W

hile the country still struggles to overcome religious intolerance, a survey has captured a new wave of phobia toward lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people.

Conducted jointly by the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) and the Wahid Foundation, the study found that the minority is the most disliked by Muslims, who constitute 90 percent of the population.

The survey showed that 26.1 percent of the total 1,520 all-Muslim respondents, did not like LGBT people.

This finding came on the heels of a nationwide movement of anti-gay sentiment, led by the government, with one senior official after another going on public record to express distaste and loathing of gay people.

LGBT people were even less popular than communists, for which the nation long harbored a deep fear against from the decades of propaganda disseminated by former president Soeharto.

Communists were disliked by 16.7 percent of the respondents, followed by Jewish people with 10.6 percent, Christians with 2.2 percent, Shia Muslims with 1.3 percent, and Wahhabis with 0.5 percent.

A smaller number of respondents were found to be resentful toward Chinese-Indonesians, which had also been discriminated against during the New Order Era, and Buddhists, where each stood at 0.4 percent.

“It’s strange because usually it is the communists and the Jewish people who claim the top two spots
as the most disliked groups by Muslims because they are considered the traditional enemy of Islam [in Indonesia],” Wahid Foundation researcher Aryo Ardi Nugroho told The Jakarta Post.

The study also showed that 92.2 percent of the respondents said they disagreed if someone from the group that they disliked became a public official in Indonesia.

Furthermore, 82.4 percent of them did not want them as their neighbors.

Aryo said LGBT people suddenly became the most-hated group because the survey was conducted at the end of April, when the public was bombarded by constant anti-LGBT hate speech not only on social media but also in the country’s mainstream newspapers and TV stations.

Aryo said it was worrying how easy the public could be persuaded to hate a certain group of people.

“In April, LGBT issues became number one. But if the survey is conducted now, then China would probably claim the top spot because the hot topic currently is the issue of Indonesia’s relations with China, particularly regarding the rejection of Chinese labor and the territorial dispute in Natuna waters,” he said.

Furthermore, Indonesian Muslims also have a tendency to dislike minority groups with members who identify as Muslims, like LGBT and communists, then those who are not Muslims, like Christians.

The respondents who said they were willing to be tolerant to non-Muslims who accounted for 40.4 percent. Meanwhile, those who said the same to disliked groups were only 0.6 percent.

“When a Muslim sees a group of Christians, he [or she] could immediately distance himself [or herself] from them and understand that they are not part of his [or her] religion. But when there’s a group of people that he [or she] doesn’t like and yet have the same religion, he [or she] might think that they are doing something that makes him [or her] embarrassed as a Muslim,” said Aryo.

Presidential Chief of Staff Teten Masduki said the government would use the survey as input to deal with the country’s continuing issues with intolerance and radicalism.

“Yesterday, we were surprised by the case of Tanjung Balai. It shows that we are still prone to intolerance and radicalism. Don’t let this threaten our nation’s unity,” he said.
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