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.
Religious harmony index up but intolerance remains
An index indicating religious harmony in the country has shown an increase but officials and the public have doubted such a measure given the number of religion-related conflicts that continue to occur across the country
Change Size
A
n index indicating religious harmony in the country has shown an increase but officials and the public have doubted such a measure given the number of religion-related conflicts that continue to occur across the country.
The religious harmony index for this year was 73.83 out of 100, an increase from last year’s score of 70.9.
The index was based on a national survey carried out by the Research and Development Agency (Balitbang) of the Religious Affairs Ministry from May to June, involving 13,600 respondents in all 34 provinces. It assessed perceptions of tolerance, equality and cooperation among people of different religions.
This year’s score, which falls within the range of 61 to 80, indicates that Indonesia is in “the high level of interreligious harmony” even though the result is below 2015’s score of 75.36.
While the index has shown an improvement, some people still question the validity of the report.
Diah Pitaloka, a lawmaker from the House of Representatives Commission VIII overseeing religious, social and women’s affairs, doubted the score, saying it did not reflect the real situation as cases of religious intolerance had been getting more visible throughout the year.
“Do the results of the survey really reflect the current socioreligious situation in the country?” Diah told a panel discussing the survey results on Dec. 11.
She cited the April incident in Yogyakarta when 11 wooden crosses that marked the graves next to the Bethesda Hospital in Sleman were found missing allegedly due to the rejection from local residents who did not allow non-Islamic symbols in their area.
A month later, a group of local residents also rejected the construction of a Hindu temple in Sukaurip village, Bekasi regency, West Java as they were afraid it would encourage adherents of other minority religions to build places of worship in the neighborhood.
Diah also stressed that religious tension that occurred during the 2019 general elections should have affected the index as well.
She further assumed that the contradiction between the score and her findings might have been a result of the index being based on a survey.
Diah argued that some respondents might have given false answers when filling out the questionnaire, leading to an inaccurate result.
The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) politician also questioned the profile of the respondents, since the majority of them might adhere to a single religion and consider there not to be much religious intolerance in society.
Ismail Hasani, research director with human rights watchdog Setara Institute, agreed that the index failed to capture the extent of religious intolerance in the country, particularly since Setara had recorded more than 150 cases of religious intolerance throughout this year, close to last year’s 160 cases.
Most of the cases, Ismail added, were related to restrictions on minority religious groups practicing their own beliefs. “Based on our data, there has been no improvement regarding religious intolerance issues,” he said.
Ismail also criticized the short period of the survey in May and June, which could not represent the situation for the whole year. That survey period, he added, was also prone to biased results since the survey was conducted exactly a month after the general election.
While believing that respondents at the time of the survey probably assumed that the religious intolerance cases had been resolved automatically since the election was also over, Ismail also suggested that the respondents’ answers should not be incorporated into the index since they might have only responded to the actions taken by the government in tackling religious intolerance cases related to the elections.
“Basing the index solely on the survey is not a credible method. Thus, the ministry should rename the report from the interreligious harmony index to the interreligious harmony perception report,” Ismail added.
Despite being the compiler of the index, the Religious Affairs Ministry has also expressed its concern over the report, saying that it might still have many drawbacks and promised to compile a better report next year.
Religious Affairs Minister Fachrul Razi said that while he was delighted that the score had improved, he still had questions about specific events that determined the respondents’ perception of interreligious harmony since cases of religious intolerance were even more visible this year.
The minister cited several occurrences that should have affected the score, such as the religious tension during the 2019 general elections and the surging of religion-based hate speech on social media.
“I think the score is good as it stands above 70, but what are the determinants of the score? What are the events that affected the score? We need to understand these aspects to construct a better policy for improving interreligious harmony in Indonesia in the future,” Fachrul said. (glh)
