Persuasive Essay : Ending Religious Discrimination in Indonesia

  Tohir, a 50 years old Shia Muslim, still remembers a mob of over hundred men stomping their feet at the ground, coming to his village. He still remembers rocks were being thrown at people, women rushing into their house, panic and fear spinning out of their eyes. He still remembers the mob burning down more than 30 houses, forcing villagers to run seeking refuge at the sports hall, all the while expressing their angry snarls with assailing remarks ‘Burn the Shias’ houses’ and ‘Kill the Shia’. He still remembers the mob was armed with swords and sickles and other objects they deemed decent as weapons. He still remembers the mob hacking his brother to death, after his fruitless effort to calm them down. The memories are still fresh breathing in his head. Alongside hundreds other villagers, nothing that they do could possibly erase the trauma from their painful retention. Shia is one of the two main branches of Islam (Sunni & Shia) that rejects the first three Sunni Caliph and regards Ali, the fourth Caliph, as Muhammad's first true successor. That day was a vile nightmare for Shia villagers in Sampang Regency on Madura Island, Province of East Java, Indonesia. The particular regency has been the home of hundreds Muslim Shia villagers for a long time. Despite the differences, both Sunni and Shia follower had lived peacefully until the August 2012 attack by a group of extremist Sunni. It was one of many other religious intolerance occurrences in Indonesia, and was indeed the worst. Indonesian Government needs to take serious actions in tackling this problem before it goes out of control, and removing article 64 of Indonesian Law No. 23 of 2006 on Civic Administration would be the best start-off.

Although the law has recently been amended on December 2013, our government still not meets the necessary change. Article 64 has been the core cause of never ending institutionalized discrimination against minority religious group in Indonesia. It states the requirement that religious affiliation be declared on legal documents such as identity card and birth certificate. The choices recognized by our government are between Islam, Christianity, Roman Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Confucianism. Our fellows Indonesian who are atheists; Indonesian who register under non-recognized religion; Indonesian who leave the column blank; are facing chains of obstacles in the form of harassment and discrimination. In 2007 the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination noticed that mixed-faith couples faced difficulties in registering their marriages and that their children were not provided with birth certificates, as they were not the products of “lawful” marriage. Atheists are also not able to enter into a civil marriage contract because they are not eligible to be legally documented, which can leave their family and offspring without legal protection. Furthermore, people with blank on their religion column often get difficulties in getting a job, not to mention stigmatization they are forced to carry around throughout their lives.

Discrimination that comes with the implementation of Article 64 also hurts our democracy. According to Wikipedia, democracy is defined a form of government in which all eligible citizens participate equally—either directly or indirectly through elected representatives—in the proposal, development, and creation of laws. However, the practice of democracy in Indonesia proved to fail in giving all of its eligible citizens the right to participate, let alone to participate equally. Alex Aan, a 30-year-old civil servant in Sumatra, is serving his six years sentence in prison for writing his atheism views on Facebook. He was charged with blasphemy and ‘spreading the words of atheism’. People who don’t belong to the six religions recognized by the government are forced to fake their religion in order to get their civil right and avoid any forms of discrimination. According to the Indonesian Conference on Religion and Peace (ICRP), during the 2010 population census, as many as 270,000 people out of Indonesia’s population of 237 million listed “other” as their religion. The real number is much higher. Article 64 has been an anomaly for more than 50 years in the democratic Republic with ‘Unity in Diversity’ written on its national symbol. When a certain law allows group of eligible citizens to be discriminated, democracy in that country is tainted and no longer exist.

The above cases are also an example how Article 64 undermines International Human Right Treaty ratified by Indonesia in 2006, proving our failure in keeping our promise to protect our citizen. Forcing a citizen to adopt a religion as part of his/her identity grossly chips away his/her right to freedom of thought and religion under article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. A private organization, The Setara Institute, has also measured continuous increases in the number of violent attacks against religious minorities since 2007. The 2013 violent clashes between Shias and Sunnis in East Java, unrelenting persecution of the  Ahmadiya Muslim sect in West Java, and the forced closure of Christian churches on the suburbs of Jakarta. To ratify an international treaty is to pinky swear the rest of the world that we are going to keep a promise. We should pledge our nation to a goal, that a failure to do so deserves a Yakuza’s Yubitsume; cutting off our pinky as a form of atonement.

The goal of our founders, in shaping this country as a democratic country, is to make sure that all of our people are able to access their rights equally, regardless their innate features and beliefs. For whatever reasons, Article 64 was added to our constitution and has been causing a successive torture for our fellow brothers and sisters. We all long for an equal protection; we all long for unity; we all long for a peaceful country. None of us should be worried to fall asleep at night; to go to work in the morning; to go shopping at noon; to pray every minute. None of us should worry for an angry mob trying to attack any seconds.