T

he colorful headscarves of Indonesian visitors attracted Japanese hosts during a recent visit of an Indonesian group to Japan, because the Japanese are more familiar with the image of Muslims from the Middle East, participants of the visit have said.

During her brief stay in Hiroshima, Persahini Sidik, 52, the principal of Madrasah Aliyah Negeri (MAN) Insan Cendekia Islamic state high school in Serpong, Banten, said her host had asked her, “is it allowed[for Muslims] to wear colorful headscarves? I thought Muslims are only allowed to wear headscarves with dark colors.”

Persahini was one of 10 participants invited by the Japanese government to visit Japan with other principals, teachers and managersfrom Islamic schools and pesantren(Islamic boarding schools) across Indonesia. The schools were from Riau islands, Bengkulu in southern Sumatra, Bangka Belitung, West Java, Yogyakarta, Toraja in South Sulawesi, East Nusa Tenggara and Banten.

During the visit from Oct. 10 to 20, the participants visited several cities including Tokyo,
Kumamoto, Hiroshima and the Kankai region.

The visit was initiated in 2004 by the Center for Islamic and Society Studies (PPIM) at Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University in cooperation with the Japanese Embassy in Jakarta.

PPIM advisor, Jamhari Makruf, said on Thursday that Japan had a great role to foster religious tolerance in the world because “it is unique and modern”.

“The Japanese do not discriminate againstany religions;they care about human relationships,” he said.

He said the program was aimed to deepen understanding and broaden the knowledge of Japanese peopleon Muslims in Indonesia, as they were more familiar with the image of radical Muslims in the Middle East, thus they had tended to equate Muslims in Indonesia with that extreme stereotype that was“aggressive and […] intolerant.”

“We [PPIM] want to explain throughsoft diplomacy to the Japanese that Muslims in Indonesia […] are friendly, tolerant and open to differences,” he said.

The head of political affairs at the Japanese Embassy in Jakarta, Susumu Takonai, said more than 150 Islamic school leaders had been invited to Japan since the program was established in 2004.

Besides Persahini, participants included PPIMresearcher Hamid Nasuhi,Batam’sDarulFalah Islamic boarding school principal Usman Hamid,Bangka’sAl Islam Kemuja Islamic boarding school principalZulyadenRozaliSaad, and Muhammad Yasyfi Afazani, a teacher at the Darussalam Islamic boarding school in Garut, West Java, .(sha)