Letters: Segregating community

Fri, 07/03/2009 2:56 PM

I would like to comment on your editorial titled "For Muslims only," (The Jakarta Post, June 27), which discusses the growing number of houses provided only for the Muslim community.

Indeed, the growing trend of the exclusive enclave is a setback and a dangerous game. But, the practice of "flagging religious color" amid society seems to be a fashionable moral symbol which is effectively followed by the people and the government, who permit and are even proud of it. It's not only specific residential enclaves, in Yogyakarta you can easily find rooms for students to rent which are only for Muslims.

The fashionable trend to use religious symbols is not only for Muslims. One residential enclave in Yogyakarta uses the other name referred to ordinary names use by other communities such as Jl. Yerusalem, Jl. Nasareth, ect.

I have a big question: why do modern and educated people like to make religious symbol their identity? Is it really rooted in the religious base or is it a political trend which exploits religious symbols for their interest?

But, the fast growing use of religious symbols is also strongly related to market forces and not only politics. The marriage of market, political and religious matters could be a serious problem for Indonesian people as a nation, if we neglect our founders' idea of a united nation, "free from any oppression and colonized acts and beyond the difference social ethnics, cultural and religious demarcation".

Siswasudarma
Yogyakarta

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