Kauman as Current Little Mecca in Indonesia

Wednesday Forum – 7 December 2022

Kauman is one representation of Little Mecca that still existing in several cities in Java Island, Indonesia. It has been a center of Islamic teachings since the sultanates period until now. Kauman itself historically was a small kampong that next to the grand mosque. It was the home for ulama and his families to live and take care the mosques. After returning home from hajj pilgrimage, some ulama established their own boarding schools in Kauman. They would like to transfer knowledges from Middle East to their students. This makes Kauman emerged an Islamic enclave in urban areas. One prominent Kauman kampong is Kauman of Yogyakarta. It was well known for ulama’s residential area during Mataram Kingdom and early Yogyakarta Sultanate period in the late 18 century. But now it has been changed to be large kampong that inspired the birth of Muhammadiyah, the second mass Islamic organization in Indonesia. This kampong transformation historically show how the inter-linkage connection with Middle East especially pan-Islamism movement and reformist Islam spirit. These two values basically were inspired from the same movement in Arabian Peninsula. Some building itself still has an Islamic architecture that influenced by Middle East. This architecture basically showed the cultural connection with the middle eastern civilization, particularly mosques and boarding schools. More importantly, Kauman is entirely pedestrianized that ensure the quietness condition for students studying Islam inside the surau or langgar. This shows how Arab identity is important to preach Islam in Indonesia especially urban areas. This study would like to reveal the continuing connection between middle eastern influence and Islamic teachings in Kauman.

Semua orang menginginkan kebebasan beragama atau berkeyakinan, tetapi bagaimana jika kebebasan itu saling menafikan dan tidak bisa didamaikan?

Refleksi SAA PGI: Jalan Lain bagi Sang Liyan

Ribka Ninaris Barus – 12 Januari 2023

“Saya adalah salah satu dari sekian banyak istri yang tidak diakui oleh negara. Di [tempat] kami, banyak anak yang belum memiliki akte kelahiran, banyak pasangan yang belum memiliki surat kawin karena belum diakui oleh negara.”

Kutipan itu disampaikan oleh Ibu Vivi, seorang perempuan Akur (warga adat Karuhun Urang) Sunda Wiwitan, pada sesi perkenalan peserta Seminar Agama-Agama (SAA) Persekutuan Gereja-Gereja di Indonesia (PGI) ke-37, di Cigugur, Kuningan, pada November 2022 lalu. Pernyataan Ibu Vivi membuktikan bahwa masyarakat penghayat belum sepenuhnya mendapat pengakuan dari negara. Meskipun Mahkamah Konstitusi (MK) telah mengeluarkan Putusan No.97/PUU-XIV/2016 terkait pengisian kolom agama bagi penghayat, dalam praktiknya masih banyak masyarakat adat dan penghayat yang kesulitan untuk mengakses pelayanan publik dan mendapatkan hak-haknya sebagai warga negara. Perubahan kebijakan ternyata tidak cukup menjadi ujung tombak dalam mengatasi ketidakadilan dan peminggiran penganut agama leluhur di Indonesia.

Menemukan Allah: Tantangan Menjadi  Saint Queer di Tengah Arus Konservatisme Agama

Refan Aditya – 22 November 2022

Mengerasnya konservatisme agama di Sulawesi Selatan menjadi ancaman bagi komunitas Bissu sebagai pelestari dan pemimpin agama leluhur Bugis. Yang paling kentara adalah upaya untuk melucuti status gender nonbiner para Bissu. Namun, di tengah masifnya konservatisme tersebut, para Bissu tak berhenti mencari dan menggali ruang-ruang spiritualitas dalam dirinya dan tempatnya di masyarakat Bugis saat ini. Dinamika itu menjadi bahasan Wednesday Forum, 12 Oktober 2022 bertajuk “Queer Spiritual Space in Bissu Community South Sulawesi: In Search of Allah”. Diskusi ini disajikan oleh Petsy Jessy Ismoyo yang merupakan mahasiswa ICRS dan pengampu program studi Hubungan Internasional di Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana.

Lived Eco-Religion: How social movements in Indonesian local communities respond to environmental crises in creative ways

Wednesday Forum – 23 November 2022

How do religions respond to environmental crises? Beyond debates about religion as destroying or saving the planet, we present a synthetic review of 244 qualitative studies (some written by CRCS/ICRS alumni) of 208 environmental social movements operating at the local community level in Indonesia between 1990 and 2022. Using this data, we present a conceptual model for how environmental movements employ creative adaptation of religious beliefs and practices to motivate changes in environmental behavior. We share three findings and their implications: 1) high levels of synthesis between official religions, adat systems and local wisdom; 2) contextual factors that directly influence environmental movements to adopt blended environmental and lived religious responses; 3) intense contestation within local communities shaping the creative process.

Planetary Thinking in a Post-Human World

Wednesday Forum – 09 November 2022

In his book, The Darker Side of Western Modernity, Walter Mignolo outlines several options for a future of the planet beyond the western, modern colonial world. He spends most of that book talking about the decolonial option, with only fragments spent on what he calls “the spiritual option.” In brief, the spiritual option is about decolonizing religious traditions through more embodied spiritualities that focus people on the human and more-than-human communities in which they live. As such, the spiritual option has affinities with both “liberation” style religious strands and with animisms found in indigenous communities. In addition, recent scholarship around “New Materialisms” also suggests that there is agency and value in the rest of the natural world: much like in animist traditions, everything on the planet is alive, acts, and is acted upon. In my contribution to this discussion, I make an argument for the ethics of a post-human world from animist and new materialist perspectives. Such an argument depends on something like a planetary spirituality, which may be a supplement to Mignolo’s “spiritual option.”