The speaker for the next CRCS & ICRS Wednesday Forum is Dr. Zainal Abidin Bagir, M.A.
Dr. Zainal Abidin Bagir received his Ph.D in history and philosophy of science from Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana (2005); M.A. in Islamic Philosophy from the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization, Kuala Lumpur (1994). Since 2002 he has been a staff at the Center for Religious and Cross-Cultural Studies (CRCS), Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia. His academic interest are mainly in philosophy of science, philosophy of religion, religion and science, and regional and ecology.
In my presentation I will start with noticing an interesting fact: UGM and IAIN both were established in Yogyakarta following the Indonesian revolution (when Yogya was the capital city of Indonesia). UGM was established in 1949, IAIN in 1951. This was not a coincidence. One reason IAIN was established at that time (by taking the Fakultas Agama Islam from the private university, Universitas Islam Indonesia) was because Muslims demanded a higher education institution funded by the government, as a recognition of the contributions they made in the struggle for the Independence of Indonesia in 1945 and the Indonesian Revolution that followed to defend it. This was compared with what is perceived as the reward given by the government to the secular nationalists in the form of establishment of Gadjah Mada University. Thus the dualism in national education system in Indonesia started. An important factor here is the Ministry of Religious Affairs, established as a kind of political concession to the Muslims for agreeing to drop the highly contested
