relentless encroached in the private spiritual lives and in the regulation of religion. The result? In today’s world, Indonesia ranks tops (along with the likes of Iran and Pakistan) among the countries with the most restraints placed on the exercise of religion. You don’t believe me? Here’s the a study conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Read’em and weep.
http://www.pewforum.org/Government/Rising-Restrictions-on-Religion(2).aspx
@ Mauricio: No doubt real freedom in the realm of spirituality is a problem. I did experience that truth on a very personal level. If one of my daughters in law’s parents hadn’t married in the seventies she probably wouldn’t be around today ( father is Muslim, mother Christian). My agnostic son had to “convert” to Christianity otherwise he couldn’t marry her in Indonesia. And as a non-believer ( vide mr Aan) I would even be denied an ordinary civilian life should I choose to be an Indonesian (quod non).
But I don’t think Pakistan or Iran are fair comparisons. Indonesia doesn’t come even near Iran for what I know.(Though in spite of “The Raid” it would be great if Indonesian cinema would equal the superb Iranian films
).
Interesting post
I had to do a sham conversion to Islam in order to marry my wife. Not because she or her family required it, but rather to the repression nature of the Indonesian state and the requirement that people of different religions cannot get married. The most risible, if not contemptible part of it, was that many Muslims thought a sham conversion—you know, the ritual and the appearances–preferable to a non-existing civil ceremony or each one remaining within his/her beliefs. A long-time friend of my wife who had since gone off the deep end had the temerity to call out child anak haram because of my child’s father. Such as the abominations, inhumanity and absurdities that often pass for religion and “morality” in Indonesia. And then they wonder why Islam has gotten a bad rep.
@ Utomo: Thanks
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@ Mauricio: I sympathize with you. Especially monotheistic religions have this claim to THE exclusive truth. And as a consequence all three have to cope with intolerance and hypocrisy. At some times in history these traits are really nasty, at other times they are pretty relaxed. But once in a majority position Judaism, Christianity and Islam have weapons of tradition and social control to make you comply. On the surface that is.
They eat their own too. Today, the newspapers reported the handing down of a two-year sentence to a cleric for blasphemy. Read’em and weep:
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/shiite-cleric-jailed-for-blasphemy-in-indonesia/530165
@ Mauricio: Thanks for sharing
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What was that again, about Indonesia having nothing in common with the Islamic Replublic of Pakistan and the Islamic Republic of Iran? Is this not further evidence, of which I have provided many, of the insidious Islamic conservatism that pervades many sectors of society?
@ Mauricio: I think we can agree Iran is a theocracy ( formally and hierarchically the clerics top the civilian politicians)and Indonesia is not. The larger part of Pakistan is controlled by Taliban (theocratic in nature) while even Aceh is not a full fledged theocracy.
Subjectively I can say that even I, being a heathen, felt ( and feel) at ease and safe in the many places of the archipelago I visited, but I would think twice ( or thrice) before going to either Pakistan or Iran if someone would offer me a holiday for free over there.
Having said that I definitely would like a firmer stand of both civic society and government in the face of aggressive and intolerant speech, demands and behaviour by closed minded radicals.
Convictions of the sort imposed on the Shia cleric are usually the purview of Islamic regimes, not of liberal democracies. My claim stands supported by real practice and by that study by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.