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SBY's pluralist legacy in tatters, survey confirms
Jakarta Globe - April 23, 2014
Fewer that 40 percent of 1,200 Indonesians polled last week said Yudhoyono's stewardship of the country's religious pluralism was a success, compared to 45 percent for the late Suharto, according the Indonesian Survey Network, or LSI.
In fact, says LSI researcher Ardian Sopa, Yudhoyono was the worst-scoring president in this regard among the six presidents in Indonesia's history.
Sukarno, the country's founding president, came out on top with an approval rating of 65 percent, followed by Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid with 58 percent, B.J. Habibie with 49 percent and Megawati Soekarnoputri with 44 percent.
Ardian says the figures just get bleaker: Nearly two-thirds of respondents said that religious discrimination had worsened during Yudhoyono's presidency, and 88 percent said they hoped the next president would do a better job of protecting religious diversity and harmony.
"It's bad news that so many people in Indonesia feel that religious pluralism has degraded during Yudhoyono's time in office," Novriantoni Kahar, the director of the Denny J.A. Foundation, which runs a polling agency of the same name, said during the launch of the LSI survey findings on Tuesday.
He cites as one of the roots of this discontent the proliferation of regional bylaws and policies that discriminate against religious minorities, which the central government has done little to quell.
"There needs to be more courage shown by the president and his ministers in the future to eradicate these discriminatory bylaws," Novriantoni says. "Security forces like the police must also stop cracking down on minorities at the behest of the majority. There has been no commitment from the police to protect the rights of all citizens to worship freely and in peace."
Declaration of hate
Yudhoyono has long been criticized for turning a blind eye to cases of religious intolerance, even as he embellishes his pluralist credentials on the international stage.
The latest instance of the government allowing intolerance to flare up was last weekend's declaration by a hard-line Sunni Islamic group to wage jihad, or holy war, against the long-persecuted Shiite minority.
The declaration in Bandung was endorsed by the administration of West Java Governor Ahmad Heryawan, which has a long history of hostile policies toward Shiites, Ahmadis and Christians, and safeguarded by the police.
Critics, though, have questioned why the authorities would allow an event invoking what amounted to hate speech – a crime under Indonesian law – to proceed without any attempt to shut it down.
Religious tolerance activists have also taken issue with the Bogor municipal government and the Bekasi district government, both in West Java, for flouting Supreme Court rulings to unseal churches that were closed off on trumped-up charges.
The central government, through Home Affairs Minister Gamawan Fauzi – who has himself suggested that a persecuted Shiite community in East Java renounce its beliefs – claims Jakarta is powerless to force local authorities to comply with the rulings of the highest court in the land, citing regional autonomy.
The members of the churches in question, GKI Yasmin from Bogor and HKBP Filadelfia from Bekasi, have for years now held joint Sunday services outside the State Palace to draw Yudhoyono's attention to their plight.
The president's lie
The president, however, seems to have overlooked the demonstrators at his doorstep, claiming earlier this month that there had been "no serious human rights abuses" in the country since he took office in 2004.
"To create a safe and peaceful Indonesia, the targets that I'd set were for national integrity, security and an end to armed violence, with a strengthening of religious tolerance," he told a campaign rally of his Democratic Party a week before the April 9 legislative election. "In the past 10 years there have been no serious human rights abuses," he added.
That, says rights activist Puspitasari, is patently false. "It's unethical, it's a public lie," she says.
She cites the flourishing under Yudhoyono's watch of hard-line militant groups like the Islamic Defenders Front, or FPI, which has repeatedly attacked minority groups and legitimate businesses with impunity. "Whenever the FPI has attacked another group, the authorities have always let it slide," Puspitasari says.
Gamawan, whose ministry has the power to disband groups that break the law, issued a "three strikes and you're out" ultimatum to the FPI after it attacked his ministry headquarters in 2012. Since then, more than two dozen attacks have been attributed to the group and its members, but Gamawan has ignored calls to disband it.
With Yudhoyono barred by term limits from running for a third term in office, his legacy looks certain to be tainted by his failure to address religious intolerance, critics say.
But the president has made a show of being a champion of religious freedom, at least on the international stage, in what observers say is his bid for a possible United Nations job after he leaves office.
In May last year he picked up the World Statesman Award from a US interfaith organization for his role in promoting religious tolerance and freedom of worship in Indonesia. Religious freedom activists back home said the award from the Appeal of Conscience Foundation was "shameful."
"This is a shame, a shame for you," interfaith activist and Jesuit priest Franz Magnis Suseno said in an open letter to the foundation.
"It discredits any claim you might make as an institution with moral intentions. How can you take such a decision without asking concerned people in Indonesia? Hopefully you have not made this decision in response to prodding by people from our government or the entourage of the president." Yudhoyono, in his acceptance speech, pointed out that there were probably more churches in Indonesia than in Britain or Germany.
He omitted to say that many of them had been shut down or were in the process of being closed by authorities in places like West Java and Aceh, at the behest of Islamic hard-liners.
Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/sbys-pluralist-legacy-tatters-survey-confirms/.
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