Ms. Amanah Nurish, an alumni of CRCS came to the CRCS-ICRS Wednesday Forum on 27th April 2011 and presented the paper on ‘Baha’ism in European Countries. She traveled to some of the European countries months ago to find out the religious life of the Baha’i community. She made her interest to study about the Baha’i community in different part of the world and she wrote her thesis on “Baha’sm in Indonesia” as the required fulfillment of the Master’s program at CRCS. She made the comparative study between Baha’is in Europe and Indonesia in terms of the religious freedom. In her study, she have found the Baha’ism as the new Abrahamic religion access more privilege in the European countries than in Indonesia. According to her findings from the interviews, the Baha’i community can access to the freedom of religious practices in Germany and Netherland, whereas paradoxically in Indonesia, the Baha’i is not even recognized by the state. In the birthplace, Baha’is suffer the persecution by the local Iranian rule. For the Muslim clergy, Baha’ism is seen as the offshoot of the Abrahamic religions which labeled as apostasy. Many Muslims majority countries, except the Turkey, chastised to this new religious movement. This made Baha’is from the Middle East who prevails in the European countries find the freedom of religiosity.

It was on the 6 April 2011 when the CRCS-ICRS Wednesday Forum had Abdul Hamid Robinson-Royal to be the presenter of the discussion. Bringing the title ‘Islam in America, from Hajj to Hip Hop and from Roots to Rap’ this Ph.D. student of the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California, who takes the fellowship program in ICRS Yogyakarta delivered a presentation about the Muslims of USA, highlighting African-American Muslims, their history and identity.

Abdul Hamid who is also a musician and has a master degree of music used the term ‘hip hop’ and ‘rap’ to show the diversity of Muslim community in USA, and its history. But again, the issue of identity is still a problem so that Abdul Hamid must open his presentation with the scientific notion of such terms like ‘indigenous’, ‘authentic’, ‘pluralism’, authority, ‘panoptic’, the difference between ‘decolonial’ and ‘post-colonial’ and the introduction of the concepts of ‘double consciousness’ and ‘double colonization’.

Last December 22nd, 2010 was the last edition of CRCS-ICRS Wednesday Forum for the first semester of 2010. The speaker was the Director of the CRCS UGM, Dr. Zainal Abidin Bagir, whose presentation titled “Religious Freedom, Harmony and ‘the Middle Way’: Analysis of the Indonesian Constitutional Court’s 2010 Decision on the Law on Defamation of Religion”.

Starting from an analysis written by CRCS UGM team of which Zainal Abidin was one of team members, they proposed the analysis as a consideration of the Constitutional Court (MK) decision in last April about the Religious Defamation Law (Law No. 1/PNPS/1965). Some NGOs and figures applied for judicial review of that law to the Constitutional Court. For this reason, before making a decision, the Court received considerations from all parties, including CRCS UGM.

CRCS-ICRS Wednesday Forum on 15 December 2010 was a homecoming story of Mark Woodward, one of the lecturers of CRCS UGM from the United States. Woodward, a professor of Arizona State University, during his return, was observing the development of political issues in his country. He found polemics related with constructing plan of an Islamic cultural center in New York named Park51 or Cordoba House that is likely known as Ground Zero Mosque, a title given due to effects of political sentiment.

Interfaith dialogues organized by religious communities, academic schools, governmental institutions, and NGOs have been identical to the role of senior figures. As the consequence, the role of the youth which is actually potential, is somewhat neglected in the effort of developing dialogue. The topic of revitalizing the role youth in interfaith dialogue was the issue raised by Roma Ulinnuha, an ICRS student, when speaking in Wednesday Forum on 08 December 2010.

Bringing out “Youth in Promoting Religious Dialogue: Comparative Study of Youth Representation in Indonesia and in United States”, Roma tried to explain how the young generation able to take an active role in developing interfaith dialogue. The research case that he did was about the activities undertaken by the organization Youth Movement or Gerakan Pemuda (GP) Ansor in Indonesia and the Interfaith Youth-Core (IFYC) in the United States.

Harmony and freedom are two crucial concepts within religious life. Those concepts are not simply realized by the religious community as such, eventhough it takes a long process to achieve, we must maintain the sustainability by putting on siginificant efforts. Not only acted by religious groups, this struggle must be supported by the political groups as well. That is the outline of a presentation delivered by Simone Sinn at CRCS-ICRS Wednesday Forum, last November 24th 2010.

Simone, a researcher and a Ph.D. candidate from the Faculty of Protestant Theology, University of Münster, Germany, delivered a presentation titled “Religious Harmony and Religious Freedom: Theological and Societal Considerations on Two Prominent Concepts.” In the forum moderated by Vanny Suitela, a CRCS graduate, Simone said that the theme raised was based on her ongoing research.