CRCS-ICRS Wednesday Forum, Sept 27, 2017, with Dr Mun'im Sirry of the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

Pengumumaan 15 peserta SPK Tingkat Lanjut di Yogyakarta 2-8 Oktober 2017.

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS. The Institutionalization of Interfaith Mediation: A Workshop with Imam Muhammad Ashafa & Pastor James Wuye. Deadline: July 15, 2017.

The secularists must learn to accommodate religion in the public sphere while the religious leaders must help balance the public role of religion with spirituality.

Beasiswa bebas SPP di CRCS untuk alumni perguruan tinggi non-Islam.

Yulianti | CRCS | Perspektif

Perayaan Waisak adalah salah satu hari besar umat Buddha untuk memperingati tiga peristiwa: hari lahir Sidharta Gotama (calon Buddha Gautama), momen Sidharta mendapatkan pencerahan ilmu, dan hari mangkatnya Buddha. Ketiga peristiwa ini terjadi pada bulan Waisak saat purnama.

Waisak dirayakan dalam berbagai bentuk dengan skala yang beragam. Denyut perayaan Waisak tidak hanya terasa di negara-negara berpenduduk mayoritas Buddha seperti Sri Lanka, Thailand, Myanmar, atau wilayah mainland Asia Tenggara lain. Negara-negara di mana agama Buddha tidak dipeluk mayoritas penduduknya seperti Indonesia pun menggemakan Waisak melalui acara-acara besar.

Anthon Jason | CRCS | Report

A tourist is half a pilgrim, if a pilgrim is half a tourist. (Turner and Turner, 1978:20)

There is an old man who is preoccupied with his rosary, praying devoutly in silence. There is also a family putting flowers on the altar and picking up holy water after doing a particular ritual. The shady trees, and the warm, soft sunlight pass through the leaves. There is silence in the air, people with calm expressions. All of these components give space for a peaceful and serene feeling, filling up the atmosphere around the place. On the other side of the park, a devout middle-aged couple is praying in small voices in front of the big cross with the high tower of a mosque visible in the background creates a unique religious nuance. This was the scene we encountered at Gua Maria at Ambarawa on our field visit to observe the intersection of religion and tourism. 
On Sunday, April 9th, 2017, as part of our course on Religion and Tourism at CRCS, we visited two sites, Gua Maria in Ambarawa and Makam Sunan Pandanaran in Klaten. This field trip was important in the sense that CRCS has committed to always being up-to-date on the actual reality of religious phenomenon in Indonesia. By doing so, CRCS as an educational establishment was never meant to be an ivory tower of knowledge, but to contribute to the good of society in real life. The field trip was also an important method for comparing what we have learned in the class to the direct experience we observed in everyday life.
Led by our lecturer Dr. Kelli Swazey, and M. Rizal Abdi, a student from the CRCS 2015 batch who is currently doing research on one of the sites, we got many insights how tourism, religion, and even politics are intertwined with the tourism industry. At the two tourism sites we visited, we could not only see how the theory we learned in class fit with the phenomena that we saw at the sites, but it also showed us that the  validity of the theories we have studies can be challenged in the context of the tourism sites that we visited.  
Before undertaking our field visits, we had a short lesson on how to do participant observation as a method of social research. Participant observation is defined as a method in which a researcher takes part in the daily activities, rituals, interactions, and events of a group of people as one of the means of learning the explicit and tacit aspects of their life routines and culture. The main goal of participant observation is that we attempt to observe, try and see patterns, and figure out what we can say from those observations, without imposing a particular framework.
At our first destination, the Gua Maria at Ambarawa, most of the space in the parking area was filled with private cars, and I noticed there were only a few tourist buses there. From our observation, we noted that the visitors who come to Goa Maria Ambarawa are quite varied in terms of ethnic identity. There is a family with around ten members we met enjoying their time in the garden. They had traveled from Maluku and were staying in Salatiga where one of the family members was studying at the local university. We also met a Chinese family of four doing a ritual and praying in front of the Maria statue. Not all the visitors came with their own cars, as we also spoke to a woman who had reached the site by public transportation. She  sharing her experience about partaking of the holy water from the Goa Maria with us.
Another interesting point that we understood from our observation was that visitors came to the Gua Maria to obtain a kind of sanctified ‘holy’ water that flowed from faucets installed in the cave. We learned that when the site was newly inaugurated, the statue and the wellspring in Gua Maria Ambarawa was blessed with holy water from Lourdes. This was the most compelling evidence that from the beginning, the Gua Maria Ambarawa was trying to imitate the sacredness of the Marian Grotto in Lourdes. The similarity of the Mary statue between this two places has also demonstrated this. This is mentioned in the site’s official website: “Nampak sekali bahwa Gua Maria Kerep Ambarawa sejak semula diusahakan agar bisa meniru kesakralan Gua Maria di Lourdes. Hal ini tampak pada kemiripan patung Perawan Maria di Lourdes” (It is apparent that Gua Maria Kerep Ambarawa was since its beginning built to imitate the sacredness of the Marian Grotto in Lourdes as evidenced by the similarity of the Mary statue in both sites).
These phenomena display what we have learned in class about the four meanings of authenticity from Edward M. Bruner (1994). For whatever reason people visit these kinds of sites, either for tourism or pilgrimage, both can be seen as quests for an authentic experience. Dealing with this premise, the authority of the Gua Maria site as a religious space relies on a sense of ‘authentic reproduction,’ as explained by Bruner in his definitions of four types of authenticity. In this case, the site is authentic in that it is is credible and convincing. Additionally, it also fulfills Bruner’s fourth definition of authenticity related to authority or a matter of power (1994:399-400). The Catholic church, in this case, has the authority to authenticate Gua Maria to become a religious site for believers.
At the second destination on our field trip, Makam Sunan Pandanaran, we had to pass a crowded traditional market and climb a number of stairs to reach the site. For those who are not in fit condition, climbing the stairs to reach the site could be hard. At the gate, we have to abandon our footwear to enter the site, just like when we are entering a mosque. Barefoot, we entered the site to find it was well-preserved. There are many small tombs spread around the site. Somehow, I felt a similar atmosphere to when one enters Hindu or Buddhist temples. Visitors to Makam Sunan Pandanaran can do ‘wudhu’ before entering the site, but it was optional, not obligatory for visitors.  
Most of the visitors at Makam Sunan Pandanaran arrive by bus, and come in large groups to the site. From the transportation used to reach the site, we can assume there is a difference in social class with these visitors than those we saw at Gua Maria. Generally speaking, we could see the social class of the visitors was rather different with the visitors of Makam Sunan Pandanaran. It is interesting to note that for some visitors, the journey to Makam Sunan Pandanaran was considered as an alternative pilgrimage for those who cannot afford to go on the required Islamic pilgrimage or Hajj in Mecca. Thus, we could see many tourism buses coming from rural areas around Java with the phrase ‘wisata religi’ on the banner clinging to the front of their buses.
Our experience at the Makam Pandaranan provided a new perspective in seeing the relationship between tourism and religion in Indonesia. Although we did not find any explicit rules about behavior or the kinds of visitors to expect at the site on the tomb’s website or any other advertisement, due to our experience we realized that there were some implicit assumptions at play in people’s behavior around the site. Tourist sites should by nature be visitors. However, when we arrived at the makam, it seemed that the site actually meant for a Muslim visitor. It is not explicitly stated, but we assumed that by observing the behavior from the people around the site.
One of the most obvious examples of this implicit rule was when our lecturer was not allowed by one of the tour guides from an outside tour agency to enter the central tomb area of Makam Sunan Pandanaran. We assumed that it was because our lecturer is a ‘bule’ with white skin and blonde hair and not using hijab, that her presence would decrease the sacred value of the space, in his perspective. In class, we have learned that exclusion is one strategy to protect and increase the sacred value of a place. This incident was valuable data in the eyes of a researcher. From this incident, we could see the paradox in ‘wisata religi’, when exclusionary tactics are applied in a tourism site. Moreover, it becomes a comprehensive example of what Justine Digance (2003) defines as ‘Contested sites’. Digance describes ‘Contested sites’ as “sacred locations where there is contest over access and usage by any number of groups or individuals who have an interest in being able to freely enter and move around the site” (2003: 144).
Another kind of contestation could be observed within the ranks of the visitors themselves. Although most of the visitors were Muslim, the religious practices they were performing at the site varied. There were some groups that recited tahlil, and other groups recited shalawat. The space within the central building of the site felt not only crowded with people, but also full of voices of praying that seemed to be competing with one another. This phenomenon demonstrates what Simon Coleman’s 2002 article criticizes about the theory of communitas in pilgrimage argued by Victor Turner. The Turneruan definition of communitas in anthropological usage claims that people at pilgrimage sites are equal, or that they share a spirit of community. In this theory, each member of the community shares a common experience, usually through a rite of passage. This phenomenon shows us the theoretical overlap between the communitas and ‘contestation’ paradigms.
One last point that emerged from our discussion in class after the field visits is that the general situation in Indonesia, where there is tension between and within religious believers, has the potential to influence the tourism industry and tourist behavior. As religious studies scholars, we are challenged to investigate the connection between religion and the other systems, such as tourism industry; as well as how religion intersects with politics, capitalism, and so on. Through the experience of this field trip and the discussion in the class, we are trained to be more alert to these connections.
*The writer Anthon Jason is CRCS student of the 2016 batch.

Anang G Alfian | CRCS | News

Universitas Gadjah Mada’s Faculty of Biology invited Whitney Bauman to present his on-going project at the Biology Hall on Monday, March 6^th, 2017. Students and lecturers from various faculties came to hear his lecture. His specialization on the discourse of religion, science, and nature reflects his capacity as an associate professor at the Department of Religious Studies, Florida International University, as well as author of works including Theology, Creation, and Environmental Ethics (Routledge 2009) and Religion and Ecology: Developing a Planetary Ethics (2014). A longtime friend of CRCS who has taught intersession courses more than once, he is currently working to finish his third, single-authored book with a tentative title Truth, Beauty and Goodness: Ernst Haeckel and Religious Naturalism.
In his lecture, introduced by paleontology lecturer Donan Satria Yudha as the moderator, Bauman engaged religion and science in a contemporary discussion to look for a new way of understanding each through an evolutionary perspective. This perspective of religion-science relationship was inspired by the contemporary phenomenon in which religion has gained more spaces within science.
The emphasis Bauman made in the beginning of the lecture pointed out the direction of his topic of presentation. He started how historically the notion of religion has been discussed by different perspectives from dualism and reductionism to emergence theory. Along with the continuum of religion-science relationship, he challenged to look at the relation in a new way by focusing on the German scientist Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) who formulated a new way of making sense out of the world through his studies of ecology and evolution. Bauman clearly stated his stance: “to place Haeckel’s Monism in continuity with this tradition of meaning-making.” He also emphasized that everything has undergone changes and the way we understand the relation between religion and science has always been a “relationship in constant flux.” He challenged the assumption of the previous models on religion-science relationship that views Religion and Science as two different traditions. “I argue that Religion and Science are always together, influencing one another,” Bauman continued, “there is no clear separation.”
As Bauman prefers to define “religion” through its meaning-making function, he observed that the way religion attains knowledge is also inseparable from the natural evolution perspective. Further, he explained that the relation involves not only human and nature as a traditional dichotomy but more as an interconnectedness of everything.  This view triggered questions from the audience.
One member of the audience asked a question on a human special status over the rest of nature which challenged the way certain traditions or religions view the status of humans in their scriptures. “I am not sure if humans have a special status in nature,” Bauman answered, “In fact, not only humans have culture and language; many other creatures might have them too.” Because knowledge is always in process and moves together with history and experiences, he argued that it is normal for many traditions to have different understandings of nature and the Truth.
Another question posed was about whether the first human walking on earth was the one as narrated in the scripture. Baumann referred to “Adam” as mentioned in the Genesis as its literal meaning, i.e. a creature on the earth which did not refer to any specific gender. In addition, Donan Satria Yudha said that  some Muslim scientists say that Homo sapiens may constitute the first human as mentioned in the scripture and it refers to the quality of being human in the evolution, and not to a specific figure.
The writer, Anang G Alfian, is CRCS student of the 2016 batch

Kate Wright | CRCS | Voices from America
The United States and Indonesia are both plural societies that struggle to understand how to live together in diversity and with the meaning of pluralism itself.  From its beginnings seventeen years ago, CRCS has had strong ties with American academia. Pioneers in inter-religious studies from the U.S., including John Raines, Mahmud Ayoub and Paul Knitter, were present at our founding and have been followed by a number of visiting lecturers who have stayed for a few weeks, months, or years, and by generations of English teachers. In addition, more than thirty CRCS alumni/ae have continued their studies for MA and PhD degrees in American universities. As we followed the news of the U.S. election within the context of the anti-pluralist turns across Asia and Europe, we wanted to know what our American friends are thinking and so we invited them to contribute their reflections to this page. This is the first of the Voices from America series. To read the Indonesian translation of this article, click here. To read the second of the series, click here.

Anang G Alfian | CRCS | Event

Issues of environmental damage are becoming more pervasive recently. It was just a few months ago we hear the voices of Samin community, indigenous people in the slopes of Mount Kendheng advocating environmental justice against industrialization attack surrounding the mountain, the issue of which inspired Dian Adi M.R., one of CRCS students, to compose instrumental music and conceptualize arts performance at the event called “Sounds of The Indigenous”.
Through his experience in music performance, Dian initiated the event and collaborated with various musicians, environmental activists, and academia of religious and cultural studies. This innovative way of giving collaborative performance is purposively to raise an awareness among various professions to work together on preserving nature.
Held at Taman Budaya Yogyakarta, many visitors crowded the event on the eve of January 25^th 2017 to see the performance, which was started by a documentary film about the semen factory against Samin people and other environmental issues happening recently. Some commentaries from local peoples, scholars, and villagers were narrating a number of environmental problems especially in dealing with actors of interests and exploitation of nature. There is a need of consolidation and urgent answer to avoid further consequence of human misconducts toward nature.
As the introduction to the theme was read, a theatrical performance began to tell narratives and stories, and the instrumental music slowly echoed and filled the air of the room. Visitors seemed to enjoy the mystical yet artistic nuances coming out of the cello playing. Throughout the performance, music and theatrical arts were integrated and made a harmonious blend.
Some instruments were used to represent different and rich sounds from different cultures and origins. Besides guitar, violin, and other common instruments, there were also Gambus, a Middle Eastern music instrument played in the end of the session with Arabic vocal. A Dayak instrument called Sape was also used to sing with a children song. It produced a nostalgic scene of happy life when children can play with nature before industrialization has polluted environment and water.
A theatrical narrative called “Hunger” was also enacted to convey indigenous voices demanding justice and prosperity. The story was meant to see how the man’s greed is always the cause of destruction.  “Those local cultures are indeed real guardians of the nature, while ironically many intellectuals go with the interests of those people to build their projects ignoring the locals and the environment,” said Dian commenting on the theme of the performance.
Music can be a means to harmonize the relation between human and nature and awaken the awareness of the shared duty to preserve nature. Justitias Jellita, the Cello player, reflected on music as being in a harmony as she said, “The harmony is not only for musical tunes, but also for the self and the universe. Without harmony, journey of life will lose its meaning, and those who can return to his home is the ones that know where they come from. This Sounds of the Indigenous event is a valuable message and important warning that human will return to his home “Earth” anyway. Therefore, while alive, we’re responsible for our home.”
Indigenous people of Dayak tribe have their own cosmology on their music as what Anang, the Sape player, said, “For Dayak people, they believe an old saying, ‘Sapeh Benutah tulaang to’awah,’ meaning Sape can crush the bones of evil ghosts.”
This event has given us a lesson on how to maintain the relation between man and nature as important elements in the harmony of life. And music is one of the languages the indigenous speak with. Now it is our turn whoever we might be; artists, scholars, or environmental practitioners; to know where we stand on and where we are going to return.
*Anang G Alfian is CRCS student of the 2016 batch

Meta Ose Ginting | CRCS | Wednesday Forum Report

Samsul Maarif | CRCS | Perspektif

Ibu Bumi wis maringi (Ibu Bumi sudah memberi)
Ibu Bumi dilarani (Ibu Bumi disakiti)
Ibu Bumi kang ngadili (Ibu Bumi yang mengadili)
La ilaha illallah, Muhammadun rasulullah (3x)

Pada 20 Mei 2016, “Doa Nusantara” ini dilantunkan oleh ribuan warga Pati sebelum dan saat melakukan aksi jalan kaki (long march) sepanjang 20 kilometer dari Petilasan Nyai Ageng Ngerang di Kecamatan Tambakromo menuju alun-alun Kota Pati untuk mengajak semua pihak melestarikan pegunungan Kendeng. Lantunan doa itu kembali menggema pada aksi long march berikutnya yang menempuh 150 kilometer dari Rembang ke Semarang pada 5-8 Desember 2016.
Mereka datang menuntut Gubernur Jawa Tengah Ganjar Pranowo untuk mematuhi putusan Mahkamah Agung yang pada 5 Oktober 2016 telah mengabulkan Peninjuan Kembali (PK) gugatan mereka atas izin lingkungan kepada PT Semen Gresik (kemudian menjadi PT Semen Indonesia). Doa itu terlantun kembali oleh Gunretno, koordinator Jaringan Masyarakat Peduli Pegunungan Kendeng (JMPPK), pada acara MetroTV, “Mata Najwa: Bergerak Demi Hak”, 21 Desember 2016. Sebelumnya, pada 11-13 April 2016, sembilan “Kartini Kendeng” menyemen kakinya di depan Istana Negara.
Rangkaian unjuk rasa yang tidak biasa itu adalah bukti bahwa para petani sungguh merasa terancam oleh pembangunan pabrik semen di wilayah tempat mereka tinggal di sekitar pergunungan Kendeng—dan mereka sudah menolak pembangunan pabrik semen sejak 2006. Kesungguhan itu lahir dari tradisi yang mengakar di masyarakat lokal, yang di dunia akademik biasa disebut “ekologi adat”.
Praktik Ekologi Adat Kendeng
Ekologi adat adalah rangkaian praktik dan pengetahuan adat yang menekankan kesatuan dan kesaling-tergantungan manusia dan lingkungan, yang mencakup berbagai wujud seperti tanah, hutan, batu, air, gunung, binatang, dan lain-lain. Dalam ekologi adat, eksistensi dan jati diri manusia bergantung dan hanya dapat dipahami dalam konteks relasinya dengan lingkungannya. Keberlanjutan hidup manusia identik dengan kelestarian lingkungan, dan kerusakan lingkungan adalah kehancuran manusia.
Ekologi adat adalah penyesuaian dengan istilah-istilah yang sudah berkembang dalam literatur akademis, seperti indigenous ecology, local ecology, traditional ecology, dan seterusnya. Salah satu inti dari bangunan pengetahuan tersebut adalah bahwa ekologi bukan hanya rangkaian pengetahuan (body of knowledge), melainkan juga cara hidup (way of life) (McGregor 2004). Wajar saja jika Komisi Dunia untuk Lingkungan dan Pembangunan (World Commission on Environment and Development/WCED) sejak 30 tahun lalu menegaskan pentingnya masyarakat modern belajar dari pengetahuan dan pengalaman masyarakat lokal/adat terkait pengelolaan lingkungan (WCED 1987).

Anang G. Alfian* | CRCS | Class Journal

Anang G. Alfian | CRCS | Article

Our visit began with Fr. Maswan’s presentation about the organization. Firstly established in Indonesia in 1999, Jesuit Refugees Services has been accompanying, advocating, and giving services to forcibly displaced people. Therefore, this organization has actually been well experienced in dealing with the issues. As we listen to his presentation, we come to realize that this problem of refugees and asylum seekers cannot be ignored for it belongs to international concern. The perpetuation of war, disasters, racial conflict, and many other causes make refugees seek for their safety life by migrating to other national boundaries.

In the last session of our discussion in JRS offices, Fr. Maswan emphasized some points such as it is the problem of humanity that we have to be concerned about and not at all concerned in religious kind of missionary work altough it might inspired the organization in its underlying ethics, building cooperation with other cultural, faith-based, and other types of organization. We also read the paper Fredy Torang (2013 batch) presented in Singapore about how JRS acts as an agent of “humanitarian diplomacy” between the refugees and the local communities and government. In 2017, JRS will continue lobbying local government to allow refugees to live in a community and not in detention and also monitoring the migration all over the world to help assisting the displaced people and consistently gives concern to human right and dignity.

Anang G. Alfian | CRCS | Article

Azis Anwar Fachrudin | CRCS UGM | Opinion

Meta Ose Ginting | CRCS | Wednesday Forum Report
Corruption is one of many problems that Indonesia as a nation faces. It is not only a law-related problem but also a cultural problem. As such, culture and the values it promotes could also in one way or another be a powerful weapon to fight corruption. These are the points that Subandri Simbolon emphasized in his presentation about a ritual of sharing meat as a value to prevent corruption in Toba Batak society.
To begin his presentation, Subandri showed a video about the process of sharing meat (membagi jambar) ritual at a wedding in Batak land. The video tells about how the meat is shared to certain groups of families as a symbol of acknowledgment and appreciation of their existence. In the video, family members circle around the meat as it is being cut into specific portions and one person lifts up a portion of the meat and calls out family names and gives the meat to them as other people can watch them clearly. The portion of the meat is given out based on the Batak system of family kinship called Dalinan No Tolu..
The process of sharing jambar is arranged in some parts. First, mengalap ari. Mengalap ari is the process of choosing a good day to begin the ritual. Secondly, the ritual begins by cutting the meat into certain portions while the audience can see it clearly. The leader will then share the meat to the people by calling their names. Here is the strong educational point by the sharing meat ritual happened. By sharing the meat and let everyone watch it, it teaches people about honesty, appreciation and acknowledgment of the relationships among families. The meat being shared in jambar juhut is a representative of “source of life”. By receiving the source of life, people are receiving blessings. Other than being a symbol of blessing, meat also a symbol of people’s rights. When they receive their portion, it means their existence and their rights to be involved and participate are being acknowledged.. Therefore, discussing blessing and rights in the Toba Batak context invites people to not be greedy and to say enough when it is enough.
Subandri highlighted the point that in the process of sharing meat there are strong and meaningful interpretations where the generations can learn about anti-corruption attitudes. Moreover he added, in the ritual of jambar juhut there is a strong relational concept shows that humans are connected to each other. Because this cultural conception is to some extent closer to Batak Toba people’s daily lives than the abstract legal definitions of fairness and government laws, Subandri argued  that it can be more effective and powerful to turn people from corruption. In a relational framework, corruption is an activity that is detrimental because it violates and even negatesrelationshipsReflecting on this relational framework, Subandri  revisited the meaning of sharing meat in Toba Batak tradition, arguing that it can be interpreted as an effort to strengthen relationships and promote honesty.
During the discussion session there were many fascinating questions that led people to deeper reflection on how humans sometimes are separated from their tradition to such an extent that they no longer think of it as a part of their existence or as a medium to learn from but merely as ceremony. One challenging question was about how, in many other traditions, instead of fulfilling the intention of renewing people’s understanding about relationships, this kind of ritual fails because it becomes a problem because of economic reasons. In order to answer that, Subandri encouraged the audience to think about the meat as a symbol of source of life: if it feels burdensome, people can replace the meat with something else like vegetables so that no one will be excluded.   Subandri was also asked about the role of Christianity as the major religion in Toba land in this kind of ritual. He answered that while sometimes a priest or pastor is invited to begin the ceremony with prayer, there is not really any significant influence.
The discussion came to an end with a challenging invitation for all of us to find in our own culture the values that we can use to develop  a cultural defense against corruption.  Even though there is always to the possibility we might misinterpret the meaning of rituals such as this one,  in the end, it is worth trying.

Judul
Dari Masjid ke Panggung Politik, Melacak Akar-akar Kekerasan Agama Antara Komunitas Sunni dan Syiah di Sampang, Jawa Timur
Penulis
Muhammad Afdillah
Penerbit
CRCS 2016
ISBN
978-602-72686-6-1
Harga
Rp 70.000,-
Beberapa aspek politik dan kekerasan Sunni-Syiah di Sampang dibahas di dalam buku ini. Salah satu di antaranya penyebab konflik antara komunitas Sunni dan Syiah di Sampang. Selain itu, buku ini membahas dinamika konflik Sunni-Syiah, khususnya eskalasi konflik yang terjadi seiring dengan berjalannya waktu dan kegagalan intervensi dan penanganan terhadap konflik tersebut. Buku ini juga membahas usaha – usaha rekonsiliasi kedua komunitas, khususnya setelah kekerasan terbuka yang terjadi di Bulan Desember 2011 dan Agustus 2012.
(Samsu Rizal Panggabean, Pengajar di Magister Perdamaian dan Resolusi Konflik di Fakultas Ilmu Sosial dan Ilmu Politik, Universitas Gadjah Mada).
__________________________
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Telephone/Fax : + 62-274-544976
 

Abstract
In many Muslim-majority societies,the widely accepted Islamic doctrine that men are to act as the ‘imam’ or leaders of the family lies at the bedrock of Muslim masculinity and male religious identity, but its meaning changes for Muslim men who live as a minority in liberal and increasingly secular societies such as Australia. Based on a sociological study of the issues and challenges facing Southeast Asian Muslim men living in Melbourne, I argue that the family does serve as a secure zone for preserving and exercising Islamic-associated practices of masculinity, but also that men are pressed to redefine the meaning and continually negotiate practices of leadership to cope with the demand for individual freedom and autonomy in the family as fits the much different social context. Finally, I call for more attention to  the importance of masculinity as an analytical framework in religious studies.
Speaker
Rachmad Hidayat is a fellow and Project Director in the Kalijaga Institute for Justice, State Islamic University Sunan Kalijaga, a research associate at the Asia Institute, the University of Melbourne and previously was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Politics, Religions and Society, the Australian Catholic University. He earned a PhD in 2016 and MA in 2010 both at Monash University. Rachmad had worked at the State Islamic University Sunan Kalijaga as a project officer and research officer for programs fostering gender mainstreaming in religious contexts. His academic interests focus on how the discourse of masculinities and femininities sociologically shape and are shaped by dominant imbalance power relationship in families, institutions, academia, and religion.  He has published Ilmu yang Seksis (Sexism in Sciences, Jendela 2004), Men’s Involvement in Reproductive Health, an Islamic Perspective, (with Hamim Ilyas, PSW 2006), some book chapters and journal articles about gender and masculinities.  
 

Kami sangat berterima kasih atas partisipasi para aplikan untuk mengikuti seleksi peserta Sekolah Pengelolaan Keragaman (SPK) angkatan ke-VIII yang diselenggarakan oleh Program Studi Agama dan Lintas Budaya (Center for Religious and Cross-cultural Studies/CRCS, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta. Kami menerima banyak sekali aplikasi dari berbagai daerah di Indonesia dengan kualitas yang sangat kompetitif, dari beragam latar belakang profesi dan beragam isu yang diusung. Namun kami hanya memilih 25 orang peserta dengan mempertimbangkan berbagai aspek seperti: keragaman isu, gender, kemampuan melakukan riset, keterwakilan daerah, potensi membentuk jaringan advokasi, dan akses terhadap pengetahuan.

 
Abstract
Scientists say that we have entered the Anthropocene, the era in which the influence of humankind on the many disasters on our earth is decisive. But ancient societies already understood disasters as a very complex and subtle interaction between the mood of man and the  movement of nature. This is what we are reminded of by the Javanese tale Babad Ngalor-Ngidul, the title of which comes from a word we no longer understand: ngalor-ngidul.  Composed of two Javanese words– lor  for north and kidul for south plus the prefix ng that marks a back and forth movement–, ngalor-ngidul must have originally meant “from north to south and from south to north, in an endless burst of reciprocity and interdependence,” but now only means to talk nonsense. In the tale, the fates of the two villages, one in the south near the sea and one in the north near the volcano, are bound together as the former, destroyed by an earthquake, rebuilds itself, body and soul, while the latter becomes mentally corrupted before being devastated by a volcanic eruption.  The tale is told in restore among the survivors the clarity of the “eye of the heart” that allowed the guardian of the volcano to “read” the mother-mountain and it reminds us that we must learn again to listen to the water of the ocean and to the sand of the volcano, the last speakers of a “primal” language that has existed since long before humankind.
Speaker
Elizabeth D. Inandiak is a writer, translator and community activist. Since the age of nineteen, she has traveled the world as a reporter for various French magazines and radio broadcasters. In 1989, she settled in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. She has translated and recreated into French, Indonesian and English the great epic of Java: The Book of Centhini, published in Indonesian by Gramedia (Centhini – Kekasih yang Tersembunyi). Her new book Babad Ngalor Ngidul, (Gramedia) is a tale about the earthquake and the volcanic eruption in Yogyakarta. She is currently working on a book about Muara Jambi together with the young villagers of the site.

Daud Sihombing | CRCS | Article
Wilfred C. Smith in his book “The Meaning and the End of Religion,”  defines reification  as mentally making religion into a thing, gradually coming to conceive of religion as an objective systematic entity. In this process, religions are standardized and institutionalized. For instance, there were no “Hindus” who defined their practice as Hinduism until the term Hindu was established by Muslims and later British colonizers who invaded and sought to know and rule India. It was Muslims and Westerners with their concepts of religion who constructed or reified  Hinduism.

Based on Smith’s insight, I am going to conduct an art exhibition which I  call REIFICATION. In this exhibition I  create an imaginary government institution named the Department of Certification. In my exhibition, this fictional governmental institution issues certificates for beliefs that fulfill the requirements to be recognized as a religion. My goals by conducting this exhibition are framing the religious discourse I learned in the Center for Religious and Cross-cultural Studies (CRCS), Universitas Gadjah Mada, in a different medium and offering new perspectives for seeing religious life in Indonesia.
This project can be considered a reflection of the past or the prediction for the future. What I mean by the reflection of the past is that I am going to visualize the unseen practice of standardizing the concept of religion and recognizing particular religions that happen in the past, especially in Indonesia. In predicting the future, I argue that this governmental institution can exist in Indonesia when the Bill of Rights protecting all religious people has been finalized.
This method of manipulating, imitating, pretending, or camouflaging in order to document an alternate reality has been used effectively by both Indonesian and foreign artists. An Indonesian artist, Agan Harahap created a photo series entitled The Reminiscence Wall,  a compilation of “fictional novels” based on history that combines various realities of what happened in the past. Another example is Robert Zhao Renhui, a Singaporean multi-disciplinary artist. He constructs and layers each of his subjects with narratives, interweaving the real and the fictional. He focuses on the relation between humans and the natural world. Both Agan and Robert Zhao creates new “facts”based on their own fictional narratives.
This exhibition will be held in:
LIR Space, Yogyakarta, from September 3rd to 17th, 2016.
Open 12 pm – 20 pm, Closed on Monday.
It will be curated by Mira Asriningtyas as part of the ongoing Exhibition Laboratory project organized by Lir Space.

Suhadi | CRCS | Artikel
Akhir Juli 2016 lalu terjadi kekerasan di Tanjungbalai, Sumatera Utara. Sebagian sumber menyebutkan tidak kurang dari tiga vihara, delapan kelenteng, satu bangunan yayasan sosial dan tiga bangunan lain dirusak oleh massa. Terdapat enam mobil juga dirusak atau dibakar oleh massa.
Kekerasan tersebut sangat patut disayangkan, meskipun demikian apresiasi kepada masyarakat Tanjungbalai dan aparat keamanan penting dikemukakan. Sebab, setidaknya kekerasan yang terjadi tidak meluas menjadi kekerasan horizontal lebih besar dalam jangka waktu yang panjang. Meskipun sudah terjadi agak lama, refleksi terhadap peristiwa kerusuhan tersebut tetap penting untuk meminimalisir kemungkinan berulangnya kekerasan sejenis, baik di Tanjungbalai ataupun di tempat lain.
Pendekatan Keamanan
Pada satu sisi, terjadinya pergerakan massa sampai merusak cukup banyak bangunan menunjukkan terlambatnya aparat keamanan bergerak melindungi warga dan patut menjadi catatan penting. Polisi seharusnya sudah bertindak cepat pada hari Jumat (29 Juli) malam itu, ketika massa dimobilisasi.
Di sisi lain, tindakan polisi, setelah kerusuhan terjadi, untuk melokalisir kerusuhan secara cepat, misalnya dengan menjaga keamanan wilayah dan memperketat keluar-masuk orang ke wilayah tersebut, patut diapresiasi. Dalam kasus-kasus kekerasan yang lain, tidak jarang aparat keamanan menjadi bagian dari masalah, atau setidaknya ragu-ragu, untuk dengan cepat mengambil keputusan bahwa kekerasan harus segera dihentikan.  Pernyataan Kabid Humas Polda Sumut, Kombes Rina Sari Ginting, tidak lama setelah kerusuhan terjadi bahwa pelaku kekerasan melanggar pidana merupakan statemen yang jelas dan tegas bagaimana negara seharusnya hadir ditengah situasi yang genting.
Kerja bakti membersihkan puing-puing dan bekas kerusuhan yang dilakukan oleh aparat keamanan dan ratusan warga masyarakat Tanjungbalai sehari setelah kerusuhan terjadi dapat dimaknai sebagai isyarat publik bahwa situasi keamanan di Tanjungbalai dapat kembali normal dengan cepat. Ini penting disampaikan, karena dalam beberapa kejadian lain, ketika ketegasan aparat tidak tampak, apalagi jika ada upaya memanfaatkan situasi konflik untuk tujuan politik, situasi di suatu wilayah sulit untuk kembali normal.
Pendekatan Dialog untuk Perdamaian  
Kerusuhan Tanjungbalai bukan pertama kali terjadi di daerah tersebut. Sebelumnya, kerusuhan serupa pernah terjadi pada tahun 1979, 1989, dan 1998 (Komnas HAM 2016). Artinya, meskipun dalam kehidupan sehari-hari berlangsung praktik koeksistensi di masyarakat, potensi konflik bisa berkembang dan pada momen-momen tertentu meledak menjadi kekerasan massa.
Oleh sebab itu, pendekatan keamanan saja tidak akan memadai. Dialog antar kelompok di masyarakat menjadi niscaya dibutuhkan. Dalam konteks masyarakat Tanjungbalai, dialog tersebut mungkin bisa kita sebut dialog multikultural untuk perdamaian.
Disebut dialog multikultural sebab tidak saja menyangkut agama, tetapi juga etnik. Seperti ditunjukkan kasus Tanjungbalai, seorang warga berketurunan Tionghoa, berusia 41 tahun, yang memprotes nyaringnya pengeras suara adzan di samping rumahnya, menyulut diserangnya rumah ibadah umat Khonghucu dan umat Buddha.
Disebut untuk perdamaian karena fokus atau tujuan utamanya adalah perdamaian. Tidak semua dialog memiliki tujuan perdamaian secara langsung. Sebut saja, salah satu contohnya dialog teologis, seperti dialog antar ahli kitab suci agama-agama. Meskipun bisa juga mengarah pada perdamaian, dialog teologis bisa mengarah pada pengayaan teologis an sich dan tidak memiliki pengaruh langsung pada aspek sosial di masyarakat.
Jika kita mengikuti perkembangan wacana antar etnik pasca kerusuhan Tanjungbalai yang berkembang di media, terutama di media sosial, sangat jelas bahwa prasangka antar etnik berkembang luas dan mendalam. Diantara karakter prasangka adalah persepsi negatif dan generalisasi-berlebih (Suhadi & Rubi 2012, konsep tentang prasangka bisa dibaca dalam salah satu artikel buku Kajian Integratif Ilmu, Agama dan Budaya atas Bencana).
Persepsi negatif terhadap suatu kelompok etnik atau agama tertentu, apalagi jika mendapatkan dukungan dari praktik orang-orang dalam komunitas bersangkutan, pada gilirannya dapat berkembang menjadi legitimasi yang efektif untuk meminggirkan, menyerang atau menghancurkan kelompok yang dianggap memiliki perilaku negatif itu. Dukungan fakta praktik negatif tersebut bisa saja ditemukan hanya pada satu-dua orang, atau dalam jumlah lebih besar tetapi terbatas. Di sini terjadi proses transformasi dari identifikasi individu ke identifikasi kelompok.
Lebih-lebih karena bekerjanya prasangka juga bersifat generalisasi-berlebih, maka seringkali sasaran kekerasan yang mengandung unsur prasangka dapat mengenai anggota komunitas yang lebih luas. Bahkan, korban kekerasan bisa jadi adalah orang-orang yang tidak setuju atau menentang sikap negatif dari anggota komunitasnya.
Hal inilah yang persis terjadi di Tanjungbalai. Tindakan satu orang disambut dengan balasan kekerasan yang luas kepada komunitas etnik dan agama yang dianggap memiliki kesamaan identitas. Kekerasan seperti itu tentu tidak sekonyong-konyong terjadi. Sebelumnya berkembang prasangka yang mungkin telah meluas dan mendalam di masyarakat. Penting diingat bahwa pada tahun 2010 telah muncul keresahan terkait dengan upaya penurunan patung Buddha di Tanjung Balai. Peristiwa itu seharusnya sudah menjadi pengingat bahwa ada hubungan sosial yang harus diperbaiki di sana (lihat, misalnya tribunnews.com  dan blasemarang.kemenag.go.id)
Agar tidak terulang kembali, kekerasan dan konflik seperti itu tidak bisa dipulihkan hanya dengan pendekatan keamanan. Dialog di tingkat masyarakat menjadi prasyarat penting proeksistensi yang berkelanjutan di Tanjungbalai.
Abu-Nimer (2000) dalam sebuah tulisannya dengan judul “The Miracle of Transformation through Interfaith Dialogue” menyebutkan dialog merupakan alat yang sangat menolong untuk memperdalam pemahaman individu mengenai berbagai cara pandang dan perspektif orang lain.
Dalam masyarakat yang menyimpan ketegangan relasional, mereka mesti membangun dulu sikap saling percaya (trust). Baru setelah itu masing-masing kelompok dapat membicarakan keberatan-keberatan yang dirasakan masing-masing dalam praktik kehidupan sehari-hari mereka. Alih-alih merasa tidak ada masalah, lebih baik dalam dialog mengakui dengan jujur masalah-masalah yang ada selama ini menjadi prasangka.
Pada praktiknya tentu ini tidak mudah. Membangun sikap saling percaya untuk mengungkapkan masalah-masalah yang ada perlu proses panjang, lebih dari satu-dua kali pertemuan bersama. Namun jika hal itu dapat dilampaui, kesepakatan-kesepakatan relasional bisa mulai dirumuskan bersama.
Lebih dari itu, dialog dapat berkembang menjadi kerjasama kongkrit antar kelompok, menyangkut hal sehari-hari terkait, misalnya, masalah lingkungan, kesehatan, kepemudaan, penyelenggaraan festival bersama atau hal lain.
Untuk memperkuat bahwa dialog merupakan kebutuhan yang tumbuh dari komunitas antar kelompok di masyarakat lokal Tanjungbalai sendiri, nilai-nilai agama dan nilai-nilai budaya lokal yang tumbuh di mayarakat penting menjadi panduan bersama. Sejarah lokal di Tanjungbalai menunjukkan keberadaan etnik Batak, Melayu, Tionghoa, Jawa, dan yang lain telah hidup bersama dalam waktu sangat lama. Dalam pengalaman hidup bersama mereka pasti terdapat best practices nilai-nilai dan praktik-praktik kerjasama yang dapat dijadikan pelajaran, baik yang masih terus berlangsung maupun yang perlu digali untuk dihidupkan kembali.
Dialog dan kerjasama bisa jadi mendapat penentangan dari pihak tertentu di masyarakat. Sebab mungkin saja ada pihak-pihak dalam masyarakat yang berkepentingan dengan konflik.Untuk itu pemerintah dan aparat keamanan penting memberi jaminan rasa aman bagi proses berlangsungnya dialog dan kerjasama tersebut. Dialog yang lebih genuine sebaiknya melibatkan masyarakat akar rumput, meskipun keberadaan tokoh agama dan tokoh masyarakat juga tidak bisa diabaikan. Memulainya dengan kaum muda mungkin menjadi pilihan yang lebih mudah dan realistis.
__________________
Suhadi adalah dosen di Pascasarjana UIN Sunan Kalijaga. Di samping itu juga mengajar di Prodi Agama dan Lintas Budaya, Sekolah Pascasarjana UGM. Suhadi adalah juga Southeast Asia KAICIID fellow untuk program dialog antaragama dan dialog antar budaya.

Maria Lichtmann | CRCS | Article
[perfectpullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=”13″] “Women’s bodies can be very good when interpreted as fertility, mercy, and wisdom, but they can also be interpreted as objects attracting sexual desire or even worse as spiritually less than men. . . The narration of Hawa (Eve) and Sri (Javanese goddess figure) could be seen from any point of view, depending on our intention.  Yet, perceiving that male is more spiritual than woman by nature is not only male centrist, but also discriminating over the other and shows how arrogant it is.”
 
-CRCS’ Student- [/perfectpullquote]
Teaching the course on “Religion, Women, and the Literatures of Religion” was one of the highlights of my teaching career.  From the first day, when I stepped into the classroom and was greeted with smiles and welcomes, I knew I could feel comfortable bringing what I knew and wanted to teach to these students.  This class of students had already been seasoned and prepared to be a community of learners by having studied the better part of the year in this unique program.  I did not detect the kind of competitive edge that is so much a feature of classroom interaction in the United States, and I feel that has something to do with the culture here of long-standing collaboration and sharing.  It was certainly evident in the way these students worked together, laughed together, and enjoyed time after class, such as in “buka puasa,” the opening of the fast that comes during Ramadhan.  Coming from various parts of this vast country, from Medan on the island of Sumatra, from Aceh, from the small island of Lombok, as well as many cities around Java, they also represented diverse religious backgrounds, the majority Muslim, but also Protestant Christian and Catholic Christian (the one Catholic being a Sister of Notre Dame whom the students had come to see as “ibu,” Mother).  About three-fourths of the students were male, and although that might have seemed an impediment to learning almost the entire semester only about women, these young men showed no signs of resistance, and in fact demonstrated an amazing openness and willingness to engage the issues confronting women in the Midldle Ages as well as today.  
What was just as impressive to me was that they were reading and writing academic studies in English, a discourse that can be difficult even for native speakers!  They stretched themselves in so many ways that it was truly admirable, and I know many of them struggled.  Despite that, they produced response papers that were for the most part readable and intelligent, some brilliant.  I heard so many new insights from their unique perspectives, and they helped me to look at these works by medieval and modern women with new eyes.
The content of the course consisted primarily of writings from Christian mystics and visionaries of the Middle Ages, as well as a thesis written on Sufi women mystics.  We encountered the remarkable prison diary of St. Perpetua, martyred in 203 C.E., and marveled over the multi-talented abbess, musician, poet, prophet, mystic, Hildegard of Bingen, discussed food in the writings of the unique medieval women’s group, the Beguines, and then focused on the book, Showings, written by Julian of Norwich.  I would like to include here some of the comments students made when reading her beautiful treatise, to give some idea of how open they were to learning across boundaries of time, gender, and theology:
“Her style of contemplating God is set in the fourteenth century, but the meaning is still alive and meaningful today and invites us to share in that same trustworthy love. “
“Showings reveals a woman who experienced God directly and as “our mother.”
“Her revelations of the feminine side of God are a very significant contribution to all of us now.”
“God’s grace and divine love through a feminine figure is such an empowerment and encouragement for all beings, not only women.  Also men, because the feminine qualities show how simply love can comfort and heal, just like a mother’s love.”
“The dualism of feminine/ masculine no longer exists in Julian’s understanding of God.  God is feminine, and at the same time also masculine.  The human/body and the divine, the feminine and masculine, each of both is actually a union.”
I was very happy to have CRCS’ alumna, Najiyah Martiam’s Master’s Thesis on Sufi women, based on her interviews with three women connected to   pesantrens, in order to balance what could have been an over-emphasis on the Christian tradition, the one I know best.  We also had a chance to invite another CRCS alumna, Yulianti, a Buddhist scholar who happens to be a friend of mine.  Yuli helped explain how the female lineage in Theravada Buddhism died out, and has not been restored because the line was broken.
Two of the most exciting, energizing classes were led Dewi Chandraningrum, the editor of Jurnal Perempuan  (Indonesian Feminist Journal),  who brought us readings from her edited volume, Body Memories.  I was very happy to have Bu Dewi’s presence in the classroom, and to see the student’s immediate warm responses to her as she sometimes spoke in Bahasa Indonesia, the language most accessible for them.  In her first class, she divided the students into three groups, in discussion of three topics relating to the female body:  menstruation, sexual intercourse, and childbirth.  What could have been a class of silence, embarrassment, or even giggles, became a serious, mature conversation among the students.  I was awed by their willingness to discuss such sensitive topics together, with mixed genders.  Bu Dewi’s second class introduced us to the women activists of Kartini Kendeng, and the opposition to the proposed cement factory that has already decimated villages and their way of life in northern Java.  
I would like to say in conclusion, that based on the readings from the women mystics like Julian of Norwich, whose theology of the body is holistic, non-dualist, and healthy, and intensified in the sessions led by Bu Dewi, this class became almost a spirituality of the body.  Sacred sexuality and the sacredness of the female body became an underlying theme.  I will let one of the students have the last word by quoting from his final paper:  “Women’s bodies can be very good when interpreted as fertility, mercy, and wisdom, but they can also be interpreted as objects attracting sexual desire or even worse as spiritually less than men.  . . .  The narration of Hawa (Eve) and Sri (Javanese goddess figure) could be seen from any point of view, depending on our intention.  Yet, perceiving that male is more spiritual than woman by nature is not only male centrist, but also discriminating over the other and shows how arrogant it is.”  This student and others showed me at what depth of understanding they were interpreting what they read and heard.  They were a gift and joy to teach!
____________________________
Maria Lichtmann is a Fulbright fellow to Indonesia. She taught “Women, Religion, and Literatures” in intersession semester at CRCS from June to July, 2016. She is a former professor of Religious Studies at ASU and currently teaching at Widya Sasana, Malang.

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.

Abstract
Saluang jo dendang, flute with song, is one of the most important arts of the Minangkabau heartland, celebrated for its refined poetry based on allusion and sad songs that induce tears in a listener. Performed late at night into the wee hours of the morning, two to three singers deliver a series of 40 or so songs according to the requests of the attendees, choosing from a repertoire of hundreds. In this genre, songs are defined by the melodies, not the lyrics, which are variable from one performance to the next. Singers choose texts from stock verses memorized and create them anew in the moment of performance, all delivered in pantun and therefore rhyme with verse lengths varying from 4 to 22 lines. The knowledge, skill, and nimbleness demanded of the performers is considerable.

A.S. Sudjatna | CRCS | Interview
Sejak tahun 2015, Dr. Kimura Toshiaki, associate professor Program Studi Agama, Universitas Tohoku, Sendai, Jepang menjadi salah satu pengajar mata kuliah ‘Sains, Agama dan Bencana’ di Program Studi Agama dan Lintas Budaya (CRCS), UGM. Membincang bencana di Jepang sangat menarik karena Jepang adalah negara dengan kesiapan bencana yang sangat tinggi. Menjadi lebih menarik ketika memasukkan agama dalam perbincangan bencana di negeri Sakura itu. Bencana adalah sesuatu yang sangat akrab bagi masyarakat Jepang, tapi agama? Sesuatu yang dihindari pada awalnya tapi perlahan diterima karena bencana. Berikut wawancara tim CRCS dengan dosen yang akrab dipanggil Kimura Sensei ini mengenai bencana, agama, dan studi agama di Jepang.

Ali Ja’far | CRCS | Artikel
“Perubahan besar-besaran pada Klenteng-Vihara Buddha terjadi setelah peristiwa 1965, dimana semua yang berhubungan dengan China dilarang berkembang di Indonesia. Nama-nama warung atau orang yang dulunya menggunakan nama China, harus berubah dan memakai nama Indonesia” kata Romo Tjoti Surya di Vihara Buddha kepada mahasiswa CRCS-Advanced Study of Buddhism, yang melakukan kunjungan pada selasa 22 Maret 2016. Beliau menjelaskan juga bahwa pada waktu itu, umat Buddha juga harus mengalami masa sulit karena banyaknya pemeluk Buddha yang berasal dari China.
Salah satu dampak anti China ada pada Klenteng-Vihara Buddha Praba dan daerah disekitarnya adalah pada nomenclature. Pada awalnya, toko-toko itu mengunakan nama-nama China, tetapi mereka harus  mengganti nama itu menjadi nama Indonesia. Begitu juga pemeluk Konghucu disini, mereka punya dua nama, nama Indonesia dan nama China. Bahkan bertahun-tahun mereka harus memperjuangkan keyakinan mereka sampai pada akhirnya Presiden Abdurrahman Wahid mencabut pelarangan itu dan Konghucu diakui sebagai salah satu agama resmi di Indonesia.
Tempat pemujaan yang berusia lebih dari 100 tahun ini merupakan gabungan dari Klenteng dan Vihara. Klenteng berada di depan dan Vihara berada di belakang. Penyatuan ini karena adanya kedekatan historis antara pemeluk Buddha dengan orang China di Indonesia. kedekatan Buddha dengan China bisa dilihat dalam rupang Dewi “Kwan Yin” dalam dialek Hokkian yang merujuk pada Avalokitesvara, Buddha yang Welas Asih. Selain itu juga ada kedekatan ajaran, dimana dalam Buddha, label agama tidaklah penting, yang paling penting adalah pengamalan dan pengajaran Dharma. Selama ajaran Dharma itu masih ada, maka perbedaan agama pun tidak masalah.
Vihara Buddha Praba sendiri adalah Buddha dengan aliran Buddhayana, yaitu aliran yang berkembang di Indonesia yang menggabungkan dua unsur aliran besar Buddha, Theravada dan Mahayana. Aliran Mahayana berada di Utara dan Timur Asia yang melintas dari China sampai ke Jepang dan lainya. Sedangkan Theravada menempati kawasan selatan, seperti Thailand, Burma. Namun begitu, Budhayana melihat dua aliran ini sebagai “Yana” atau kendaraan menuju pencerahan seperti yang diajarkan sang Guru Agung. Penggabungan Theravada dan Mahayana dalam aliran Buddhayana awalnya juga dilandasi alasan politis dimana terdapat asimilasi antara agama dan kebudayaan yang ada.
Dalam Kunjungan ini, mahasiswa CRCS diajak untuk keliling Klenteng-Vihara dan mengenal ajaran Buddha lebih dalam, terutama bagaimana Vihara ini bisa bersatu dengan Klenteng, melihat budaya China lebih dekat dan mengenali ajaran Buddha yang lebih menekankan pada penyebaran Dharma dari pada penyebaran agama.
Vihara kedua yang dikunjungi adalah Vihara Karangdjati yang beraliran Theravada. Berbeda dengan sebelumnya, Vihara Karangdjati tidak bernuansakan China, tetapi lebih ke Jawa, dimana terdapat pendopo untuk menerima tamu dan ruang meditasi yang khusus. Pak Tri Widianto menjelaskan bahwa pokok ajaran Buddha bukanlah ajaran eksklusif yang tertentu untuk pemeluk Buddha saja, tetapi untuk seluruh umat manusia. Bahkan di Vihara Karangdjati, ada juga dari agama lain yang datang saat meditasi.
Hal yang sering disalahartikan selama ini adalah meditasi hanya milik umat Buddha, tetapi tidak. Meditasi adalah laku spiritual untuk mengenali gerak gerik otak kita dan mengasah mental menghadapi masalah. Ini adalah latihan mengolah kepekaan yang tidak dibatasi oleh agama tertentu. Pengolahan kepekaan ini penting karena betapapun banyaknya kata bijak yang kita miliki, itu tak ada manfaatnya ketika tidak dipraktikkan.
Didirikan pada tahun 1958, usia Vihara Karang Jati yang juga berlokasi di desa Karang Jati, lebih tua dari pada usia kampung itu. Sehingga, meskipun mayoritas penduduk sekitar beragama Islam, tidak pernah ada keributan atau gesekan antar agama. Hal ini karena Vihara Karang Jati selalu menekankan keharmonisan dan  perasaan kasih (compassion), pada seluruh umat manusia.
Vihara Karang Jati menaungi Puja bakti, pusat pelayanan keagamaan,  dan pendidikan. Khusus untuk meditasi, kegiatan ini dibuka untuk umum. Artinya, siapapun dan dari agama dan golongan manapun boleh mengikutinya. Kegiatan yang dilakukan tiap malam jumat ini bahkan pernah diikuti oleh beberapa turis mancanegara.

Abstract
My thesis is a critical analysis of the galleries of Islamic Art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met) in New York as a case study for contemporary understandings and representations of Islam through the display of Islamic art in a post-9/11 context. I explore the revival of Islamic art exhibitions since the events of September 11, 2001, where museums across the world have found themselves tasked with building and reconfiguring the display of Islamic art objects to provide visitors with a counter-narrative to the widespread fear of Islam propagated by mass media. By tracing the intertwined histories of the Islamic art discipline, colonial and post-colonial collecting practices, Orientalism and the universal survey museum, I situate my critique of the galleries within the complex realities of cultural heritage management in order to address the problematic limitations of this curatorial counter-narrative.
Speaker
Ruby Robina Saha is a Shansi English Language Teaching Fellow at Universitas Gadjah Mada. She divides her time between CRCS, where she co-teaches the Academic English course and the preparatory Summer Intensive course, and the English Language & Literature Department in the Faculty of Cultural Sciences (FIB). Prior to her appointment as a Shansi Fellow, Ruby received her BA(Hons) from Oberlin College, where she majored in Art History and Middle Eastern Studies. In 2013, she was awarded the Laurine Mack Bongiorno Prize for Art History majors, and she studied Art History and Politics at the University of Paris, where she carried out research on the galleries of Islamic art at the Louvre Museum. She wrote her graduating thesis on the politics of displaying Islamic art in Western museums after 9/11. Ruby has worked as an editor and contributing writer for several publications including The Wilder Voice, The Oberlin Review and Jurnal Humaniora. Since returning to Indonesia, her research interests have shifted to the intersection between culture and education policy, contemporary art and alternative media. After her fellowship, she plans to continue working in education and culture and intends to pursue a graduate degree in Arts Education in 2017.

Abstract
Elsewhere argued that the line divides the “real,” offline realm and cyberspace is blurred. Both realms are becoming interpenetrative and as demonstrated in many cases such as the Arab Springs, the United States and Indonesian Presidential elections, the composite power of the two may determine the socio-political direction of a region. Following this observation and considering the dramatic expansion of Indonesian cyberspace, in term of internet penetration, mobile subscription, and social media fluency, it is timely to look closer to it as an emerging religious public sphere. The present presentation focused on the younger generation religious expression. Younger generation, the “Millennials” generation (18-34 years old) as some researches framed it, is considered among the main steams behind this space, among others as the arena of their quest for individuality, and to a degree for the enhancement of their piety. Indonesian cyberspace is complicated with the audacity of religious expression and the tangled governance by the state in the post-New Order, hence understanding younger generation perception on religion might reveal the shifts that are happening in the Indonesian society. The preliminary assessment of the issue displayed a nuanced and complex presentation of religiosity of this generation, beyond the argument of superficiality, put forward by some other observations. It is furthermore showed an intersection issue of religious authority, imagery of pluralistic society, and transnational religious phenomena.
Speaker
Leonard C. Epafras is a core doctoral faculty in the Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies, UGM Graduate School, Yogyakarta. He won the Endeavour Scholarship Fellowship 2015 to conduct his post-doctoral research as well as presented the ongoing research project initiated by the ICRS, the Indonesian Interfaith Weather Station (IIWS). His research interests are including history of religions, inter-religious interaction, and digital humanities/humanities computing.

Sembilan mahasiswa CRCS dari dua angkatan yang berbeda berhasil memeroleh gelar Master of Art dari Program Studi Agama dan Lintas Budaya pada prosesi wisuda Pascasarjana Universitas Gadjah Mada, Selasa, 19 April 2016. Sebagian besar dari mereka mendapatkan penghargaan sebagai wisudawati-wisudawan berprestasi dengan predikat cum laude. Tema thesis mereka pun cukup beragam mulai dari etika, budaya lokal, kesehatan, media online, humanitarian, tato, aliran kepercayaan, lingkungan hingga gerakan keagamaan. Berikut nama-nama dan karya thesis mereka:

Center for Religious and Cross-cultural Studies (CRCS), Graduate School, Gadjah Mada University proudly announces the call for Thesis Award. The Award is aimed to encourage CRCS students of batch 2015 to write a high quality of master thesis and a publishable article out the thesis on “Religious Education in Higher Education.”
The requirements of the Thesis Award are:

Abstract
The spread of religious millenarianism in the member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has raised significant questions about religious movement in those countries. The Baha’i religion provides an important case and relevant context as the Baha’i movement has been paralyzed in its country of origin, Iran, since the beginning of the movement in 1844. To avoid persecution and violence, many Baha’i adherents moved to other regions in Southeast Asia. The Baha’i religion is committed to developing educational skills, economic sustainability, gender empowerment, and social movements. Thus, ASEAN encompasses a dynamic and diverse region that aims to provide social, religious, economic, and cultural security for ASEAN citizens. Minority religions such as the Baha’i community, which at the times are victims of conflict and violence, play an important role in achieving those aims. Conversely, religious violence and conflict may be seen as part of the regional deficit in terms of religious freedom and tolerance. In this context, my study tries to examine religious millenarianism and the future evolution of the ASEAN community. The study investigates the co-existence of the Baha’i community with other religious groups such as Muslim, Christian, and Buddhist in their social, political, and cultural negotiations. As the Baha’i engage on some social and political issues in globalization and embrace liberalism and pluralism in the public space, I argue that this study contributes to scholarship in terms of understanding the fate of religious millenarianism in the future of the ASEAN community.
Speaker
Amanah Nurish Ph.D Cand Researcher of Baha’i studies. She is pursuing doctorate at ICRS UGM-Yogyakarta and working as consultant of USAID team-Washington for assessment program, “Fragility and Conflict”. She wrote book chapters, articles, and journals. Her latest publications: Sufism and Baha’ism: The Crossroads of Religious Movement in Southeast Asia (2016, Equinox publisher, London) Perjumpaan Baha’i Dan Syiah Di Asia Tenggara (2016, Maarif Jurnal, Jakarta) Welcoming Baha’i: New Official Religion In Indonesia (2014, The Jakarta Post) Social Injustice and Problem Of Human Rights In Indonesian Baha’is Community (2012, En Arche Journal, Yogyakarta) etc. She received prestigious awards for her academic works such as King Abdullah Bin Abdulazis’s interfaith center-Vienna, SEASREP-Philippine, ENITS-Thailand, Luce & Ford Foundation-USA, ARI-NUS, etc. With her teamwork, she is currently undertaking a broader anthropological research on “ Religious Millenarianism in ASEAN countries” for publication supported by Arizona State University of America.

Aziz Anwar Fachrudin | CRCS | Article
Among the challenges Muslims face when they are engaged in the recently overwhelming debate on whether Islam is a religion of violence/peace is the fact that the Quran contains many verses which, at least when seen at a glance, promote violence. Indeed, there are verses in the Quran that even encourage fighting and killing, addressed to those considered unbelievers/infidels (kuffar) and/or polytheists (mushrikin); and when they are read and interpreted literally, they can be seen as preaching hatred toward non-Muslims. Moreover, some of those verses have been picked by the Islamic State (of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS) to justify its atrocities toward those having different beliefs. On the other hand, those “violent verses” are often cited by many involved in the debate, particularly by Islamophobias in the West, to discredit Islam and to show that Islam is a religion of violence, instead of peace.
This paper is going to examine those “violent verses’; not all, but some of them that have similar redaction. That is, those verses which read, more or less, “kill them wherever you find them”. There are three verses which are like that: (1) QS. al-Baqarah [2]:191; (2) QS. al-Nisa’ [4]:89; and (3) QS. al-Tawbah [9]:5. It is to examine both the classical and the modern interpretations of those three verses. By classical interpretations I mean the interpretations and commentaries of those verses as in classical books of tafsir written by medieval, pre-modern Muslim scholars of exegesis, to which very often many Muslims today still refer. By modern interpretations I mean the interpretations and commentaries that are written by modern Muslim exegetes. Along this line of elaboration, I shall compare both in order to know to what extent there has been a change in interpretations of the abovementioned verses.
This paper shall therefore be intended to convey three things. First is to show both classical and modern interpretations of those verses. Second is to point out what we will get when we compare those two types of interpretations and how the verses have been interpreted differently. Third, this paper shall be finished by some hermeneutical reflections resulting from the examination of both the classical and the modern interpretations. As for the classical interpretations, the books of tafsir that shall be mostly referred to in this paper are that of al-Tabari (839-923), Al-Razi (1149-1209), al-Qurtubi (1214-1273), and Ibn Kathir (1301-1373). While for the modern interpretations, the books of tafsir that shall be referred to are that of Rashid Rida (1865-1935), al-Sha‘rawi (1911-1998), Al-Zuhayli (1932-2015), and Quraish Shihab (1944-…). All these books of tafsir contains exegeses that are elaborated in chronological, chapter-based way, or verse by verse conforming to the way the verses are serially organized in the Quran. (This way is technically known as al-tafsir al-tajzi‘i or tafsir based on chapters or partitions of the Quran, as compared to al-tafsir al-mawdu‘i or tafsir based on themes/topics.) In this paper, when I mention a name of a mufassir (exegete) of them, it means I refer to his interpretations/commentaries that come after the verse being discussed. Read more in religio.uinsby.ac.id
*Aziz Anwar Fachrudin is CRCS Student batch 2014
 

Applications for admission to the Center for Religious and Cross-cultural Studies (CRCS) for the 2016/2017 academic year are now being accepted. For more information click Admission 2016 and information on scholarship click Scholarship

Abstract

The Indonesian Ahmadiyya community has been facing violent conflicts after the Reformasi era. This dissertation focuses on the narrative of Ahmadi women about their experiences in dealing with daily conflicts they face in relation to their faith. This paper focuses on the acts of the Ahmadi women organization called Lajnah Imaillah from 2000 to early 2015 by examining their defense mechanism and exercising agency in resisting and preventing conflicts. The study was conducted in four areas in Indonesia, Kuningan in West Java, Yogyakarta, Lombok in West Nusa Tenggara and Head Office of Lajnah Imaillah in Bogor. The informants were Ahmadi women from different socio economics status and positions in the organization. Using narrative inquiry, this research found out that in responding and resisting to violent conflicts, Lajnah Imaillah has been changing its way of resistance and its forms of defense mechanism. The conflicts that Ahmadi women face have encouraged them organizationally and individually to be more actively participate in wider society and build good relationships with the religious others outside of the community. Therefore this paper argues that non-violent defense mechanism promotes better relations and mutual understanding among conflicting parties in society.
Speaker
Nina Mariani Noor just earned her Ph.D from Inter Religious Studies, ICRS (Indonesian Consortium For Religious Studies) Universitas Gadjah Mada last January. Her concern is on conflict resolution, gender, and minority studies. Nina is Programme Executive Globethics.net Indonesia (www.globethics.net) . Globethics.net is the biggest, global online platform dedicated to promote inclusive, values-driven transformation for sustainable living, through access to knowledge, networking, collaborative research, training and events. She also teaches in Universitas Pembangunan Nasional (UPN) Yogyakarta this semester.

Film title : Growing Cities (2013, USA)
Director : Daniel Susman
Producer : Dana Altman
Editor : Alexandru Moscu
Writers : Andrew Monbouquette, Daniel Susman
Storyline
In their search for answers, filmmakers Dan Susman and Andrew Monbouquette take a road trip and meet the men and women who are challenging the way this country grows and distributes its food, one vacant city lot, rooftop garden, and backyard chicken coop at a time. Join them as they discover that good food isn’t the only crop these urban visionaries are harvesting. They’re producing stronger and more vibrant communities, too.Written by IMDb: Titles With Plot Summary Written By “Growing Cities Official” Sorted by Title Ascending
We invite friends from Sekolah Petani Muda (School of Young Farmer) Sleman, Yogyakarta to share with us in the discussion. Join us!
CRCS’s location: click here

Keberlangsungan suatu Program Studi sangat tergantung pada kinerja para staf di dalamnya. CRCS UGM pada tahun 2015 telah menempuh usia 15 tahun. Suatu perjalanan panjang dalam menanggapi isu keragaman di Indonesia. Di tengah perjalanan itu, Program Studi ini ternyata telah mendapat pengakuan tertinggi dari BAN PT dengan akreditasi A. Tentunya, ini adalah sebuah pencapaian berkat usaha dan kerja keras staf pelopor Ilmu Agama di Indonesia ini.
Berikut ini, tim website CRCS sengaja melakukan wawancara dengan salah satu sosok  di balik pencapaian prodi ini, Linah Khairiyah Pary atau biasa dipanggil  Mbak Lina yang telah menjabat sebagai office manager CRCS sejak tahun 2009.  Perjalanan akademisnya cukup mengagumkan karena mampu lulus dari dua program master di dua universitas yang berbeda pada saat yang hampir bersamaan. Saat menempuh pendidikan S2 di CRCS, dia juga mengambil S2 jurusan manajemen pendidikan di Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta. Seorang kolega di CRCS mengisahkan, “Mbak Lina bahkan harus jalan kaki dari UNY ke UGM lebih dari satu kali setiap hari”. Nampaknya, pengalaman inilah yang menjadikan dia mampu menata semua urusan administrasi dan akreditasi secara memuaskan.
Untuk lebih jauh mengetahui bagaimana pengalaman Mbak Lina di CRCS, simak wawancara Subandri Simbolon berikut ini:
Berkaitan dengan proses akreditasi CRCS, bagaimana suka-duka yang dihadapi Mbak Lina?  Apa saja yang dilakukan baik secara personal maupun team?
Akreditasi BAN PT merupakan proses sertifikasi 5 tahunan yang wajib dijalani  oleh institusi pendidikan di Indonesia. Karena ini merupakan proses 5 tahunan, tentu kendala yang dihadapi adalah menghadirkan kembali dokumen-dokumen akademik, penelitian, kerjasama, pengabdian masyarakat dll. yang telah dilakukan CRCS selama 5 tahun. Selama proses persiapan akreditasi, saya tidak merasakan kendala yang berarti karena tim akademik, keuangan dan administrasi sangat solid dalam membantu mengisi borang akreditasi BAN PT. Selain itu, CRCS memiliki lumayan banyak pengalaman dalam bidang audit. Perlu diketahui, selain audit Akreditasi oleh BAN PT yang berlangsung 5 tahun sekali, CRCS juga diaudit oleh KJM (Kantor Jaminan Mutu) UGM setiap tahun. Selain itu setiap semester, CRCS juga di audit oleh auditor internal ISO SPs UGM dan setiap 3 tahun juga diaudit oleh auditor eksternal SGS. Sejak tahun 2009, CRCS telah tersertifikasi ISO 9001:2008 oleh SGS. ISO 9001 sendiri merupakan standar international dalam bidang sistem manajemen mutu. Dengan telah tersertifikasi ISO 9001:2008, sangat wajar jika CRCS mendapat akreditasi A dengan skor 373 (dari skor maksimum 400).
Sangat mengesankan, berkat kerja keras Mbak Lina dan tim, CRCS akhirnya memperoleh Akreditasi dengan nilai A. Apa saja strategi yang Mbak Lina lakukan sehingga mampu memperoleh nilai itu?
Sekali lagi ini bukan kerja keras saya saja, proses persiapan akreditasi merupakan kerja tim. Dalam hal ini saya sangat mengapresiasi mas Catur Agus Suprono yang sangat sabar dan telaten menyediakan data-data yang saya butuhkan dalam mengisi dan mengolah borang. Selain itu, saya juga sangat mengapresiasi Mbak Nurlina Sari, staf keuangan CRCS yang sabar dan cekatan membantu mengisi borang terkait pembiayaan. Dukungan Koordinator Akademik dalam mereview kembali borang sangat penting untuk memperbaiki kualitas borang. Selain itu, bantuan teknis dari mas Bibit Suyadi semakin mensolidkan kinerja kami dalam mempersiapkan proses reakreditasi CRCS.
Terkait dengan strategi untuk memperoleh nilai A (sangat baik), ada beberapa hal yang kami lakukan: 1). Membentuk tim dan membuat job deskrispi yang jelas untuk masing-masing staf  dalam membantu mengisi borang akreditasi dan menyiapkan dokumen-dokumen pendukung. 2). Membuat deadline dan mentaati deadline terkait tahapan waktu  pengisian borang, review borang, penyerahan borang ke KJM UGM dan pengiriman borang ke BAN PT. 3). Mentaati ketentuan KJM UGM untuk menyerahkan borang akreditasi ke KJM UGM untuk direview oleh auditor internal UGM. Proses ini sangat penting, karena auditor internal UGM merupakan auditor BAN PT juga. Auditor internal UGM bertugas menilai borang tersebut serta memberikan masukan-masukan perbaikan. Saya merasa fasilitas yang ditawarkan KJM ini sangat “wah” dan sangat berharga. Fasilitas ini kami manfaatkan dengan baik.
Apa yang Mbak Lina Rasakan selama proses dan setelah mendapat hasil?
Selama proses persiapan akreditasi, saya berusaha untuk fokus dan teliti dalam mengisi borang dan mempersiapkan dokumen-dokumen pendukung. Selama beberapa bulan berhadapan dengan borang tentu timbul rasa bosan dan bete.  nah… untuk mengatasi rasa bosan, biasanya sambil mengisi borang saya pasang headset dan  mendengarkan berbagai macam musik, mulai dari Adele, John legand, Sam Smith, Kitaro, hingga Jhoni Iskandar dan Rhoma Irama (variasi musik lumayan membantu mood saya dalam mengolah borang:). Bagi saya, akreditasi merupakan sesuatu yang sangat prestisius, CRCS juga merupakan lembaga pendidikan yang prestisius, sebagai staf, saya merasa wajib untuk memberikan kinerja terbaik saya agar CRCS mendapatkan akreditasi A. Dan alhamdulillah, atas kerja keras semua staf, CRCS berhasil memperoleh nilai A.
Kesan dan pesan apa yang ingin Mbak Lina sampaikan kepada seluruh Civitas Akademika CRCS?
Pesan saya untuk teman-teman staf, semoga kita selalu solid, guyup, dan hangat dalam bekerja. Saya merasa beruntung, bekerja di CRCS dan mendapat teman-teman kerja yang saling mendukung. Pesan saya untuk mahasiswa CRCS, fokus dalam studi, jalin persahabatan dengan teman-teman dan cepatlah lulus. CRCS hanyalah salah satu batu loncatan dalam mengeksplor dunia. Makanya… cepatlah lulus.
 

Protecting the Sacred: An Analysis of Local Perspectives on Holy Site Protection in Four Areas in Indonesia | Author: Dr. Suhadi Cholil | Pages: IX+94 Pages| Size: 16 x 23,5 cm | ISBN: 978-602-72686-4-7| Year Publishing: Januari 2016
Indonesia is home to communities of believers in the world’s major religions and traditions, in addition to various indigenous religions and other smaller world religions. Holy sites, varying from mosques to temples to churches to tombs, can be found in all corners of the archipelago. Despite this abundance of holy sites, there is a general lack of knowledge, understanding, and respect for these sacred spaces. Holy sites, particularly houses of worship and other sacred places, are often the target of violence during conflicts in Indonesia. That is why there is an urgent need to promote the significance of public understanding of houses of worship and holy sites.
This book investigates three key questions: (a) To what extent can the Universal Code of Conduct on Holy Sites be used to campaign for respect and protection towards houses of worship and holy sites in Indonesia? (b) What are the public’s perceptions and public knowledge about houses of worship and holy sites as well as its attitude towards the recognition and respect for them? (c) How does social change affect the relationship between religions and the protection of houses of worship and holy sites in certain areas of Indonesia? The investigation took place in four areas of Indonesia: Manado, Pontianak, Bali, and Bekasi.

Ribka Ninaris Barus | CRCS | Book Review
Persepsi tentang Papua kerap diliputi dengan isu-isu konflik. Selain konflik ekonomi-politik, juga ada konflik saudara (suku) serta kekerasan yang mengatas namakan agama. Fenomena-fenomena tersebut menggoda orang untuk mengimajinasikan wajah Bumi Cendrawasih yang ‘murung’ dan ‘menyeramkan’. Persepsi yang demikian semestinya tak boleh menutup harapan dan mata kita untuk menilik bahwa ada kisah kedamaian di Tanah Papua. Dalam hal ini, buku Papua Mengelola Keragaman berupaya menunjukkannya.
Buku tersebut merupakan tulisan reflektif hasil kunjungan peserta program Sekolah Pengelolaan Keragaman (SPK) ke-V ke Kampung Wonorejo, yang diselenggarakan oleh CRCS bekerjasama dengan STAIN Al-Fatah, STFT Fajar Timur, dan LSM Ilalang Jayapura. Buku ini memuat kisah pengalaman masyarakat Kampung Wonorejo, Kabupaten Keerom, Papua, dalam upaya merajut kedamaian di tengah-tengah keberagaman. Buku ini dibagi ke dalam tiga bagian; setiap bagian terdiri dari beberapa tulisan dan diakhiri dengan sebuah cerpen. Tulisan-tulisan di dalamnya berupaya memberi gambaran interaksi masyarakat Wonorejo dan bagaimana pemerintah setempat mengelola perbedaan antar warga Wonorejo.
Tulisan-tulisan pada bagian pertama menggambarkan konteks kehidupan dan interaksi masyarakat di Kampung Wonorejo, sebuah desa yang terletak di daerah tapal batas antara Papua dan Papua New Guinea. Banyak warga Desa Wonorejo yang merupakan para transmigran yang berasal dari Pulau Jawa, Sulawesi, dan Nusa Tenggara Barat (NTB). Di desa ini, mereka dengan latar belakang kebudayaan, adat-istiadat, dan agama berbeda hidup bersama. Memiliki sejarah perjuangan hidup yang sama membuat mereka hidup senasib sepenanggungan. Hal inilah yang kemudian menjadi dasar bagi masyarakat Wonorejo untuk membangun kehidupan yang toleran, seperti yang diceritakan oleh Yali dan Kleopas. Interaksi antaretnik yang terjadi di Wonorejo juga terwujud dalam proses transfer pengetahuan. Oktovina dalam tulisannya menjelaskan proses itu, yang terjadi di antara para perempuan transmigran dari Jawa dan para perempuan Papua dalam mengolah bahan makanan, seperti pengolahan singkong menjadi kue yang dipelajari perempuan Papua dari perempuan Jawa, dan pengolahan sayur pohon pisang yang dipelajari oleh perempuan Jawa dari perempuan Papua.
Bagian kedua buku ini, Praktik Pengelolaan Keragaman, memuat tulisan mengenai praktik konkret pengelolaan keragaman kultur dan agama yang ditransformasi oleh masyarakat dalam wujud toleransi dan kedamaian. Tulisan Roni Hamu, misalnya, menunjukkan praktek pengelolaan keragamaan melalui adaptasi dan transformasi dalam tradisi bakar batu, yang tidak menjadi tradisi ekslusif salah satu kelompok etnis, tapi melibatkan dan merangkul seluruh masyarakat yang ada di Desa Wonorejo. Praktik pengelolaan keragaman lainnya  dapat dilihat adalah semangat gotong royong dalam membangun rumah ibadah, yang melibatkan seluruh warga, terlepas dari identitas keagamaan yang dianut. Selain itu, sikap toleran juga ditunjukkan melalui upacara atau perayaan keagamaan seperti Idul Fitri dan Natal, dengan saling mengunjungi dan menyampaikan ucapan selamat. Dalam hal ini, keterlibatan para tokoh agama, pemangku adat dan pemerintah lokal memiliki peran penting dalam proses pengelolaan keragamaan. Mereka menjadi fasilitator dalam proses penyelesaian konflik yang terjadi.
Meskipun secara umum Kampung Wonorejo dapat dinyatakan toleran, desa ini sempat mengalami ketegangan dan konflik. Pada bagian ketiga buku ini, Konflik dan Mekanisme Penyelesaiannya, para penulis memaparkan bagaimana ketegangan dan konflik diatasi oleh masyarakat Wonorejo. Melalui kisah-kisah dalam buku ini, diketahui bahwa konflik tidak hanya terjadi dari internal masyarakat setempat, namun karena adanya campurtangan pihak luar yang lebih bersifat politis. Selain itu, konflik yang terjadi tidak semata-mata berkaitan dengan masalah perbedaan etnik dan agama, tetapi juga masalah kesenjangan ekonomi. Namun demikian, dalam penyelesaiannya, masyarakat multietnik di Wonorejo menemukan pola-pola sederhana dalam penyelesaian konflik yang mereka hadapi. Misalnya dengan menetapkan balai kampung sebagai tempat pertemuan untuk melakukan dialog dalam upaya menyelesaikan setiap konflik yang terjadi. Dengan demikian, setiap warga dapat terlibat dan melihat langsung proses tersebut, sehingga menjadi pembelajaran bagi mereka. Mekanisme penyelesaian konflik lainnya misalnya, dengan membuat perjanjian dan penetapan sanksi terhadap mereka yang melakukan suatu kegiatan yang menimbulkan konflik. Arfan menjelaskan bahwa upaya tersebut merupakan antisispasi yang baik dalam mengurangi risiko konflik di tengah masyarakat. Secara singkat dapat dipahami bahwa proses penyelesaian konflik yang dilakukan di Wonorejo bersifat internal dan lebih menekankan pada nilai-nilai kebersamaan dan kekeluargaan.
Ada banyak pengulangan narasi dalam setiap tulisan, terutama berkaitan dengan data informatif tentang Kampung Wonorejo. Selain itu, harus diakui bahwa para penulis tidak melakukan sebuah analisis yang mendalam terhadap kisah yang telah dituliskan. Namun demikian, kisah-kisah tersebut dapat menyadarkan kita bahwa sikap toleran dan damai masih ada di Bumi Cendrawasih. Dengan menjadikan masyarakat Wonorejo sebagai studi kasus, buku ini bisa menjadi cermin untuk membantu kita bagaimana cara menemukan nilai-nilai kultural di masyarakat dalam upaya mengelola keragaman.
Judul : Papua Mengelola Keragaman | Editor : M. Iqbal Ahnaf, dkk. | Tahun Terbit : 2015 | Penerbit: CRCS
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Azis Anwar Fachrudin | CRCS | Article
As the Islamic State (IS) organization destroyed ancient statues aged thousands of years at the Mosul museum in Iraq last month, almost at the same time some Muslims demanded that the Jayandaru statues in the Sidoarjo town square in East Java should be torn down too. Their reasons were similar: They regarded the statues as idols being worshipped and idolatry is considered part of polytheism or shirk, the biggest and most unforgivable sin in Islam. Sadly, the demands in Sidoarjo were primarily supported by GP Ansor, the youth wing of the supposedly “moderate” Nahdlatul Ulama (NU).
NU is often associated with being against “purification” (a literal interpretation of Islam) and it usually would be in the forefront of safeguarding “holy graves” against the threat of destruction, particularly the graves where those considered Muslim saints are buried. The NU highly condemns IS, including its blasting of holy shrines like the tomb of the Prophet Jonah (Yunus) in Iraq, and the actions of al-Nusra, such as its destruction of the grave of the leading imam an-Nawawi in Syria.
In fact, the embryo of NU in the early 20th century was a movement protesting the destruction of tombs of respected Muslim figures and sites that had historic importance for Muslims in Saudi Arabia (named Hijaz at that time). The destruction was carried out under the convictions of Wahhabism that regarded those shrines as sources of shirk.
What we are now dealing with is here, however, are statues, which is different from the contentious status of holy tombs. Many Muslims still visit graves of the holy figures; there is no clear prohibition of such a practice in primary Islamic sources of teachings. Yet there are several explicit prohibitions based on hadiths or prophetic traditions (which are secondary sources) of making full-figured statues or images of living creatures, either human or animal.
IS justifies its actions with those hadiths, relying also on the narrated story that the Prophet Muhammad commanded the destruction of statues (or, to be precise, idols) surrounding the Ka’ba in the eighth year following his conquest of Mecca.
The same justification was employed also by Afghanistan’s Taliban when in 2001 they blew up the two giant statues of Buddha in Bamiyan made in the 6th century — without knowing that there is no concept of a personal God in Buddhism, which is a non-theistic religion, and the statues of Shakyamuni Buddha are not subject to worship in the sense understood by monotheists.
That is it. Without denying the possibility of the political or economic factors in the aforementioned cases, the question here is whether Islam promotes iconoclasm or the destruction of idols. Iconoclasm is not unique to Islam (or, to be exact, Muslims); Judaism and Christianity also share history or scriptural teachings of iconoclasm. The story of the golden statue of a calf in the time of Moses is shared by the three religions. Iconoclasm was commanded by Hezekiah, the king of Judah (Two Kings 18:4) and King Josiah (Two Kings 23:1-20).
It appears also in the rabbinical Midrash, the story of Abraham as the iconoclast destroying idols made by his father. In Christianity, disputes over iconoclasm occurred in the Byzantine and Protestant Reformation era.
That is what is narrated in the scripture or “history”. As for Islam, while the Prophet Abraham is reported in the Koran to be destroying idols (asnam) of his people (Koran 21:52-67), the holy book says of King Solomon, considered a prophet by Muslims, that “they [the jinns] made for him [i.e. Solomon] what he willed: synagogues and statues [tamathil], basins like wells and boilers built into the ground.”
The Koranic terminology appears to differentiate between a mere statue (timthal) and an idol or statue being worshipped (sanam).
Muslim scholars all agree that it is prohibited for Muslims to worship statues because it makes them idolatrous. But that distinction between timthal and sanam matters very much when it comes to the contentious status of statues that are not worshipped.
Some Muslim scholars, such as the leading reformer Muhammad Abdul, Jadul-Haq (a former Grandsheikh of al-Azhar), and Muhammad Imarah (a renowned Muslim thinker), argued that it is allowed to have statues as long as they are not worshipped.
And in the fundamentals of Islamic jurisprudence (usul al-fiqh), “rulings are based on their raison d’etre [‘illah al-hukm]; when the raison d’etre disappears, the rulings do not prevail.”
That argument is supported by historical evidence of the early Muslim generations. The companions of the Prophet (such as Amr ibn al-Ash in Egypt and Sa’d ibn Abi Waqqas in Iraq) led conquests in many places, but did not destroy the ancient statues they found, because those statues were no longer worshipped.
Sphinxes still exist in Egypt. Those Mesopotamian statues had been there for centuries before being demolished by IS. The Bamiyan Buddha statues were there before being attacked by the Taliban.
In fact, when the Taliban were under Mullah Mohammed Omar, he once issued a decree in favor of the preservation of the Bamiyan statues by arguing that, besides the fact that a Buddhist population no longer existed in Afghanistan, the statues could be a potential major source of tourism income for Afghanistan.
Statues in the Borobudur Buddhist temple are also still there, although nine stupas were damaged during the 1985 Borobudur bombing. In general, most Muslims, either as a minority like in India or as a majority like in Indonesia, have no problem with statues, unlike those who prefer a literal interpretation of the Prophet’s sayings, or hadiths. Scripturalism is the very problem of IS-like Muslims; it denies the imperative that scripture must be contextualized with surrounding circumstances and contrasted with historical evidence.
Furthermore, in the heart of the holiest site for Muslims — the Ka’ba — there is a black stone (al-hajar al-aswad), that was venerated in the pre-Islamic pagan era and is kissed by Muslims while doing pilgrimage. That stone is considered sacred by many Muslims; some of them touch it to get sort of blessing or expiation of sins. And in regard to this practice, the second caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab has frequently been quoted as saying, “I know that you are a stone and can neither harm nor benefit anyone. Had I not seen the Messenger kissing you, I would not have kissed you.” That is, it is not statues, images, or stones that matter; it is Muslim minds that do.
For some nahdliyin (NU members), then, can we regard those statues in Sidoarjo as merely statues or stones that are not worshipped?

CRCS offers following courses during the second semester of 2015/2016 academic year. Those courses are open for graduate students (S2/MA and S3/PhD) of humanities and social science, but subject to availability of seats. Non CRCS students interested to enroll for a course(s) should contact Lina Pary (lina_pary@yahoo.com). All courses will begin the first week of February 2016 and continue for 14 weeks.

Asep Salik | CRCS | News

Kamis, 8 oktober 2015, CRCS melangsungkan rangkaian kegiatan ulang tahunnya yang ke-15. Bertempat di ruang auditorium gedung Sekolah Pascasarjana, rangkaian acara ini diawali dengan kuliah umum “Nurcholish Madjid Memorial Lecture 2015; Understanding Islam and Politics in the Twenty-First Century”, yang menghadirkan Chaiwat Satha-Anand sebagai narasumber utama. Guru besar Ilmu Politik Universitas Thammasat, Thailand, yang juga dikenal sebagai pemikir serta aktivis nirkekerasan agama ini mempresentasikan makalahnya dengan judul The Sacred in The Mirror. Kuliah umum yang berlangsung mulai pukul 09.00 WIB pagi ini diawali dengan pemutaran film profil CRCS dan dilanjutkan dengan beberapa persembahan lagu dari Josskustik, grup band gabungan mahasiswa dan staf CRCS.