Robina Saha | CRCS | Article
Robina Saha is a Shansi Fellow to Indonesia. She taught english at the Center for Religious and Cross-cultural Studies, Gadjah Mada University Yogyakarta from August 2014 – to June 2016.
I first visited the city of Banda Aceh in the spring of 2009. As I stepped out of the airport and drove into town, I was greeted by a quiet Indonesian city framed by a gorgeous vista of mountains to the south, glittering coastline in the north, and tranquil rice paddies in between. Smooth, wide roads and fresh-faced buildings were the most telling signs of the city’s destruction at the hands of the 2004 tsunami and the investment that flowed into Aceh in its wake. The hotel where I stayed displayed photos of boats that had crashed into houses miles away from shore, some of which remain in situ today as memorials and tourist attractions. But it was hard to map these images of debris and desolation onto the clean, quiet little space I traversed between the hotel and the public school where I taught for a week.
At sixteen, I knew little about Aceh apart from its destructive encounter with the tsunami. Although I was born in Indonesia and lived in Jakarta for the first six years of my life, Aceh was geographically, culturally and politically as far removed as any other country. Until 2005, the region had been embroiled in a bloody conflict between the Indonesian military and the separatist Free Aceh Movement; at the time, travel to Aceh was rare and required special permits. Growing up in metropolitan cities where headscarves were rare and the vast majority of Indonesians I knew were from the island of Java, Aceh was something we only heard about on the news in relation to sharia law and ongoing violence. Looking back, I went to Aceh with an image not dissimilar to the one most Americans have of the Middle East, or Indians of Kashmir: Islamic fundamentalism and destruction.
Upon actually arriving in Banda Aceh, I felt a little foolish for being surprised, half-expecting to be accosted by the sharia police at every corner. While all the Indonesian women wore jilbabs (headscarves), I was never made to feel uncomfortable for leaving my frizzy nest of hair exposed. If anything, in a city more accustomed to Western NGO-workers, my face and arms were of interest mainly in order to determine whether I was possibly related to any Bollywood stars (specifically: Kajol; answer: I wish). Like many cities in Indonesia, there are mosques on every street, and I enjoyed seeing the variety of styles and sizes, from simple neighbourhood masjids to the toweringly beautiful Baiturrahman Grand Mosque. At prayer time, the entire city, warungs and all, would shut down, often leaving us to order room service nasi goreng or head to the lone Pizza Hut where we would sip on bottles of Coca Cola and wait it out.
In other words, my prevailing impression of Banda Aceh was of a quiet, conservative, and surprisingly lovely Muslim city populated by Indonesians just as friendly, curious and warmly hospitable as any other I’ve met. Later, upon reflection, I realised that as a visiting foreigner it was easy to glance over the strict policing of moral codes when I wasn’t the target. I never crossed the sharia police in their khaki uniforms, prowling the streets in pick-up trucks and lying in wait at roadblocks in search of unmarried Indonesian couples and uncovered Muslim women. After reading more about the region’s turbulent history, I came to appreciate that I had barely scratched at the surface layer of a city grappling with the process of constructing a contemporary social and political Islamic identity. The after-effects of a natural disaster popularly viewed as a punishment from Allah for decades of civil war had etched themselves far more deeply in the Acehnese psyche than I could have shallowly perceived.
Although I was born in, come from, and grew up in countries with significant Muslim populations, this was in many ways my first conscious confrontation with the blurred convergences between the Islam I saw in the media and what I observed on the ground. At times it can feel like staring at a double-exposure, trying to figure out where one image ends and the other begins. Looking back, although I wouldn’t have said it at the time, many of the decisions I made over the next six years—learning Arabic, studying Islamic culture and politics, writing my senior thesis on the post-9/11 display of Islamic art in Western museums, and ultimately coming back to Indonesia as a Shansi Fellow—could potentially be traced back to this first encounter with contemporary Islam and the questions it sparked in my mind about the representations and realities of Muslims around the world.
When I was first offered the Jogja fellowship in November 2013, I was deep in the process of writing my senior thesis, which was in part a critique of the Islamic art field for its exclusion of most non-Middle Eastern Islamic cultures. Having grown out of European colonial paradigms of Islam, the Middle East and Asia, what we call “Islamic art” is largely limited to the art and architecture of the Arabian Peninsula, Central Asia, Iran, Turkey and India. Islam first arrived in Southeast Asia through trade as early as the 12th century, and today the region makes up a quarter of the world’s Muslim population. It’s also one of many areas that are conspicuously absent from introductory textbooks, museum displays and courses of Islamic art. Specifically in the case of Indonesia, this too can be traced back to the impact of Dutch colonial scholarship, which focused on the archipelago’s Hindu and Buddhist heritage at the expense of its contemporary Islamic culture—partly as a way to delegitimize local Islamic resistance groups. Over time it became an accepted truth that Islamic cultures outside of the European-defined Orient were simply a corruption of the “real” Islam.
In a post-9/11 context where the international image of Islam is largely informed by the puritanical Wahhabism propagated by Saudi Arabia and the fundamentalist extremism carried out by ISIS, I argued in my thesis that the inclusion and visibility of Islamic culture from traditionally peripheral regions like Southeast Asia in displays and discussions of Islamic culture would help challenge the common misconception of a singular Islam located solely in the Middle East. At 200 million and counting, Indonesia has the single largest population of Muslims in the world, and yet most people would struggle to find it on a map. The Islamic culture that developed and spread here in the 15th and 16th centuries is certainly different and more syncretic in character due to its intermixing with pre-existing Hindu and Buddhist religions of the time. But to me this speaks more to the diversity of Islam across the world than the predominance of a single, “original” interpretation that has come to dictate the mainstream international discourse.
Jogja, as the heartland of Javanese culture and the seat of the last major Muslim kingdom in Java, with a majority-Muslim population and a thriving contemporary art scene, presented what seemed like a perfect opportunity to test the ideas I had put forward in my thesis. Despite having grown up in Southeast Asia, I still knew shamefully little about its history of Islamic culture, and I was about to spend two years in the heart of it all. This time, I wanted to come prepared with questions that would frame my thoughts and conversations here.
In the last 15 years, it seems that Indonesia has undergone a sharp Islamic revival, particularly among the younger middle-class generation. When my family left in 1999, it was still relatively rare to see women wearing jilbabs; indeed, for decades, the government had actively discouraged it as a threat to the pluralism that is enshrined in Indonesia’s political doctrine. These days, it’s uncommon for Muslim women not to wear one. Everyone I spoke to in the weeks leading up to my departure, from professors to old family friends, warned of increasing Muslim conservatism, even in a relatively liberal university town like Jogja. I was sharply reminded of my pre-Aceh expectations and the lessons I had learned since, but nonetheless packed a few scarves just in case.
The truth, as always, is a little more complicated. Islam here is certainly more visible than it has ever been. Schools are increasingly adopting policies that emphasise Islamic religious practices and uniforms, even in public universities. In any of my classes, out of roughly twenty-five students it’s rare to see more than two girls without a jilbab. According to a Muslim feminist activist I met a few months ago, this is a marked change from the Suharto era, when jilbabs were banned on school grounds and students and teachers alike could be expelled for wearing one. Wearing a jilbab in the Suharto days, it seems, became a form of symbolic resistance to the regime.
And yet, for many of the young Muslims I meet in Jogja, overt religious piety seems to function more as a public uniform that marks their identity and allows them to fit in. I still remember meeting my friend Imma at a café late one night, who turned out to be a student at the graduate school where I teach. Dressed in a chic powder-pink blouse, she wore her hair uncovered in a pretty shoulder-length bob. Upon discovering that I worked on the same campus as her, she grinned conspiratorially at me and said, “You probably won’t recognise me at school because I usually wear a jilbab.” When I responded with a confused blink, she laughed, explaining that she views the jilbab as a formal uniform for campus the way we wear blazers and heels to work in the West. As a Muslim woman she exercises her right to choose to cover up without compromising her beliefs. For her and her female Muslim friends, choosing not to wear the jilbab has become the new form of public resistance.
It was easy for me to think of Imma and her friends as an exception to the rule. Yet over the past two years I’ve met so many young Indonesians with their own approaches to the way they practice Islam, ranging from Muslims who cover their hair to those who sport chic haircuts; Muslims who identify as queer, gay and transgender; Muslims who have ringtones reminding them to pray during the day yet still drink alcohol at night. As I’ve come to know these people over extended karaoke sessions and late night café hangouts, it’s become clear that the way they practice their faith also constitutes a rejection of the idea of a single interpretation of Islamic law and culture.
A few months ago, Indonesia attracted international attention when it was featured in a New York Times article that described a film made by Nadhlatul Ulama (NU), Indonesia’s largest Muslim organisation, which denounces the actions of ISIS and promotes tolerance—or, as the author Joe Cochrane puts it, “a relentless, religious repudiation of the Islamic State and the opening salvo in a global campaign by the world’s largest Muslim group to challenge its ideology head-on.” The film is designed to introduce the world to NU and Islam Nusantara, or Indonesian Islam, as a tolerant and moderate alternative to fundamentalism and Wahhabist orthodoxy, rooted in traditionalist Javanese approaches.
Islam in Indonesia certainly can provide a model for tolerance and pluralism within a global Islamic framework. And like any other religious society, it also has its own tensions and fault lines. In Jogja it’s common for pro-LGBT and feminist events and film screenings to be shut down or cancelled by threats from radical groups like the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) and the Front Jihad Islam (FJI). Many of these communities have been forced underground, and news is most often spread by word of mouth for fear of retaliation. My friends have been threatened and beaten at parties where the police have stood by and watched as FPI thugs lay waste to the venue. Just a few months ago, the city was plastered with anti-LGBT propaganda, and Pondok Pesantren Waria Al Fatah, an Islamic school for transgender Muslims, was forced to shut down amidst waves of extremist-led homophobic rallies.
In discussions about Islam and extremism, I often hear non-Muslim friends, family and colleagues calling upon Muslim communities to reject Islamic fundamentalism. That it is the responsibility of the moderate Muslims of the world to provide proof that they exist, to drown out the noise of radicalism that has dominated the airwaves. I’ve always felt uncomfortable with this idea because it ignores the fact that Muslims themselves are already the single largest victim of fundamentalist violence and oppression. For every beating, cancelled event and anti-progressive demonstration, there are Indonesian Muslims fighting back on the ground and on social media, rejecting the actions of these groups as un-Islamic—a word that continues to shift its meaning every time it is used.
Last December, I went back to Aceh to visit the Shansi fellows there. In many ways it was like being there for the first time; there was so much more to see and learn about beyond my limited initial experience. This time, armed with a motorbike, friends on the ground, and the ability to speak Indonesian again, I could finally start to fill in the outlines sketched in my mind six years ago with colour and complexity. One thing I didn’t notice the first time was the absence of cinemas, which were banned across Aceh under post-tsunami sharia law; men and women are not allowed to sit together in dark spaces, and foreign films are considered too promiscuous for Muslim audiences. The nearest movie theatre is in Medan, a fourteen-hour bus ride south.
Yet Acehnese film culture is far from dying. One night while we were staying in Banda Aceh, my co-fellow Leila was asked to judge a few short documentaries made by local filmmakers. We drove to a small studio tucked away on in a quiet street corner, where a group of young Muslim men greeted us with salak fruit and bottles of water. The corridor outside the screening room was lined with posters of short films and documentaries that, it turned out, had been organised and often produced by the same group. They provide resources for young filmmakers, run workshops, and organise screenings and programs like the Aceh Film Festival, which features short films and documentaries from Aceh, Indonesia and abroad. When I asked about the ban on cinemas, they expressed frustration at being unable to screen their films in a local theatre, but it hasn’t deterred them. If anything, the indie film scene has flourished in the wake of conservatism both in quantity and quality; Acehnese films are increasingly gaining recognition at national and international festivals.
In the six years I’ve spent studying Islamic culture and politics, I’ve learned that every one of these seeming contradictions constitutes a small part of the fascinating picture of the global religious, political and cultural phenomenon of Islam. When we allow the rich variety of opinions, practices and traditions across Islam’s broad geographic spread to be reduced to a single interpretation, we lose the shades of variation between depths and shallows, beauty and ugliness, tolerance and extremism. These last few months in particular—revisiting Aceh, travelling to Kashmir for the first time, and witnessing Jogja struggle visibly with surges of intolerance—have served to reinforce the importance of experiencing the broad spectrum of Islam firsthand. And the Islam I encounter in Jogja is as different from Acehnese Islam as it is from Kashmiri Islam, or Saudi Arabian Islam, or Iranian Islam.
I came to Indonesia with so many questions about Islam, and I will almost certainly leave it with just as many. But living here, witnessing the different facets of Islam Nusantara everyday has forced me to continuously confront my conceptions of Islam in a way that simply studying it from afar never could. Learning to recognise, understand and embrace these distinctions, contradictions and complexities has been a defining theme not only of my fellowship, but my entire understanding of contemporary Islam. Wherever my life takes me after Shansi, I hope I can continue to encounter Islam in all its various, beautiful, troubling, complex forms.
This article also published in http://shansi.org/
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CRCS-UGM
Farihatul Qamariyah | CRCS | News
Over the last several years, students from the Center for Religious and Cross-cultural Studies (CRCS) Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta, have been participating in the annual Graduate Student Fellowship Program hosted by Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. Started in 2005, this program offers graduate students working in the Asian topics related to the Humanities and Social Sciences from different universities and countries around Southeast Asia to spend two months based at the Asia Research Institute where they are mentored by ARI researchers and collaborate with other fellows from around the region as well as utilizing the wide range of resources in the libraries of NUS and the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute). This fellowship culminates with a conference for the fellows as well as other students from the region to present their research at the end of the program. During the program, the fellow students are able to participate in any seminars held in ARI and other institutions based in NUS. ARI also arranges a professional mentor, either an NUS lecturer or ARI scholar, for each of the students to offer personal consultation and advise according to each student’s research interest and topic. Since the primary goal of this program is to produce an academic paper that will be presented in the Graduate Forum, ARI organizes a course in Academic English Writing and Communication. These kind of activities effectively support the fellow students to improve their academic expertise as well as enrich the international experiences through the daily interaction and discussion. This year, ARI invited fellows from more diverse backgrounds compared with the previous year. There are fellows from the following countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Philippines, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, China, India and USA.
This year, five students of CRCS are invited to join the Asian Graduate Student Fellowship from May 22nd – July 15th 2016, two from the 2013 batch (Fredy Torang and Yoga Khoiri Ali) and three from the 2014 batch (Abdul Mujib, Aziz Anwar Fachrudin, and Farihatul Qamariyah). Two more (Partigor Daud Sihombing and Subandri Simbolon) have been selected as presenters at the Graduate Forum that will be held in July 2016. The fellows from CRCS bring research projects connected to their thesis projects that are especially related to ARI’s topic clusters including Cultural Studies in Asia and Religion and Globalization. Mujib’s project is entitled “The Relevant of Interreligious Relations in Shaping of Experience in Diversity and Pluralist Attitude” and examines the case of one multi – religious village located in Yogyakarta. Aziz’s research on ISIS discourse is titled “Indonesian Islamist Ideological Responses to the Islamic State”. Qamariyah’s research focuses on the issues of gender, religion and business and is entitled “Women, Islam, and Economic Activity by Examining the Religious Ethics of Muslim Business Women in Indonesia”. Fredy’s topic of research is “Faith Based Organization in Humanitarian Diplomacy: A Case Study of the Jesuit Refugee in Yogyakarta” and Yoga’s research examines “The Spirituality of Rain Water from the South East Slope of Mountain Merapi”. These various topics are expected to contribute significantly to the Asia Research Institute’s interests.
The participation of CRCS’ students in this fellowship for over ten years is a demonstration of the center’s academic track record on the international academic stage. “It is almost a tradition that CRCS UGM students have almost always been in the list of Asian Graduate Student Fellowships ARI – NUS recipient since the first batch”, said Ida Fitri Astuti (Batch 2013) who participated in this program last year. She also testified to the great benefit of this graduate fellowship program for her academic improvement and international network based on her own experiences. “This program is a kind of salad bowl which gathers Asian students to meet up each other, learn and bound together by “academic dressing” produced by the excellent staff and scholars of ARI – NUS.” This testimony was also confirmed by another CRCS’ student who is now experiencing the turn. “This place is like an academic heaven, a lot of literatures and academic sources are available here. ARI NUS provides us a great facility and possibility to explore and utilize the academic prosperity by the services. It is an extremely exciting!” said Fredi Torang through his first excitement living in the new environment.
Based on the documentation, about twenty seven students of CRCS have been Asian Graduate Student Fellows, starting with Ali Burhan in 2006, the program’s second year. Since then,CRCS participants have been Chandra Utama and Maufur in 2007; Akhmad Siddiq, Muhammad Endy Saputro and Ferry Muhammadsyah Siregar in 2008; Amanah Nurish and Saipul Hamdi in 2009; and Ruby Emy Astuti and Jimmy Immanuel Marcos in 2010. 2011 was the previous record year with four students: Mega Hidayati, Yudith Listiandri, Muhammad Rokib and Dian Maya Safitri. Only one student, Darwin Darmawan, was chosen in 2012. Anwar Masduki and I Made Arsana Dwiputra participated in 2013. Two students, Ida Fitri Astuti and Sulfia Lilin Nurindah Sari, were able to attend in 2015, with another, Hary Widyantoro, joining as a presenter in the Graduate Forum. Thus, when the five fellows are joined by the two presenters, this year of 2016 has the highest number of CRCS students selected as Asian Graduate Student Fellows and Graduate Forum presenters: seven. This is our challenge to the batches that follow us.
The Kosmopolis Platform/Dept. of Globalization and Dialogue Studies of the University of Humanistic Studies (the Netherlands), in cooperation with HIVOS (Humanist Institute for Cooperation with Developing Countries), The Asia Foundation, Azim Premji University, (India), PUSAD-Paramadina and The Centre for Religious and Cross-Cultural Studies of Gadjah Mada University (Indonesia) and the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice of the University of the Free State (South Africa) welcomes applicants for the 2016 International Summer School on Pluralism, Development and Social Change.
Asep A.S | CRCS | News
Gunungkidul ditengarai sebagai kabupaten dengan tingkat intoleransi paling tinggi di Yogyakarta. Setidaknya, itulah salah satu hal yang terungkap dalam acara launching buku sekaligus diskusi mengenai laporan advokasi kebebasan beragama bertajuk “Yogyakarta City of (In)tolerance?,” Senin, 2 Mei 2016, di Sekolah Pascasarjana UGM. Informasi mengenai masih tingginya angka kasus intoleransi di Kabupaten ini diketahui setelah Aliansi Nasional Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (ANBTI) melakukan pendokumentasian atas kasus-kasus pelanggaran kebebasan beragama dan berkepercayaan di kabupaten tersebut yang terjadi selama kurun waktu 2011 hingga 2015. Di dalam laporannya, ANBTI mengkategorikan beragam kasus pelanggaran tersebut ke dalam empat kategori, yakni (1) pelanggaran oleh negara atas keinginan mengontrol ekspresi keagamaan; (2) pelanggaran yang terjadi akibat perilaku intoleran yang dilakukan oleh negara dan non-negara; (3) pelanggaran yang terjadi akibat kegagalan negara di dalam mengatasi baik diskriminasi ataupun pelanggaran sosial atas kelompok-kelompok agama tertentu; serta (4) pelanggaran yang terjadi karena menerapkan kebijakan tertentu yang merugikan agama-agama minoritas.
Pada diskusi yang dihelat oleh Program Studi Agama dan Lintas Budaya atau CRCS melaui program Sekolah Pengelolaan Keragaman (SPK) dan ANBTI ini pembicara dari ANBTI, Agnes Dwi Rusjiati, menyebutkan beberapa contoh peristiwa pelanggaran yang terjadi di Gunungkidul, seperti pengusiran Pendeta Agustinus, penutupan Gereja Pantekosta di Indonesia (GpdI) Semanu dan Gereja Pantekosta di Indonesia (GpdI) Playen yang telah memiliki IMB, penyerangan dan penutupan atas Gereja Kemah Injili Indonesia (GKII) Widoro, penolakan acara perayaan Paskah Adiyuswo Gereja Kristen Jawa (GKJ) Gunugkidul yang disertai penganiayaan terhadap aktivis lintas iman, serta penolakan pendirian Gua Maria Wahyu Ibuku di wilayah Giriwening. Memang, belakangan ini Yogyakarta yang kerap disebut-sebut sebagai City of Tolerance sedang dirundung banyak problema dalam hal toleransi, baik antar maupun antara umat beragama maupun antar kelompok ormas. Terbukti, sebagaimana disebutkan oleh Agnes, kasus-kasus intoleransi seperti penyerangan dan pembubaran diskusi, perusakan situs makam, penyerangan terhadap doa rosario, intimidasi terhadap kelompok tertentu seperti Syiah dan LGBT, penghentian ibadah di gereja, serta usaha penutupan rumah ibadah kerap terjadi di provinsi yang berjuluk kota budaya ini.
Di dalam kesempatan tersebut, Agnes juga memaparkan bahwa peristiwa pelanggaran kebebasan beragama yang terjadi di kerap kali seputar persoalan penolakan pelaksanaan ibadah maupun keberadaan rumah ibadah umat Kristen, baik yang telah dibangun maupun masih dalam proses pembangunan. Selain itu, ia juga mengeluhkan bahwa setiap pertemuan yang difasilitasi oleh Pemda mengenai persoalan rumah ibadah ini akan berujung pada penghentian rumah ibadah, selain juga proses yang berlarut-larut dan kurangnya peran aktif pemerintah dalam menangani kasus-kasus semacam ini. Kerap kali, pemerintah baru bertindak setelah ada inisiasi dari warga. Isu kristenisasi, pemurtadan, dan adanya penolakan dari masyarakat muslim yang kemudian mendesak pemerintah daerah untuk melakukan penghentian rumah ibadah menjadi pola khas dalam kasus kebebasan beragama dan berkepercayaan yang terjadi di ini.
Senada dengan Agnes, Kristiana Riyadi—pembicara dari Forum Kerukunan Umat Beragama (FKUB)—menyebutkan bahwa peran FKUB di dalam membangun kerukunan dan toleransi antar umat beragama masihlah sangat minim. Bahkan, FKUB sendiri secara internal masihlah menyisakan konflik, hal ini sangat berbeda dengan kondisi sebelum adanya FKUB yang merupakan keputusan menteri, di mana kala itu forum komunikasi antar agama masih bernama Forum Lintas Iman. Hal ini terjadi, menurut Kristiana, disebabkan oleh penekanan pada proporsionalitas yang diatur dalam SK menteri tahun 2006. Tentu saja, Islam yang mayoritas akan memiliki jumlah wakil yang lebih banyak di dalam FKUB. Sebagai contoh, pimpinan FKUB yang berjumlah lima orang dengan asumsi merupakan wakil dari setiap agama yang diakui oleh negara, tiga di antaranya diduduki oleh wakil dari umat Islam. Sehingga, dengan pertimbangan tertentu, akhirnya khusus FKUB , sesuai dengan keputusan Bupati , memiliki tujuh orang pimpinan agar dapat mengakomodir semua agama.
Persoalan lain yang dihadapi oleh FKUB adalah soal menyerap aspirasi. FKUB semestinya menyerap semua aspirasi masyarakat dan umat beragama. Namun, proses ini menjadi bumerang tersendiri bagi tujuan didirikannya FKUB saat harus berhadapan dengan aspirasi dari kelompok ormas intoleran yang mau tidak mau harus diserap juga. Selain itu, keterpusatan keputusan pada ketua menjadi persoalan tersendiri yang tak dapat dihindari. Sebab, hal ini kerap kali tidak mencerminkan keterwakilan umat beragama yang minoritas. Belum lagi persoalan pengambilan beberapa keputusan terkait persoalan keagamaan ini tidak sepenuhnya berada dalam lingkup FKUB, melainkan pada rapat Muspida, di mana FKUB hanya diwakili oleh satu orang saja, yakni ketua FKUB. Tak heran jika keputusan-keputusan yang dihasilkan kerap kali kontraproduktif dengan visi dan misi didirikannya FKUB itu sendiri. Persoalan lainnya, misalnya, sosialisasi perbedaan peraturan pendirian rumah ibadah sebelum 2006. Sosialisasi mengenai hal ini hampir dapat dikatakan tidak dilakukan. Sehingga masyarakat menganggap peraturan mengenai pembangunan rumah ibadah setelah 2006 bersifat general, sehingga kerap kali terjadi konflik di lapangan karena adanya ketidakpahaman ini. Biasanya kasus perizinan keberadaan rumah ibadah lama yang muncul sebagai akibatnya. Padahal perizinan rumah ibadah yang telah dibangun sebelum tahun 2006 berbeda dengan perizinan rumah ibadah yang dibangun setelah tahun tersebut.
Mengenai persoalan penolakan rumah ibadah ini, pembicara lainnya yang merupakan alumni SPK, Pendeta Stefanus Iwan Listyanto, menyebutkan bahwa terjadinya hal tersebut juga disebabkan oleh adanya persoalan internal dalam golongan agama tertentu. Tak dapat dipungkiri, menurut pendeta dari Semanu ini, adanya persaingan antar gereja membuat umat Kristen pasif saat ada gereja di luar golongannya yang dipersoalkan keberadaannya oleh umat lain. Hal ini menjadi gejala global yang terjadi sehingga kelompok Kristen yang sedang menghadapi masalah dengan rumah ibadahnya kerap harus berjuang sendiri tanpa adanya bantuan dari sesama pemeluk Kristen lainnya. Menurutnya, belum adanya kesadaran mengenai perspektif HAM dan adanya persaingan antar gereja juga memiliki sumbangsih yang cukup besar terhadap tindakan pelanggaran kebebasan beragama dan penyelesaian konflik. Hal ini menandakan masih adanya persoalan di antara umat beragama secara internal. Dengan nada bercanda dan sindiran, ia berkata bahwa mungkin saja ada golongan seagama yang sorak sorai saat sebuah rumah ibadah ditutup atau dipermasalahkan. Karenanya, ia menekankan pentingnya membangun jejaring baik antara maupun antar umat beragama. Dengan berjejaring, menurutnya, seseorang atau kelompok bisa saling bantu melengkapi data pendokumentasian jika terjadi persoalan yang mungkin akan memudahkan proses penyelesaian masalah. Selain itu, memiliki sudut pandang dari pihak korban juga penting untuk membangun empati, agar persaingan itu dapat tetap berjalan secara sehat.
Sedangkan pembicara terakhir, M. Iqbal Ahnaf dari CRCS, menyebutkan bahwa maraknya tindakan intoleransi yang terjadi di Yogyakarta akhir-akhir ini disebabkan oleh banyak faktor. Namun secara ringkas, Iqbal mengerucutkannya ke dalam tiga faktor yang saling terkait dan berinteraksi satu sama lain, yaitu (1) krisis keistimewaan; (2) industrialisasi; dan (3) penebalan identitas. Walaupun masih berupa hipotesis, menurut Iqbal, namun gejala yang menunjukkan ke arah tersebut cukup jelas adanya. “Saya kira, ini sangat terkait dengan pemegang otoritas tertinggi di Jogjakarta. Saya kira kita ingat belum lama ini RUU keistimewaan Jogjakarta mulai mengusik otoritas yang paling mapan di Jogjakarta.” Ungkapnya mengawali penjelasan mengenai persoalan krisis keistimewaan ini. Menurut Iqbal, perubahan peraturan di tampuk pimpinan Yogyakarta ini mencerminkan proses perubahan sosial yang sedang berlangsung. Hal ini kemudian memicu krisis otoritas keistimewaan yang meniscayakan kebutuhan akan kekuatan basis sumber daya di Yogyakarta. Hal ini bertujuan untuk mempertahankan citra keistimewaan itu. Oleh sebab itu kebutuhan akan sumber daya ini kemudian melibatkan perkembangan industrialisasi sebagai salah satu usaha mendapatkan suplai sumber daya.
Menurut Iqbal, pembangunan hotel yang kian marak serta bentuk pembangunan dan industrialisasi lainnya kemungkinan dilakukan untuk memapankan basis-basis sumber daya itu. Konsekuensi dari adanya industrialisasi ini adalah sekuritisasi. Sebab, para investor maupun pengusaha tentu membutuhkan stabilitas keamanan yang cukup untuk menjalankan bisnisnya itu. Karena itu diperlukan kekuatan-kekuatan yang bisa mempertahankan dan mendukung keamanan tersebut. Di bagian inilah kemudian perubahan sosial yang terjadi di masyarakat yang melaju pada arah penebalan identitas dan kian rigidnya batas-batas sosial, baik berlandaskan agama maupun etnik, bertemu dengan realitas kebutuhan akan sekuritisasi ini. Sehingga, tak heran jika kemudian aspek skuritisasi ini diambil alih oleh kelompok-kelompok atau kekuatan-kekuatan yang bergerak di arena penebalan identitas itu. Hal ini semacam simbiosis mutualisme. Kita dapat memahami dengan mudah bahwa ketika seseorang mengalami krisis, maka ia akan membutuhkan dukungan untuk mengembalikan sumberdaya yang hilang. Sumberdaya itu bisa bersifat ekonomi maupun sosial. Industrialisasi ini dapat diidentifikasi sebagai sumber daya yang bersifat ekonomi, sedangkan dukungan kelompok tertentu itu merupakan sumber daya yang bersifat sosial. Kebutuhan akan dukungan sosial inilah yang kemudian dimanfaatkan oleh kelompok-kelompok tertentu—baik keagamaan maupun etnik—untuk merapat pada otoritas kekuasaan di Yogyakarta. Kontestasi antar kelompok itulah yang terkadang menghadirkan konflik. Pergulatan ketiga hal tersebut itulah yang kemudian meniscayakan hal-hal lainnya semisal institusionalisasi kelompok-kelompok pelaku kekerasan dan semakin lemahnya kekuatan moderat kritis. Institusionalisasi ini merupakan bentuk pemapanan oleh sistem yang ada terhadap kelompok-kelompok tertentu. Sehingga, walaupun minoritas, kelompok-kelompok ini dapat bertahan, eksis, dan dominan. Akibatnya, ada kasus-kasus serupa yang kemudian direspons berbeda, tergantung kelompok mana yang merespons dan apa kepentingannya. Kasus pembangunan hotel atau sampah visual, misalnya, menurut Iqbal, diprotes sedemikian rupa. Namun, saat ada rumah ibadah ditutup, tak banyak orang yang peduli.
Di dalam sesi tanya jawab, terungkap pula beberapa fakta mengenai tindakan intoleran yang ternyata tak hanya didominasi oleh ormas atau kelompok-kelompok tertentu, melainkan pula dilakukan oleh negara. Menurut Agnes, pemerintah pernah melakukan kerja sama dengan ormas intoleran dalam melakukan intimidasi terhadap kelompok tertentu, seperti yang terjadi pada kasus GKII. Selain itu, aparat yang berjaga di lapangan saat terjadi konflik akibat adanya tindakan intoleransi kerap tidak bertindak mencegah tindakan intoleransi yang dilakukan oleh kelompok tertentu itu, mereka justru terkesan hanya menjaga kelompok tertentu itu agar tidak melakukan tindak kekerasan sehingga tidak dapat dikriminalisasikan. Sedangkan perilaku intoleransinya dibiarkan begitu saja. Selain itu, dalam sesi ini juga terungkap bahwa soal tindakan intoleransi terutama dalam hal keberagamaan tidaklah didominasi oleh agama tertentu, melainkan seringnya dilakukan oleh mayoritas terhadap minoritas, baik internal maupun antar agama. Di Atambua misalnya, menurut Agnes, pernah pula terjadi penolakan pembangunan rumah ibadah agama tertentu dari kelompok minoritas yang dilakukan oleh umat agama yang sama yang mayoritas. Atau, dalam kasus Tolikara dan beberapa wilayah di Indonesia Timur, misalnya, tindakan intoleransi kerap pula menimpa kaum muslim yang minoritas, sebagaimana halnya yang terjadi terhadap umat Kristen dan umat lainnya yang tinggal di wilayah mayoritas umat Islam. Sehingga, menurut Iqbal, menjadi penting untuk memperkuat kelompok-kelompok rentan yang ada. Selain itu, penting pula untuk menanamkan sikap toleransi, kesadaran akan HAM, dan menghilangkan kecurigaan di antara para pemeluk agama yang ada. Sebab, sebagaimana disimpulkan oleh moderator pada acara tersebut, Subandri Simbolon, kedamaian tidak hadir bukan hanya sebab bangkitnya kaum intoleran, namun juga sebab diamnya para pecinta perdamaian.
