A failure to uphold values

Samsudin Berlian , Jakarta | Fri, 02/22/2008 5:00 AM | Opinion

The decisions of the Catholic and Protestant church leaders, represented respectively by the Indonesian Bishops Conference (KWI) and the Communion of Churches in Indonesia (PGI), to declare the case of the Tempo magazine's "Da Vinci" cover closed last week is commendable but the arguments they deployed are weak and could open the way for more similar gripes in the future.

The church leaders deserved the praise for acting so quickly to stem public outrages and to help maintain the fragile peace in this country.

However, by focusing only on the potentially harmful consequences to the public-implicitly agreeing with the protesters' claim that Tempo was to blame -- Church leaders have failed to point out the protesters' actions are simply wrong -- against the core of Christian teachings, a threat to democracy, an abuse of "people's power", and showed contempt for freedom of expression.

The church rationalized that since an apology has been offered, the case is settled.

That is a naive and crowd-pleasing message and not good for the future of the much-cherished but delicate plurality of the nation.

Although the protesters have the right to stage their protests in peaceful manner, they have no right to claim they represent Christians as the protests are in essence contrary to the Christian spirit.

On the one hand, if -- and this is a big if -- Tempo did intentionally try to insult Christians as the protesters claimed, then they have to respond according to the teachings of Christ, that is to forgive unconditionally.

In the Lord's Prayer, which most Christians recite, is the sentence, "Forgive us the wrongs we have done, as we forgive the wrongs that others have done to us".

On the other hand, if the cover is only a manifestation of bad taste and bad judgment on the part of Tempo, as is more likely the case, it should be allowed. In fact, it should be legally and socially protected.

There is nothing wrong with Tempo's parody of The Last Supper, Da Vinci's famous artwork. Ultimately, whether it is tasteful or not depends on, well, anybody's taste.

Let people judge for themselves. If they like it, let them have it. If not, don't look at it, and that's all there is to it!

Tolerance in this country has often taken to mean one's right not to be offended by other people, while the accurate definition should have been one's acceptance of other people's right to offend.

Freedom of expression has no meaning if it is not the right of the people we disagree with to express things we disagree with.

Resting freedom on sensitivity could never work because ultimately taste is subjective. One can always find a person or group who would be offended by anything.

If -- another big if -- Christians are indeed offended, they should react in a Christian way, which could take any form including open debates and counter arguments.

What they never should be doing is to make threats, even a veiled one. This tactic-to use the muscles of the masses to silence opponents and restrict the freedom of expression-have been deployed by many self-aggrandizing groups in Indonesia using half-baked religious arguments as their weapon. Their main aim is to impose their narrow-mindedness on the public and to silence people with different opinions and who thinks for themselves.

Tempo does never need to apologize. It is unfortunate that it did. The magazine well-known for its spine under Soeharto should have stood up to its right and shooed the protesters away. The church should not have declared the case settled because there is no case to be settled, but categorically denounced the protesters for making it an issue.

This newspaper reported that a group of protesters asked the Religious Affairs Ministry to take the issue of religious blasphemy seriously.

Right! It should take serious steps to throw it into the dust bin. Blasphemy has been used unscrupulously to silence serious discussions about faith and religion.

If anybody can be dragged into court and sentenced to jail for voicing his thoughts about any religion, no serious and mature conversation about religion can take place.

This is exactly the intention of those people who flung around blasphemy accusations at every person who thinks differently from them.

They don't want free discussions. They want others to cheer them on or stay silent. In essence, they want unchecked power over people's lives using dishonest religious arguments. These people have to be disarmed of their weapon of mass intolerance once and for all.

The writer is a journalist.

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