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RI-Poland ties: Lessons learned in religious tolerance
The Tatar mosque in Kruszyniany is being repainted to welcome the Ramadhan fasting month
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The Tatar mosque in Kruszyniany is being repainted to welcome the Ramadhan fasting month.
In commemorating the 60th anniversary of diplomatic ties between Indonesia and Poland, the Polish Embassy in Jakarta invited Indonesian journalists, including The Jakarta Post's Primastuti Handayani, to visit three cities in the country in June to see what Poland could share with Indonesia in a variety of fields, including religious tolerance. Below is the report from the visit.
The ambience of Bialystok was less hustle and bustle than Poland's capital of Warsaw. The streets were rather empty, only a short line at traffic lights was visible. With only about 300,000 people, Bialystok ranks second in terms of population density but 11th in overall population in Poland.
What makes Bialystok interesting?
The city has long been known as a destination for immigrants, especially from Central and Eastern Europe. Prior to World War II, the Jewish population made up the majority of the city's 107,000 residents. The war changed everything and the population dropped drastically to less than 57,000.
The city is now less diverse compared to its centuries of history, with only about 2,000 Muslims, mostly Tatars, and very few Jewish people still there. However, the traces of religious tolerance in the city remain. It can be seen in different churches ' mostly Roman Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox ' situated in the same area, apart from other religions' prayer houses.
It was also the reason why Bialystok hosted the third round of the Polish-Indonesian Inter-religious Dialogue last year.
'The dialogue involved representatives from political groups and civil society. We shared different stories of clashes and through the dialogue we could understand each other better. We can focus on the moderation process,' Piotr Switalski, director of the Asia and Pacific Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told visiting Indonesian journalists at his office in Warsaw early this month.
Both Indonesia and Poland share similarities as well as differences in the composition of their respective populations including in the presence of majority and minority groups. While Poland is predominantly Catholic, Indonesia is primarily Muslim.
Both countries, however, have experienced hundreds of years of living with diverse societies despite recent reports on religious intolerance in Indonesia over the past few years. Human rights watchdog group Setara Institute reported 135 cases of religious-based violence across Indonesia in 2007.
The latest figures show the number of cases rose to 264 in 2012. Calls have been mounting for Muslim organizations in Indonesia to be more open to discussions of pluralism as the country has always been a plural society with peoples of diverse cultures and faiths.
Indonesian ambassador to Poland, Peter F. Gontha, also praised tolerance in Poland. 'There are always interfaith dialogues in universities here. We can see that Polish people have high tolerance toward others,' he said when meeting the journalists in Warsaw.
Academics from the University of Bialystok said that last year's dialogue ' themed 'Youth in Intercultural and Interfaith Dialogue: Perspective, Opportunities and Challenges' ' was deemed fruitful, especially with active participation from the young people.
'We want to know how young people perceive cross-cultural dialogue and how they live in a cross-cultural reality,' said Artur Konopacki, a doctor of history at the university, who himself is a Muslim from the Tatar community.
'There are lots of commonalities between Indonesia and Poland, not only the colors of both countries' flags, but also the presence of a diversity of cultures and multiethnic groups in each country,' he added. 'The dialogue was first established to give voices to differences.'
His colleague, Magdalena El Ghamari, concurred. 'There is always something to do to raise social awareness. Young people need to be taught about something. We want to show that Islam and Christianity can live together peacefully, that two religions can co-exist,' she said.
According to El Ghamari, education is the most important thing.
'They [young people] need to learn to get into someone else's shoes to help them acquire mutual understanding [despite the religious differences],' she added.
Last year's meeting was co-hosted by the Polish Foreign Ministry, the University of Bialystok, the Joint Council of Catholics and Muslims and the Indonesian Embassy to Poland. It was a follow up from the previous dialogues in Krakow, Poland, in 2011 and in Jakarta in 2013. The next meeting will be in Jakarta in 2016.
Konopacki said that despite the presence of a Muslim community in Poland, the country was in fact not enticing for radical or extreme groups. 'The number of Muslims in Poland is small, they are the minority group. Radicalism is associated with big groups and therefore they are not satisfied with the political context here.'
Only a few of the Polish mosques have the typical architecture with a dome and a minaret. The Mosque of Gdansk, located at the Baltic port city in the northern part of Poland, is an example.
It was unfortunate that the mosque caught fire two years ago, damaging the doors and other parts of the structure. The media reported that the fire was allegedly related to a dispute between Polish Tatars and animal rights activists due to the ritual during Idul Adha (the Islamic Day of Sacrifice), when Muslims slaughtered animals every year as a symbol of following the willingness of Abraham to follow Allah's command in sacrificing his son Ismail.
Mufti of Poland, Tomasz Miskiewicz, acknowledged that protests incidentally occurred against Muslims in Poland. 'But these incidents were mostly provoked by radicals and they were not an everyday occurrence,' he said.
He explained that there has been cooperation between Indonesia and Poland on religious issues and culture.
'My general impression about Indonesia is that the society is very open and kind. What I remember the most is that the Muslims in Indonesia always remember their traditions and roots. This is exactly the same attitude that the Tatar community is known for. The society is open to different cultures,' said Miskiewicz, who comes from the Tatar community.
'This is how it should be done, the reason to avoid radicalism. There is no difference between Muslims and other people in society except for the way they pray,' he added.
Miskiewicz acknowledged the challenges of being a Muslim in a predominantly Roman Catholic country, such as in Poland. 'For Muslims, it is a challenge to dine in restaurants. Shopping is also another challenge, especially if we want to buy food and cosmetics because we have to read all the ingredients.'
Although the Tatar community has always been part of Poland's history, its population of 40,000 is a minority in the Muslim community after Arab and Turkish migrants.
The Tatar community has annual meetings at the end of every Ramadan where between 200 and 300 Tatar people gather for a proper reception.
He said that getting to know different cultures was important because it made people more open and prevented them from becoming radical. 'People can understand other people's behavior and this is part of our mutual respect toward others.'
' Photos by Primastuti Handayani
