Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Medan (Agenzia Fides) – There have been no interreligious tensions in northern Sumatra following the recent violence against two Protestant houses of worship. "These are rare events, occurring in specific circumstances. Over the past five years, the situation in Sumatra - particularly in the Province of Aceh - has much improved in the social, human, and religious aspects," Fides learned in an interview with Archbishop Antonius Sinaga, OFM Cap, of Medan, Metropolitan Archdiocese with the two Dioceses of North Sumatra, Padang and Sibolga, under the umbrella of its ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
"As for the inter-religious relationships, especially between Muslims and Christians, I am not worried. In fact, I am very confident. The isolated incidents of anti-Christian violence (especially against the Protestant denominations) depend on contingent factors and are not the result of a widespread hatred. For example, in the latest incident (two prayer rooms of a Pentecostal community were set on fire near Padang, North Sumatra), the fire was started by a radical Muslim leader who came to visit the province and a group of fanatics who followed him. The incident was condemned by many local Muslim leaders."
What is very important, the Bishop points out, is the politics of local government: "At the public level, the local government in Sumatra has adopted and defended the idea of pluralism and plurality in society, as has also occurred nationally, in accordance with Pancasila, the five cardinal principles of the Indonesian nation, which guarantee freedom for the believers of recognized religious communities.”
It is true that one form of controlling the growth of Protestant Christian communities and is by denying or lengthening the process of permits to build new churches. And even the “visibility and noise” of the Christian liturgies of the Pentecostal denomination at times elicits reactions from small Islamic fundamentalist groups, who fear Christian proselytizing.
Also, in North Sumatra there is a potential conflict within the Batak ethnic communities, who live mainly in southern Province of Aceh that includes Christians and Muslims, and there is, therefore, considerable pressure to convert to Islam placed on Batak Christians, in an attempt to realign the two factors, ethnic group and religion.
But, even considering this scenario and this complexity of elements, as Fides is told by Indonesian Church sources, "we must also keep in mind those not-so-far-off days (late 90s) of suffering in which churches were burned each year in Indonesia, which was a worrying phenomenon that reached very high figures: about 800 churches were burned or attacked between 1996 and 2000. Or we can think of the anti-Christian violence that took place in the Moluccas and in Sulawesi between 1999 and 2001. Since then, there has been obvious progress.”
Also, Indonesia's largest Muslim organizations - such as Muhammadiyah (about 30 million followers) and Nahdlatul Ulama (about 40 million followers) – have condemned such incidents. Even authoritative and influential media have condemned the violence, as shown in the last editorial in the Jakarta Post, entitled "Stop Church Burning." “The overall assessment of interfaith harmony in Sumatra and throughout Indonesia is positive and we hope to see continued improvements," Fides' source concluded. (PA) (Agenzia Fides 5/2/2010)
