Indonesia also enjoys the accolade as the largest Muslim-majority democracy to dispel the “clash of civilizations” theorem that doubts the compatibility between Islam and democracy. This may be the case for now, but not for long unless Indonesia gets its acts together.

We have seen too many cases of violations of freedom of religion, a right that is enshrined in the Constitution, enough to know that we have a serious problem. Many organizations concerned with freedom of faith, including particularly the Wahid Institute, have tirelessly reminded us of this.

We do not need outsiders to tell us of this failure. But this year’s United States’ report on freedom of religion, published by the US Department of State this month, provides further material as a reason for concern and a ground for action.

While the report highlights far bigger problems in other countries around the world, the chapter on Indonesia runs a long list of cases of violations of freedom of religion in the past year. There is nothing in the report that we do not already know, but by putting these cases in one long list, it reveals the extent of how serious the problem has become.

We cannot afford to remain in denial and let this loss of freedom undermine our democracy.

Two problems stand out in particular from the list of cases: The persecutions against religious minorities and followers of spiritual beliefs, and the constant use of the 1965 Blasphemy Law to protect the big religions instead of religious minorities in practicing their faith.

These are not really new problems to be newsworthy, but as the Wahid Institute warns, also cited in the report, religious intolerance has been growing in Indonesia. The COVID-19 pandemic made no difference. Our complacency or even denial of the problem is clearly undermining democracy.

One of the problems, though not clearly spelled out in the report, is the failure of the government, in particular, the police, in providing protection for the religious minorities. Followers of Ahmadiyah and Shia, in particular, have been the target of persecutions; although not necessarily by the government, they certainly are happening with its knowledge, at times even with its consent.

Many attacks against these two groups, whom the Sunni Muslim majority in Indonesia have denounced as un-Islamic or even heretics, happened with the knowledge of the police. There have been cases when police were notified and were actually present as mobs attacked the housing complexes, holy events and the places of worship of the Ahmadi and Shiite communities.

The forced closure of churches, the most recent one cited in the report being the one in Riau, is another example of the absence of the state when it was needed the most. In the Riau case, a senior Cabinet minister intervened to help resolve the problem. But this is the exception rather than the rule. Two churches in Bogor and in Bekasi, West Java, both adjacent townships to Jakarta, have been closed down for years even though they had won their cases in the Supreme Court.

It stands to reason that for many followers of minority religions, things were much better during the Soeharto years when they enjoyed much better police protection. They felt much safer then.

This is not a call for a return to the authoritarian system of government — no one seriously wants to take Indonesia back to that era — but more a call for a stronger and more consistent commitment on the part of the government to guaranteeing freedom of religion, and to provide protection, particularly for the religious minorities, against harassment and persecution.

Tragically, many of these problems only emerge in post-Soeharto Indonesia as democracy paves the way for majoritarianism, where one dominant group feels entitled to a certain degree of primacy to be making decisions that affect the rest of the country.

Democracy cannot function without the strong and credible enforcement of the laws to protect the freedoms and rights that come with the package. This is one of Indonesia’s failings that have undermined all the gains it has made in advancing freedom and democracy since the downfall of strongman Soeharto in 1998.

If we want to maintain our democracy, we have to address the problem of freedom of religion.

***

Senior editor of The Jakarta Post

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