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Pancasila must be more than just ‘lip service’, Muslim thinkers say
The Jakarta-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) recently hosted a webinar on Pancasila commemorating the late Muslim intellectual Syafii Maarif, who died in May of this year.
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A child participates in a coloring contest held to commemorate the birth of Pancasila in Teras Pancasila subdistrict in Tangerang, Banten, on June 1. (Antara/Fauzan)
M
ore needs to be done to promote tolerance and preserve the national ideology Pancasila, prominent Muslim thinkers have said, as the country prepares to face another potentially polarizing general election in 2024.
During a seminar hosted by the Jakarta-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on Wednesday, Muslim intellectual Azyumardi Azra said that while he remained optimistic that most Indonesians would firmly hold on to the national ideology, he also noted recent “challenges”, particularly in what he saw as the weakening of certain Pancasila values.
“For the most part, aspects of Pancasila right now are just lip service. If we can compare the current situation to how it was practiced during the time of Buya Syafii, there’s a big difference,” Azyumardi said.
He was referring to Ahmad Syafii Maarif, an icon of pluralism and an intellectual force of nature for a generation of progressive Indonesian Muslims, who passed away in late May.
Read also: Indonesia’s pluralism icon Ahmad Syafii Maarif dies at 86
The online seminar was held to commemorate Syafii. It was also attended by Catholic scholar and Jesuit priest Franz Magnis-Suseno, Muslim scholar Ulil Abshar Abdalla and presidential expert staffer Siti Ruhaini Dzuhayatin.
During the seminar, Azyumardi offered several examples of how respect for Pancasila had grown weaker. He scrutinized its first principle, Belief in one God, and how recent instances of religious intolerance, particularly from and among Indonesian Muslims, was degrading it.
