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.
RI, Oman to showcase religious tolerance through art
Ahead of the International Day for Tolerance on Nov
Change Size
A
span>Ahead of the International Day for Tolerance on Nov. 16, Oman and Indonesia are set to hold an international exhibition in Jakarta to promote religious tolerance, mutual understanding and coexistence.
The exhibition, to be held from Nov. 14 to 18 at the National Library, will depict how Islam is practiced in daily life in the modern Arab society of Oman and how harmonious interfaith relationships are nurtured.
During the five-day exhibition, 24 panels of text and graphics about religious practices in modern Arab society will be shown. The exhibition will also feature artifacts and artwork.
Accompanying the exhibition is a screening of a short documentary film titled Religious Tolerance in Oman by German filmmaker Wolfgang Ettlich — commissioned by Oman’s Endowments and Religious Affairs Ministry — and a sand art show and nasheed vocal music performance by Omani artists.
Mohammed al-Mamari, a consul at the Omani Endowment and Religious Affairs Ministry, said the event, which will be the first of its kind in Indonesia, aimed to promote tolerance and peace all over the world. He added that it would be a starting point for other collaborations with Indonesia.
“I hope that this [exhibition] can be beneficial to the people of Indonesia,” Al-Mamari, who is also the member of exhibition committee, told a press conference in Jakarta on Tuesday, adding that promoting peace and religious tolerance was important since Islamic teachings were often misunderstood.
The upcoming exhibition in Jakarta is also a collaboration with the Network for Religious and Traditional Peacemakers and Baraza, a German-based NGO advocating for international mutual understanding and tolerance.
Sharing his experience on co-organizing the event for the past 10 years, Baraza’s president Georg Popp said that the touring exhibition was becoming more relevant to pertinent issues such as the rise of Islamophobia, which had been seen recently, for instance, in several countries in Europe.
The German artist and activist argued that such discrimination occurred because of a lack of understanding of Islam.
In Germany, for instance, he said, there was this kind of gap in awareness of the religion, as well as a gap in understanding of the predominantly Muslim immigrants in the country between those who lived in rural and urban areas.
“Most of the immigrants [in Germany] live in the city [...] so they rarely interact with those who live in rural Germany,” he told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.
Such an exhibition would provide a better understanding of Islam, he added.
Prior to coming to Indonesia, the exhibition toured 38 countries — including Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, France and Uzbekistan — and was hosted by many institutions under the theme of “Oman’s message of Islam”.
The National Library's head of the literary group, Ade Riri Riyani, said the library as the representative of the Indonesian government welcomed and supported the exhibition as it could add color to the cultural exchanges between the nations, strengthening them even further.
