Schools fertile ground for
intolerance

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When sectarianism began gaining ground in the wake of dictator Soeharto's downfall in 1998, euphoric reform-minded political leaders played it down. Mushrooming Islamic groups, including vigilante-style ones, were dismissed as a negligible fringe.

Today, conservatism has practically swept the whole spectrum, from the grassroots up to the government bureaucracy. At stake are religious tolerance, pluralism, democracy and the rule of law. Massive propagation of the ultra-conservative brand of Islam has taken place not only at mosques, but also in public domains such as shopping malls, offices, schools and universities.

However, the most alarming is the proliferation of intolerance through formal educational institutions, particularly public schools, which are not supposed to promote any brand of religion because they run on public funds. The practice has been going on for years without the government doing enough to put the system back on track.

Multiple studies by credible organizations, including the Religious Affairs Ministry, have only added credence to the long-held concern that public schools have become fertile ground for religious bigots to sow the seeds of conservatism and intolerance. Many teachers help spread the virus, passing their conservative views to their students.

Among students, conservatism has proliferated through extracurricular activities called rohis (Islamic spirituality lectures). Often, rohis speakers preach hatred and the school management turns a blind eye to the toxic practices.

Interestingly, various surveys have proven that public schools run by the state or private entities are more conservative than Islamic schools. The Ma'arif Institute says this is because the latter are built on solid religious comprehension, while the former rely on less competent theology teachers and are more prone to radical infiltration.

The Ma'arif Institute warned of the clear and present danger of rising intolerance at schools back in 2011. In a study last year, it found a state senior high school in Sukabumi, West Java, had stopped conducting an obligatory ceremony that schools across the archipelago hold every Monday because its teachers considered saluting the national flag to be haram (forbidden by God). Instead, the school held a mass Quran recital.

In Aceh, the only province that has formally adopted sharia, Christian students in the eastern district of Aceh Singkil are required to take lessons on Islam as a prerequisite for final exams. This policy is strictly enforced despite the national education law, which guarantees that students nationwide shall receive the morality lessons of their own religious beliefs taught by teachers who embrace the same religion.

March for unity: Students practice for a ceremony at the office of the Foreign Ministry in Central Jakarta.(JP/Wendra Ajistyatama)

Similar concerns have been raised by the Wahid Foundation and the Religious Affairs Ministry. In their joint studies, the results of which were made public in February, they focused on the ramifications of the rohis, over which school management has little control.

In last year's survey involving more than 1,600 rohis participants as respondents, the Wahid Foundation and the ministry found that 33 percent of them defined jihad as a holy war against non-Muslims; 41 percent would support any cause to turn Indonesia into an Islamic state under a caliphate; 60 percent would go on jihad to countries like Syria if they had the chance; 58 percent agree that thieves’ hands should be chopped off and 62 percent would like to see adulterers stoned to death.

“Thirty-three percent of them believe terrorists like Amrozi, Imam Samudra and others served as role models for good Muslims,” Wahid Foundation program officer Alamsyah M. Djafar said. As well, 10 percent of them praised the terror attack in Sarinah, Central Jakarta, which killed eight people last year.

A similar survey the ministry conducted in Makassar schools last year concluded that “only” 10 percent of the 220 respondents had intolerant tendencies. Five students expressed their willingness to go on suicide bombing missions if the situation required them to defend their religion. According to Suaib Parwono, the research team leader, the seeds of intolerance in South Sulawesi are sown through the social media, not schools.

“During interviews, students said they learn about jihad on social media. This should receive our due attention,” he said. By and large, religious harmony in eastern Indonesia’s diverse main city remains favorable. There are 25 civic groups that actively promote tolerance there.

Trust God: A group of elementary school students pray together at a solidarity event in Surakarta, Central Java, to honor those affected by the Aceh earthquake.(Antara/Maulana Surya)

The Religious Affairs Ministry in Jakarta has admitted something is wrong with rohis. The activity has been entrusted to trainers without a due process of selection. Speakers are usually provided by a third party while the actual teachers are busy minding their classroom business routines.

Although the survey revealed that most of rohis participants obtain their religious education from their school teachers, many of them learn from outsiders like alumni who usually have radical views.

Rohis activism flourished following Soeharto’s downfall in 1998. Under his iron-fist rule, such religious activities were banned from schools. According to Alamsyah, many rohis speakers are inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni Islamist organization founded in Egypt by scholar and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna in 1928.

While the phenomenon of radicalizing students, especially in senior high school, has become more open and organized, the government has done practically nothing to curb it. Alas, some of its policies are supportive of it.

Silent shouts: Students covering their mouths join a protest rally against a TV news station that alleged extracurricular classes about rohis (Islamic spirituality) involved the training of terrorists.(JP/ P.J. Leo)

Also problematic are the contents of Islamic textbooks. The Research Center of the Jakarta State Islamic University (PPIM UIN) found in a recent study that some of the 24 Islamic textbooks published by the Education and Culture Ministry contain intolerant messages.

It found that one junior high school and one senior high school textbook judged non-Muslims (in the context of Prophet Muhammad’s uncle Umar ibn Al Khattab before he converted to Islam) as najis (dirty). The books emphasize that only a caliph can enforce true Islamic rule.

Although the intolerant contents are not widespread, they lay bare an inconsistency in the delivery of messages to the students. “The ministry underlines the virtue of tolerance in one chapter, but puts contradictory lessons in the other,” said research team leader Didin Syafruddin.

It turns out that the content problem has occurred because the ministry has no adequate monitoring system and the publishing is handled by a third party. Besides this, the books also contain only one strain of Islam.

“They [the Education and Culture Ministry officials] said that the production was done in a hurry with a limited budget,” Didin said.

Intolerance not only infects students, but also teachers. PPIM UIN reported that nearly 80 percent of the 500 Islamic morality teachers it quizzed in another survey would reject non-Muslim teachers in their schools. They also frown upon the presence of other religions' houses of worship in their neighborhoods.

Students are in a situation where they have to rely on rohis instructors and their textbooks that give them conflicting messages on tolerance. Adding insult to injury, schools do not have the means to counter conservatism and radicalism.

The Setara Institute, an NGO against discrimination that conducts training on tolerance for teachers, calls for the government to phase out schools’ dependence on rohis for students’ morality lessons and provide more training on tolerance for religion teachers.

“We are running out of funds and resources to conduct more training for teachers,” Setara chairman Hendardi said.

The Religious Affairs Ministry’s director general for Islamic education, Kamaruddin Amin, admitted that the government has a hard time dealing with radicalism in many public schools. He proposed more hours for religious lessons in which students should be provided with broader perspectives.

Students of minority religions, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and Confucianists, also are subject to discrimination and only a few schools have their own religion teachers. “We lack about 30,000 religion teachers throughout the archipelago,” he said.

Evaluation on the spot: A teacher checks the answers of an elementary school student in Palmerah, West Jakarta.(JP/Dhoni Setiawan)

Under public pressure to address the rising radicalism, the ministry is developing a new curriculum and new religious textbooks it promises will take a more tolerant approach. Under a new law that came into force in April, the Religious Affairs Ministry is taking over the authority to publish the books from the Education and Culture Ministry.

In predominantly Muslim regions, female students of public schools are openly or covertly obliged to wear headscarves and long dresses. Non-Muslims are not required to don hijab, but still have to wear uniforms that cover their ankles and wrists to hopefully shield them from prying eyes and sexual harassment. Initially, the policy met resistance in Makassar, South Sulawesi, from non-Muslim parents who thought the long dress was part of the Islamic fashion.

The Jokowi administration’s rigorous campaign to combat radicalism that is eating up the glue that holds the plurality of Indonesia together will have to stop the misuse of schools to sow the seeds of intolerance.

As Ahmad Najib Burhani, a researcher on religion with the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), said, the common bid to fight intolerance should provide momentum to leaders of mainstream Islam to solve the predicament.

Animal talk: A university student from Brawijaya University in Malang, East Java, speaks about Indonesian wildlife in front of elementary school students during Ramadhan. (JP/Aman Rochman)

Intolerance rising in ‘city of peaceful heart’

Yogyakarta prides itself as the center of Javanese culture, of education and as a melting pot of multiculturalism. Its official slogan is “The City of the Peaceful Heart”. Ironically, in recent years it has epitomized how public schools can provide a breeding ground for conservatism and intolerance.

SDN Keputran 1 elementary school, which stands just outside the touristy Yogyakarta Royal Palace, openly practices a more devout brand of Islam. Every Friday, it broadcasts Quran recitations through its loudspeakers. Occasionally, students gather under the shade of the school’s banyan tree for a group prayer before attending classes.

In Bantul, 47-year-old housewife Endah Palupi recalls withdrawing her daughter from SMPN 3 junior high school two years ago in protest against the management's policy to make the Islamic dress code obligatory for its female students. She said although her extended family was Muslim, wearing a hijab was not part of their tradition.

"Wearing a hijab should be voluntary in public schools," she said. "Besides, since public schools are funded by the state, it's wrong for them to enforce a morality based on one particular religion."

Over the past decade or so, Yogyakartan public schools have turned ''green'' – not in reference to environmentalism, but to the color associated with Islam.

The city, however, is also home to reputable Christian schools and universities that open their doors to Muslims and adherents of other religions.

Equality: Students of Pemuda Bangsa elementary school in Depok, West Java, join a parade to celebrate Kartini Day, which celebrates women’s empowerment.(JP/Adi Purnama Yulistiawan)

While religious tolerance is generally better preserved in Yogyakarta's rural areas, urban centers are showing worrying signs.

Maria Angelina Kasih Mediana and Aditya Paskah Anugrah, were both the only Christian students of Chinese descent in their classes at SMKN 1 vocational high school and SMA Koperasi Yogyakarta high school, respectively. The two, who graduated recently, said they had been subject to alienation at their schools.

Things turned worse in the wake of the Jakarta gubernatorial election, when political rivals manipulated religion and exploited racism to beat incumbent Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, a Christian of Chinese descent.

Then, said Angelina, her classmates stopped being friendly. ''Even my four best classmates kept asking why I believed in going to church, a niggling, repetitive question. One day, my civics teacher asked me why I didn’t go back to China because it’s more prosperous than Indonesia.”

Aditya recalled an embarrassing moment when a female Muslim teacher refused to shake hands with him, a social behavior toward men other than her husband that is typical for devout Musim women. At the height of the Jakarta polling tension, his schoolmates derogatorily called him “Cina” (China).

A provincial legislative councilman, Fokki Ardiyanto, is among those concerned about the rising radicalism at Yogyakartan schools. He told The Jakarta Post of a female Christian student at a junior high school who was sneered at as an “infidel”.

“She is not required to wear a hijab, but her schoolmates call her kafir [infidel]. I wonder if education authorities are not aware of the dire situation at public schools, or if they pretend they don’t know because they have the same agenda [as the Islamists],” he said.

Choose tolerance: Students of Muhammadiyah 5 junior high school in Surabaya, East Jakarta, play a game to celebrate International Tolerance Day.(Antara/Didik Suhartono)

The spread of racial and religious hatred goes unabated despite a 2011 bylaw which provides Yogyakarta the legal basis to implement a “local culture-based education system”. Local government bureaucrats know this only too well, but many ducked for cover when the Post raised the issue.

A provincial education official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the highly sensitive nature of the issue, acknowledged that when it came to multiculturalism, the local education system was losing its orientation. Neither had the provincial government reviewed the precarious situation.

“Nobody dares to criticize anything done in the name of religion,” the official said.

Kadarmata Baskara Aji, head of the provincial education office, has a different story. He insists that there is no formal obligation for female students to wear a hijab at school, and calls on parents to report teachers who force their will on the school dress code. He added: “State schools are predominated by Muslim students and it’s only natural if [those] girls wear veils.” – JP/Bambang Muryanto -

‘Mom, why doesn’t my teacher teach me those prayers?’

Disheartening tales about fanatics teaching children religious hatred just don’t make sense to Husaemah Husain. She sent her three children to the Happy Kids Florence Kindergarten in Makassar, South Sulawesi. The family may live in a predominantly Muslim quarter, but at this Christian school, her sons belong to the minority group.

What she likes about the kindergarten is that it allows Muslim pupils to practice their religion. Every morning, before classes begin, the teacher has Christian children pray the Christian way and the Muslims the Islamic way.

“One day my son asked me: ‘Mom, why doesn’t my teacher teach me those prayers the rest of the class says?’ That was the best time for me to teach him about differences,” Husaemah said.

Unlike in some major cities like Yogyakarta, schools in Makassar retain religious harmony. Here, state schools have a sizeable number of non-Muslim students. In SMPN 13 junior high school celebrations of religious holidays are enlivened and funded by students of all faiths. At SMUN 2 state senior high school non-Muslim students are democratically elected to be intra-school organization leaders.

“Teachers remain neutral and fiercely defend tolerance,” said Adi Suryadi Culla, chairman of the South Sulawesi Council of Education.

First day prayers: Elementary school students in Surabaya, East Java, pray together during their first day at school.(Antara/Zabur Karuru)

Schools that cherish tolerance are those that engage their students in inter-religious activities as they do in Makassar, Semarang and Jakarta. There, headmasters and teachers are mindful about outsiders that may have a mission to spread conservatism in their midst.

A classic tactic is making students of all faiths jointly organize celebrations of major religious holidays like Idul Fitri and Christmas. They plan, hold and finance such activities. Such joint revelries are common in Jakarta.

Hany Citra, 14, is among the few Christian students at a predominantly Muslim state junior high school in West Jakarta, where tolerance is part of its tradition. Recently she was excited to receive an invitation to a breaking-of-the-fast get-together one evening. “Although I belong to a minority religious group, I have never been harassed by my schoolmates or teachers.”

Once, the school did not have any Christian religion teachers and she had to obtain her grades from her Sunday school. She did not mind staying in her class and listening to Islamic religious lessons. She even remembers a few Quran verses and is able to read basic Arabic.

A similar situation occurs at the SDN Manggarai 01 public elementary school, where only seven of its 334 pupils are Christian. It has only one Christianity teacher for the seven. A shortage of Christianity teachers is also experienced by the SMP 3 Jakarta state junior high school, where 34 Protestants and two Catholics among its 848 students are taught single-handedly by a Protestant teacher.

In Central Java, SMAN V Semarang state high school takes the threat of intolerance so seriously that its principal, Titi Priyatiningsih, has called in the military to hold it back. This year, more than 500 students will attend character building courses at the local Diponegoro Regional Military command headquarters.

“All instructors are military officers who instill a sense of nationalism in our students,” she said. When she was promoted to be principal, she added, some conservative Muslims opposed to female leadership criticized it. “Let it be. Anyone who objects to it, please go.”

Elsewhere in Semarang, Sultan Agung Islamic high school sets a good example of peaceful coexistence with its Christian neighbors by sharing parking lots with a nearby church and opening its doors to Muslim students from a Christian school next door who use its mosque.

The chairman of the ELSA Foundation, which focuses on social and religious studies, Tedi Kholiludin, said intolerance is creeping into local schools but the “virus” mostly spreads through social media. Its latest survey concluded that most of Islamic religion teachers were moderate.

“Some students became radicalized due to information they obtained from the internet and preachers, not from their teachers,” he said. - JP/Andi Hajramurni, Winda A. Charmila and Suherdjoko -

Common differences: A group of high school students walk inside the Jakarta Cathedral in Central Jakarta during a field trip to places of worship in the city to learn about religious diversity.(JP/Wienda Parwitasari)