TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Interreligious synergy sought to fight radicalism, intolerance
Change Size
Peaceful words: Palu State Islamic Institute (IAIN) rector Zainal Abidin (center) speaks before local priests to discuss efforts to curb growing intolerance in Central Sulawesi. (JP/Ruslan Sangadji)
A
leading scholar from the Palu State Islamic Institute (IAIN) in Central Sulawesi shared a table on Tuesday evening with dozens of local priests to discuss efforts to curb radicalism and growing intolerance in the province.
“I call for support from Christian leaders to jointly fight groups that promote intolerance and radicalism,” IAIN Palu rector Zainal Abidin said at the forum, which took place in Sigi regency.
Zainal, a professor of modern Islamic thought and the chairman of the Indonesian Ulema Council‘s (MUI) Palu chapter, noted the importance of synergy among local religious leaders to promote peace.
“We should look more to the things we have in common instead of highlighting our differences,” he said.
From the late 1990s to the mid-2000s, Central Sulawesi’s Poso regency, located some 200 kilometers southeast of the provincial capital of Palu, was home to sectarian conflict between Muslims and Christians. Thousands of Christians and Muslims became victims of the conflict.
Although the conflict officially ended with the signing of the Malino Accords in 2001 and 2002, the region remains a terrorism hotbed. (hwa)
