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n the months leading up to the new government administration, does Indonesia hope to improve the management of its religion-and-state affairs? Of course, the question pertains to what most Indonesians would define as progress.

While there has so far been no precise answer to this question, we welcome the suggestion by new Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin who recently highlighted the need for some discourse on whether the state should be given the authority to acknowledge a religion.

His comment followed a statement he made that the ministry was reviewing the status of the Baha'€™i faith, saying that Baha'€™i would be among the religions recognized by the Constitution. The statement was controversial as the state officially acknowledges only six religions: Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism. The latter was added to the official religions in the 1960 Blasphemy Law following an amendment called for by late president Abdurrahman '€œGus Dur'€ Wahid, who put a halt to the legal discrimination against ethnic Chinese in the country.

The promising signs from Lukman will hopefully extend to the new administration. Like any other faith that is not considered '€œmainstream'€, debates on the Baha'€™i faith will be had for some time. Throughout history, rulers that force the faithful to comply '€” even to the extent of killing those who refuse to yield '€” often end in greater zeal to prove one'€™s devotion.

The spotlight should be placed on the state'€™s responsibility to guarantee the protection of religious freedom as mandated by the Constitution; meaning, therefore, the responsibility on the part of the president, all the way down to law enforcers nationwide, in our diverse and democratic country.

In the months leading up to Indonesia'€™s independence 69 years ago, which will be commemorated on Aug. 17, the republic'€™s founding fathers came to realize that we must learn to live with one another despite our tremendous diversity in terms of ethnicity, faith, race and so on.

But when political interests engulf leaders, we have seen only too often how this vital axiom is sidestepped, as witnessed under the presidency of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The mixed signals sent out by his administration led to some of his ministers and local leaders turning a blind eye to '€” or in some cases even encouraging '€” criminal acts by thugs waving the flag of '€œpure Islam'€. And we have many minority faiths whose members have testified to lifelong discrimination.

Lukman'€™s move, to review the state'€™s authority to determine religions, will hopefully lead to the end of such cases. Gus Dur was at one time in a coalition of activists who had called for the annulment of the Blasphemy Law; they considered the law to be irrelevant in a democratic Indonesia, as it had been passed during an emergency period when the young state was facing internal rebellions.

This 69th year since independence, when we officially install in October Indonesia'€™s seventh president, should mark a significant milestone in our maturation through collective respect of the differences among all citizens.