AL KHANIF, The Jakarta Post
London | Fri, October 16, 2015 | 04:37 pm
Indonesia has once again witnessed religious violence, this time a clash between a majority group and a minority. The violence occurred in Aceh Singkil, and resulted in the destruction of a church, one man dead and others injured. Not long ago a similar incident occurred in Tolikara, Papua, when a mosque was burned down by a violent mob from a majority community.
These two, and other, religious-violence incidents demonstrate the deficiency in religious pluralism in the country that was long ago introduced by the founders of Indonesia.
Additionally, it also illustrates that relations between members of majority and minority religions remain tense.
Religious pluralism is in fact acknowledged not only in the Constitution but also in Pancasila as the ideology of the nation.
These two supreme canopies of law do not mention any specific religion in building a collective awareness of Indonesia’s socio-religious pluralistic character.