On April 29th 2010, CRCS in collaboration with Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies (ICRS) Yogyakarta, International Center for Islam and Pluralism (ICIP) and Switzerland Embassy invited Professor Hans Kung to give Lecture in CRCS on “Finding New Path to Dialogue”. This lecture is the first series of public lecture under Pluralism Knowledge Program activities in 2010. The Lecture was attended by more than 400 audience who enthusiatic to see the well know Kung. For this lecture CRCS produced a small book on Kung’s concept of dialogues and Muslim perspectives on his ideas of dialogue entitled “Jalan Dialog Hans Kung dan Perspektif Muslim ”, and a documentary of his lecture and visit to Yogyakarta entitled “Hans Kung, Indonesia, and Interfaith Dialogue”.
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International Summer School was held from the 12th of July to August 6 in 2010 and have be hosted by the Center for Religious and Cross-Cultural Studies of Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. It involves a 4 week full time program of lectures, excursions, seminars, literature study, discussion, guided individual – and small group work and assignments. Selected participants are required to prepare a pre-summer school assignment. The course has be completed with a group presentation and paper as well as a design for a workshop that participants are expected to conduct after they return home. Upon successful completion, participants will be offered a Kosmopolis/University for Humanistics Certificate in Human Development and Human Rights. Every summer students and activists from Indonesia, India, Uganda and the Netherlands discuss issues around tolerance and pluralism in the Pluralism Summer School. The 2009 Summer School has been organised by knowledge programme partner CRCS – Center for Religious and Cross-cultural Studies in Yogyakarta, Indonesia and Kosmopolis, University for Humanist Studies, the Netherlands.

Tabitha Naisiko, a book writer and the Ugandan participant in the International Summer School, opined that a marriage should be constituted by love and not by a government constitution. This doctor candidate of Ethics and Development Studies in Martyr University, Uganda, finds herself cannot make head or tail to the Regulation on Inter-Religious Marriage in Indonesia, a country she identifies as a multiculturalists one. The Regulation which came into force in 1974, most probably, has led the love among Indonesians into division.
Uganda, according to Tabitha who had written dozen books on ethic and development, is called as the heart of Africa. With a strong Catholicism and Protestantism presence, which is about 85% of the total population, religious adherents live harmoniously one to another.” Inter-religious marriage has never become a problem in Uganda?” says a young woman who got her master degree on Applied Ethics in Leuven, Belgium, comparing the marital issues in Indonesia with those in her country, Uganda. “Nonetheless, the ethnic groups are sometimes clash”, she added.
Coming to Yogyakarta to attend the International Summer School through the Cross-cultural Foundation of Uganda (CCFU) is one among wondeful things ever happened in her life. Tabitha asserts her aim of attending the program as “to be able to integrate the outlook I got here into my next reseach in getting a more mediated and dialetic approach to human development?” (Gie)

The Kosmospolis Institute of the University for Humanistic Studies in the Netherlands, in cooperation with Hivos and its partner for Pluralism Knowledge Program in India, Indonesia and Uganda will hold International Summer School on Human Development and Human Rights. The theme of this program is ‘Pluralism and Development’. After holding this program in Netherlands and India (Bangalore), in 2009 the summer school will be held in Yogyakarta, by the Center for Religious and Cross-cultural Studies (CRCS) UGM, on July 13, 2009 to August 7, 2009. Participants of this program consist of 4 people who come from Netherlands, India, and Uganda and 6 people come from Indonesia. For the applicants who passed selection, the committee will pay for transportation to Yogyakarta, accommodations, and hotel during four weeks. All of the programs will be delivered in English, including presentation and writing.
Deadline of registration is JANUARY 31, 2009.
To know more about the program, please click application form and call for application.

Janneke van den Brand, one of the Dutch participants in the International Summer School, portrays the meaning of pluralism through a painting. “Ik belangstellend voor afbeelding; ik verliefd en houden van schilderen,” she said, asserting how she is very fond of painting. Spending her spare time painting imaginary women as her image object, this student of Humanities Studies at Utrecht, the Netherland, asserted that she has been painting with various colors of paint so far. The paint she chose is Acrylic, for it appears cheerfully on the canvas. Unlike other palettes that tend to use only single color, Janneke often uses various colors on her painting. She believes that each color has its own meaning and it supports the existence of other color.
While showing some among hundreds of her painting collections on the computer, Janneke, 24, opined that various color can also represents various culture, human, and religion. As the color mixes beautifully one to another, so does the phenomenon of diversity within this world. “In painting, you see people in the same level and everybody is right,” said a young woman who once had an exhibition with some of her friends in the Netherlands.
Janneke also explains that the discourse on pluralism in the Netherlands is not as apparent as it is in Indonesia. The Dutch and other people who have stayed there for a long period of time, she said, are seeing pluralism as something hard to deal with. “It’s only because Muslim culture doesn’t fit with the Dutch culture; not to mention the major religion of Protestantism there.” To her, Indonesia is blessed by its phenomenon of diversity.
The best thing she can do for her country, said Janneke who is labeled “Democratic Princess” by her classmates at the International Summer School, is through art. And, she chose painting to express her emotions, messages, and hopes. She believes that delivering a message through art is very efficient in seeing that all people love art. She holds an immense wish that the major group of people in her country will soon be enlightened to see the existence of other people as a new color to complete the nuance of life.
However, she never thinks spending her entire life to be a professional painter. “I am looking forward to having a chance to endure an internship at the Kosmopolis Institute.” Being a pluralist-humanist is one among the aims she wants to pursue. The palette of Acrylic paints, canvases, and brushes, at all cost, will always follow her. (Gie)

The International Summer School has been running well since it opened on July 13, 2009. The school has been supporting the participants to develop critical thinking in dealing problems in the society. Through lectures, exposures, discussions and common activities, the participants are learning a great deal of things related to the issue of promoting pluralism, human development and human rights.
On the first week, the participants learned some issues, which are the main topics of the program, such as identity, recognition of the other, democracy, diversity, sustainable development and some other related issues. These were in the introduction section of the Summer School.
As one of the exercises in the introductory section, the participants learned and evaluated some prejudices that they think exist in their countries, and also prejudices from people from other countries to their country. Interestingly, the participants were open in explaining every prejudice they knew, and they discussed the prejudices to get some clarifications. It was like a dialogue that respects each other.
Besides the dialogue or sections in the class, during the first week, the participants visited some places in Yogyakarta. The scheduled places the participants visited were Ullen Sentalu (Museum of Javanese Art and Culture at Kaliurang) and the Merapi view at Kali Adem. At these places, the participants and some lecturers learned the history of Javanese Art & Culture and the history of Mt. Merapi. It made them become closer to Yogyakarta, and its phenomena. The scheduled activity not only made them closer to Javanese Arts & Cultures, but also it reduced prejudices which they discussed in class.
As for the non-scheduled places, the participants visited Malioboro and Kraton, including Alun-alun Kidul. The activity built intimacy among them. They were ecstatic when they were there.
After they visited the places, they then focused their attention in reading the articles given to them as the main sources for lectures and discussions in class. The participants were active in discussing some issues in the articles which were articulated by the lecturers. Mostly, the lectures and discussions were based on theoretical frameworks and field experiences they had, especially as practitioners in a civil society.
Principally, the activities during the first week, the participants became more open to talk to each other. They also developed deeper understanding of the main issues and purposes of the Summer School. Their encounter, as people from different places of the world, was really fundamental in building inclusive perspectives and values to live and work together with others. (JMI)