Letter: Presidential images

The other day some local government officials came so we had to put a Garuda and pictures of the President and his deputy on my office wall. As soon as they left I took them down. Some of my colleagues asked why I was not proud of our national symbols.

I told them that I was happy to live in Indonesia and I am indeed loyal to the people, but this is not a monarchy. We are proud of our freedom and we are proud to be a republic. The President and his deputy are our servants. We should not venerate them, even as symbols. In fact they should venerate us, if there is any venerating to be done.

Then I was thinking about why I was so uncomfortable seeing these images placed high on the wall of our offices. They are not my relatives. I have no bond of affection for these men.

I certainly do not worship them. I realized that it was the same uncomfortable feeling I have when I see an image or statue in a church or temple.

One of the things that I most admired about Islam was its iconoclasm. When, after Mecca fell and Muhammad had cleared out the Kaaba of its idols, he ordered that the image of Abraham should also be obliterated. When his followers asked why, when he was a prophet of God, Muhammad said that he was a man and not to be worshipped.

If we are so touchy about people making cartoons of the Prophet in obscure Danish newspapers, why do we, a country with the largest population of Muslims, put the images of two weak and flawed human beings high up on our office walls? We won our freedom from two foreign monarchies, yet we continue in the same tradition of treating human beings as demi-gods. In fact, in the well established monarchies of Europe, the images of the royals are seldom to be seen outside their embassies. We are more monarchist than the monarchies.

 It’s time to stop this idolatrous sycophancy and be really free.
 
Rafiq Mahmood
Bogor, West Java