Yulianti | CRCS | Perspektif

Perayaan Waisak adalah salah satu hari besar umat Buddha untuk memperingati tiga peristiwa: hari lahir Sidharta Gotama (calon Buddha Gautama), momen Sidharta mendapatkan pencerahan ilmu, dan hari mangkatnya Buddha. Ketiga peristiwa ini terjadi pada bulan Waisak saat purnama.

Waisak dirayakan dalam berbagai bentuk dengan skala yang beragam. Denyut perayaan Waisak tidak hanya terasa di negara-negara berpenduduk mayoritas Buddha seperti Sri Lanka, Thailand, Myanmar, atau wilayah mainland Asia Tenggara lain. Negara-negara di mana agama Buddha tidak dipeluk mayoritas penduduknya seperti Indonesia pun menggemakan Waisak melalui acara-acara besar.

Sebagian dampak Pilkada DKI tak berhenti setelah pilkada usai. Meski berjalan sukses tanpa gugatan kecurangan, dan hasilnya diterima semua pihak, sulit merayakan keberhasilan itu dengan suka cita. Ia memang demokrasi, tapi dengan kualitas rendah, yang meninggalkan luka-luka serius.

Anthon Jason | CRCS | Wednesday Forum Report

In Indonesia, people can be called by their homeland’s name, such as orang Batak, orang Sunda, orang Manado and so on. The Indonesian concepts that are tied tightly to ideas of land, community, and cosmology referred to as adat have a dynamic and complex relationship to people’s religious identification and how they understand their identities. People can be emplaced or displaced in regard to how their religious identity relates to their cultural identification with particular places. While emplacement is the process by which people identify themselves with a place, displacement is a dislocation, removal, expropriation, takeover, or ideological process to refute claims of rights over land, the use of cultural symbols, or the ability of people and groups to self-identify.

Anang G Alfian | CRCS | Wednesday Forum Report

As a product of the globalized world, social media have created a virtual space of communication and interaction. Many people use it with enthusiasm as it helps humans build communication and connectivity much faster than ever before. On the other hand, many consider this phenomenon a challenge for living ethically and productively.

Dealing with this topic, Wednesday Forum on February 9th 2017 held a discussion on “wefies” (group self-portraits posted on social media) in relation to the Islamic concept of riya’ (showing off piety). The two speakers, Fatimah Husein, currently teaching at CRCS/ICRS as well as UIN Sunan Kalijaga, and Martin Slama of the Institute for Social Anthropology at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, presented the emerging phenomenon of online piety in Indonesia, especially on how Muslims rethink riya’ in today’s popular “wefie” culture. The presentation was based on Husein’s article titled “The Revival of Riya’: Displaying Muslim Piety Online in Indonesia” which has been submitted for a virtual issue of American Ethnologist and Slama’s research project on “Islamic (Inter)Faces of the Internet: Emerging Socialities and Forms of Piety in Indonesia” funded by the Austrian Science Fund.

Setelah Kunjungan Raja Saudi: Melawan Ekstremisme?

Azis Anwar Fachrudin – 7 Maret 2017

Di mata banyak orang, kunjungan Raja Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud boleh jadi menampakkan gestur yang positif. Namun satu hal yang tetap tak boleh terlupa ialah bahwa beberapa janji menunggu untuk segera dipenuhi. Satu pernyataan juga penting mendapat respons serius.

Setidaknya dua janji layak disebut di sini. Pertama, kompensasi terhadap korban cedera (42 orang) dan kelurga korban yang meninggal (12 orang) dari jamaah haji Indonesia dalam tragedi jatuhnya derek (crane) di Masjidil Haram pada 2015. Kedua, jaminan perlindungan terhadap Tenaga Kerja Indonesia di Arab Saudi, khususnya yang bekerja di sektor informal, serta penyelesaian dialogis dua negara untuk kasus 25 WNI yang terjerat pidana dengan ancaman hukuman mati.

Sebanyak 16 peserta, yakni 8 orang dari Jayapura dan 8 orang dari Merauke, mengikuti pelatihan yang diadakan CRCS dan Ilalang Institute.