Letter: Congratulations to Asfinawati

Tue, 05/27/2008 3:16 PM  |  Reader's Forum

Defending minority rights thanks to the establishment of the National Alliance for Religious Freedom in Indonesia in cooperation with LBH Jakarta and various NGOs is quite an achievement.

Hooray.........

If the MUI succeeds in convincing the government to ban Ahmadiyah, soon hard-liners will indeed demand that the Badui religion, the Sunda Wiwitan beliefs, the Tengger people's religion, the Balinese Hindu's, the North Sulawesi Christians, the Central Sulawesi Torajans, the Dayaks and Papuan animistic traditions and many other different religious affiliations will also be banned.

Indonesia should follow the example of Turkey. When Kamal Ataturk deprived the powerful Sultans there of power and took over the government he immediately separated religion from politics. There are so many different religions in Turkey but they live peacefully together.

In this country consisting of over 13.000 islands with over 400 different ethnic groups which have their own language, culture and in some cases religions. Sukarno and Mohamad Hatta were so right in implementing the Pancasila or the five Principles of our Nation with its first principle being Ketuhanan yang Maha Esa or to believe in God. Freedom of religion should be possible in this country where various ethnic groups have their own belief especially those tribes still living deep in the jungles.

Even in Christianity, there are affiliations like the Jehovah's Witnesses who do not believe in the holy prophet Jesus Christ and do not recognize him and therefore do not celebrate Christmas. But Christians globally and even the Vatican tolerate them and why don't they (Ahmadis) have the same religious rights as any other religion.

Why is the MUI so afraid of Ahmadiyah ?

Thanks to Asfinawati and the National Alliance for Religious Freedom, minor religious groups will feel more at ease now knowing that legally they will be represented and therefore have the right to exist next to any other religions.

We should still learn to live peacefully together.

LYNNA VAN DER ZEE-OEHMKE
Bogor

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