CRCS lecturer Greg Vanderbilt shares his reflections while visiting Christians in Indonesian peripheries observing their religious commemorations.
Arsip:
Perspective
Pilkada Jakarta berimbas pada dinamika politik lokal berbasis identitas dari ormas-ormas adat-Kristen di Tanah Minahasa.
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.
Last week Ian Wilson wrote in a New Mandala article—subsequently republished at the Jakarta Post and a number of other English Language publications, as well as being translated into Bahasa Indonesia by Tirto—about issues of inequality and poverty that didn’t feature prominently in discourses surrounding Jakarta’s gubernatorial election, either in local or international mainstream media.
The critical content of Wilson’s article was largely aimed at the campaigns of both sides in the second round of the election. I agree with the main goal of the article, namely to oppose the dominant narratives in the Jakarta election, which have been framed in binary terms (‘diversity vs. sectarian populism’), and express the issues of inequality and poverty that are of paramount importance and therefore ought to be a priority of political programs. But my agreement is accompanied by two corrections and one additional note.
Allow me to quote one sentence that summarises the article’s content and forms its main thesis. Wilson says:
Jonathan D Smith | CRCS | Essay
Indonesia is home to many environmental movements, either led by established environmental activists or by groups of indigenous people. The reclamation project in Benoa Bay, cement mining in Kendeng area, Central Java, and the Save Aru movement are just a few recent examples. Does religion play a role in these movements? Are these local movements related to the growing global environmental movement?
The local and global is a crucial element of environmental movements, because environmental problems defy boundaries. Our rapidly-changing climate poses an urgent challenge that is both global and local. As national governments slowly acknowledge their role in reducing carbon emissions (with some exceptions), local communities in Indonesia are living with the problems of rising temperatures and sea levels, increases in natural disasters, and increasing pollution of our air and water.
Local-global connections in religious environmental movements
In 2016 at the climate summit in Morocco, governments met to affirm their adoption of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. Signed by 111 countries (as of November 2016), the agreement commits to reducing carbon emissions and recognizes the human impact on climate change. At the same climate summit in Marrakech, hundreds of religious leaders and environmental activists launched the Interfaith Climate Statement.
The Interfaith Climate Statement included these words:
