Suchergebnisse

"Maluku in Eastern Indonesia is the home to Muslims, Protestants, and Catholics who had for the most part been living peaceably since the sixteenth century. In 1999, brutal conflicts broke out between local Christians and Muslims, and escalated into large-scale communal violence once the Laskar Jihad, a Java-based armed jihadist Islamic paramilitary group, sent several thousand fighters to Maluku. As a result of this escalated violence, the previously stable Maluku became the site of devastating interreligious wars. This book focuses on the interreligious violence and conciliation in this region. It examines factors underlying the interreligious violence as well as those shaping post-conflict peace and citizenship in Maluku"--

Since the downfall of Suharto's authoritarian government in 1998, Indonesia has witnessed a variety of violent conflicts, intergroup tensions and Islamist radicalism, which in turn pose threats to the country's security, safety and peace. This article examines various forms of religious violence, particularly Islamist violence, and ways of overcoming them tactically or strategically in post-Suharto Indonesia. This article underscores the need to go beyond the liberal peace framework, underlines the significance of the implementation of tactical peacebuilding and highlights the central roles of domestic religious actors in the peace and reconciliation processes. This article suggests that tactical peacebuilding requires multiple approaches that utilise various sources, including religion and culture, and needs a strategic collaboration among manifold actors—religious and secular, state and society, domestic and foreign. The Indonesian case shows that religion is not only a source of conflict, violence and 'violence-building' but also a useful resource for reconciliation, conflict resolution and peacebuilding.

This article studies Saudi Arabia–trained Indonesian Islamic scholars, both past and present. It also discusses Saudi Arabia's non-Islamic studies Indonesian Muslim scholars. Since past centuries, Muslims on the Malay–Indonesian archipelago has journeyed to the Arabian Peninsula, especially Hijaz, either for pilgrimage or learning. This legacy continues nowadays. While many alumni of Saudi Arabia's Islamic educational institutions–formal and informal–have contributed significantly to the development of Islamic and Muslim cultures and education in Indonesia, some chose to stay, teach, and pass away in Makkah. The study shows that, unlike popular beliefs and opinions, Saudi Arabia-trained Indonesian Islamic scholars vary in terms of religious orientations, political affiliations, social networks, and academic backgrounds. For example, some scholars tend to be ultraconservative and militant, while others are inclined to be progressive and moderate. While the presence of Indonesian Islamic scholars has declined significantly in Saudi Arabia since the last four decades, new tiny Indonesian Muslim scholars specializing in non-Islamic studies began to emerge and teach in some universities in the Kingdom. This article, among others, aims at examining the plurality, complexity, and shifting dynamics of Saudi Arabia's Indonesian Islamic and Muslim scholars as well as their major roles and contributions in the spread and development of Indonesia's Islam and society.

Since the downfall of Suharto's dictatorial regime in 1998, Indonesia has witnessed a surge of various Islamist groups that have potentially threatened the country's religious tolerance, civil Islam, and civic pluralism. Moreover, it is suggested that the rise of Islamist groups could likely transform Indonesia into an intolerant Islamist country. However, this article asserts that the Islamist groups are unlikely to reform Indonesia into an Islamic State or Sharia–based government and society, and are unable to receive the support and approval of the Indonesian Muslim majority due to the following fundamental reasons: the groups' internal and inherent weaknesses, ruptured alliance among the groups, lack of Islamist political parties, limited intellectual grounds of the movement, the accommodation of some influential Muslim clerics and figures into the central government body, and public opposition toward the Islamist groups.

Sejak beberapa tahun terakhir ini, setelah sekian lama mati suri, politisasi agama, khususnya politisasi Islam, kembali menyeruak ke ruang-ruang publik Indonesia.Rontoknya rezim Orde Baru menyebabkan bangkitnya kembali para petualang agama yang dulu sempat "dimumikan" oleh Suharto karena dianggap membahayakan stabilitas dirinya, cendana, dan kroninya. Ketika Suharto tak lagi berkuasa, mereka pun ber-euforia dan berpesta pora. Tak pelak, politisasi agama (Islam) yang cenderung berlebihan dan overdosis ini telah menimbulkan dampak buruk bagi kehidupan berbangsa, beragama, dan bernegara di Tanah Air. Tulisan ini bermaksud mengulas sejarah politik politisasi agama dan dampaknya di masyarakat serta prospek Indonesia di kemudian hari di tengah serbuan politik identitas yang kian menggema.

This article discusses the ambiguous role of religiously-marked civil society organisations during the Christian-Muslim communal violence in Maluku, eastern Indonesia, from approximately 1999 to 2004. During the Maluku violence, some social groups supported peace and reconciliation, while others were major backers for the collective conflict. Using Maluku as the primary case study, this article aims to re-examine a well-established Western concept of civil society that puts emphasis on three key features, as follows. First, the concept focuses on the constructive role of civil society, while ignoring its destructive contribution in society. Second, the concept focuses on formal organisations, while neglecting informal associations, networks and neighbourhoods. And third, the concept excludes the contributions of government and state institutions in the shape—and influence of—civil society organisations. The article also examines the growing theme on "alternative forms" of civil society. It studies the plurality of civil societies and investigates that form of civil society association that might help contribute to civic coexistence and which type that encourages social conflict.

This comparative article discusses the local dynamics of interethnic violence and separatist movement in Turkey and Indonesia, and examines the role of the central governments in these two countries in responding to, and resolving, the conflict and separatism. More specifically, the article focuses on Turkish–Kurdish conflict and Indonesian–Acehnese violence, and explores perspectives of the secessionist groups of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and Free Aceh Movement (GAM) with regard to the quest of justice and conciliation. The heart of this article is to investigate the dynamics of micropolitics of political reconciliation and attempts at conflict resolution and peacebuilding between Ankara and PKK as well as Jakarta and GAM aiming at identifying the root causes underlying Turkey's failure and Indonesia's success in addressing their ethnic problems.

From 1999 to 2004, communal violence between Christians and Muslims broke out in the Moluccas of northeastern Indonesia, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths and injuries, and displacing hundreds of thousands of others. Unlike previous studies and analyses that give much attention to the political economy of the conflict, the dynamics of national politics, and the role of security forces – particularly the army and the police – and non-Moluccas Muslim jihadists and combatants in initiating and orchestrating the violence, this article mainly focuses on the contributions of religion, especially Islam, the dynamics of the Moluccas' local history and politics, and the role of Ambonese or Moluccan Muslim social actors and jihadists during the carnage. Focusing mainly on Maluku province, this article discusses how the local militant religious leaders framed the violence, recruited, and mobilized the masses in the combat zone, and how the local ordinary Muslim fighters portrayed – and became involved in – the wars, used religious narratives, discourses, symbols, and teachings to give theological legitimacy to the battle, and transformed their everyday experiences through the fighting. Lastly, it examines factors that contributed to the militancy and radicalism of those involved in the violence and investigates a process of radicalization of various Muslim groupings in the Moluccas that could provide a rationale for the eruption of the interreligious violence.