Anna M. Maćkowiak, a doctoral student from Jagiellonian University presented her research in Wednesday Forum about how Islam has been perceived in her home country, Poland.
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Wednesday Forum Report
Anang G Alfian | CRCS | Wednesday Forum Report
At the CRCS-ICRS Wednesday Forum on April 12th, 2107, Sawyer Martin French, a research fellow at the Institute for International Studies at the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences at Universitas Gadjah Mada, gave presentation on the government-mandated curricula of Islamic education in public high schools. He took several public high schools (Sekolah Menengah Atas, SMA) in the province of Yogyakarta, with the method of classroom observation, interviews with teachers, and student focus group discussions in a few schools. More importantly, he also presented his research on Islamic textbooks used in those high schools which he observed have undergone content changes.
In his presentation, French showed that each political period has a difference in the emphasis of the contents of the Islamic textbooks used in SMA. There are three political periods where curricula for Islamic education in SMA have evolved, from the 1994 curriculum, which was formed under the Suharto New Order’s regime; then replaced by the 2006 curriculum under the post-reformation period; and the latest, 2013 curriculum. French shows the content of the Islamic curricula has undergone several changes, three main of which are that related to tolerance, democracy and gender issues.
Regarding democracy, French mentioned an example of 1994 Islamic textbook mentioning the importance of “mushawarah” (lit. consultation to each other) as an Islamic teaching in managing Indonesian politics and governmental administrations. The 2003 textbook mentioned the importance of being a good citizen, meaning a democratic citizen, by further interpreting the meaning of mushawarah. This shows the change due to discourse on democracy generated by reformation. In the 2013 textbook, there is a reference to put more details of how Indonesia democracy should take the ideal shape, and that is to take the example set by the Medinan charter during the time of the Prophet.
Relating to tolerance, the textbooks show changes in the way Muslim should deal with other religions or Islamic sects. In the 1994 textbook, Pancasila was referred to as be the basis of harmony among religious communities while in the 2006 textbook, tolerance can be built along social matters but not along religious lines. The 2013 textbook mentioned that tolerance is a tool to unite the nation, but there are a few sentences which suggest intolerance against some Islamic sects, such as that some Sufi orders practice bid’ah or heretical rituals and that Shiites and Ahmadis are deviant and beyond the limit of tolerance.
As on gender issues, the dominant content of the 1994 textbook upholds the obligation of men as the leader of the family and women as the one who must be obedient to her husband. This was set as an example of a good family. In the 2013 textbook, the focus was more to a companionate marriage and mutual relationship. The notions of housewife and superiority of men which were mentioned in the previous textbooks are now gone and replaced by sentences suggesting a more equal relationship between the husband and the wife, though there is still an emphasis that, despite the same level, “their roles are different.”
*Anang G Alfian is CRCS student of the 2016 batch
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.
Meta Ose Ginting | CRCS | WedForum Report
Going to the cinema is a new social practice in modern society. To some extent it can also be perceived as a spiritual practice. Dr Nacim Pak-Shiraz, the Head of Persian Studies and a Senior Lecturer in Persian and Film Studies at the University of Edinburgh and guest speaker at the Wednesday Forum on February 9th, studies this paradox in the dynamics of Iranian cinema. She began by noting that there has been only a little academic attention to the movies based on Quranic epics, in contrast to what has happened with Biblical epics from Hollywood.
Meta Ose Ginting | CRCS | WedForum Report
Jonathan Zilberg, a cultural anthropologist whose research and advocacy focuses on museum ethnography, argued that Indonesian museums face such problems as performance, transparency and accountability, but they have the potential power to promote pluralism to the public. In his February 1st Wednesday forum presentation, he raised questions as to how Indonesian museums can be a strong bond to serve Indonesia’s diversity.
Based on his research in National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta, Zilberg argued that museums are an extension of culture and identity. He conducted his research by closely examining the activities of visitors of National Museum. He took photos from different angles and then reflected on how visitors interact with the objects on display. He stressed that a museum that functions well should be a place to learn and display democracy. Different people come to the museum with various interests. These differences can lead them to learn about pluralism in comfortable ways.
