I would like to comment on a letter titled “Indonesia’s mosques and minarets” (The Jakarta Post, Dec. 16).
First, it is a distortion to say that “Western civilization” or even European civilization is “based on 2000 years of Christianity”. One thousand years ago, Christianity was the predominant religion of Central and Western Europe. Islamic culture shaped Sicily and the Iberian Peninsula. Norse mythology prevailed among the Vikings in Northern Europe.
The Prussians, Livonians, Magyars and Bulgars of Eastern Europe were all pagans until their lands were overrun by the Knights of the Teutonic Order and others. Christianity did not reach America at all until the 15th century.
The renaissance was based on the revival of ancient Greek and Roman culture.
The scientific revolution was led by men like Galileo, who faced open hostility from Church authorities.
The enlightenment and the subsequent French and American revolutions developed ideals of freedom and equality as an antidote to centuries of religious wars and persecution.
So Christianity has been an important factor in the formation of European civilization, but not the only one.
Second, repression of non-Muslims in countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran, cited here and elsewhere, is not a pretext for retaliatory measures in Europe at the expense of European Muslims. To understand this we can reflect on Indonesia’s introduction of the short-stay visa-on-arrival, justified by authorities on grounds of “reciprocity”.
But the net result is the continued underperformance of Indonesia’s tourism economy, to the detriment of everybody working in the tourist sector.
Similarly, it would be foolish for Europeans to seek short-term emotional gratification by “snubbing” a religious community considered “irritating”, at the expense of the long-term goals of tolerance and freedom.
It may well be that freedom and tolerance are under threat from religious fanatics, who are indulged by unscrupulous and freedom-hating politicians.
But symbolically curtailing the liberties of a particular “disturbing” community is no solution. It only gives a precedent for further restrictions, of exactly the sort you decry in Indonesia, against any minority group considered “potentially dangerous to public order”.
Third, it is oversimplifying to say that the United States is an “immigrants’ country” and Europe is not.
American Muslim immigrants differ from European Muslim immigrants in that they constitute a minority of immigrants and are, on average, more educated, come from diverse source countries and often aspire to “live the American dream” of prosperity and freedom.
European Muslims are a majority of immigrants in some countries, tend to be less educated, come from only one or two source countries, and sometimes try to cling to their home culture in a more economically modern society. But the full picture is extremely complex.
Fourth, the idea that Indonesia’s “200 million Muslims” should start exporting their “traditionally moderate version of Islam” is based on the superficial characterization of Indonesia as “the biggest country in the Muslim world”.
More realistically, Indonesia is a country where a majority of the population is nominally Muslim, but where the influence of Islam has not traditionally been as strong as in most other countries with Muslim majorities.
John Hargreaves
Jakarta
