Wednesday, 1Nov06
Highlights: writing & reading my new book, “Muslim-Christian Relations in the New Order Indonesia: Exclusivist and Inclusivist Muslims’ Perspectives” by Fatimah Husein.
My trip to Bali is pushed back to Friday.
Back in front of the computer… for more lessons in patience.
To take a break, I jumped back into my new book, Muslim-Christian Relations in the New Order Indonesia. Good read. As testament to good structure in keeping to her main points, every few paragraphs or pages my mind wandered down a series of tangents & spin-off arguments. Makes for a fun read, if not a fast one. I admire folks who can summarize controversial subjects so well. Few people like seeing their beliefs summarized on paper by someone else’s hand; especially when abutted against descriptions of other beliefs- because invariably there are many shades of grey in between the lines. I feel that way anyways. But it’s that effort which gives people like me a place to start from and refer to when trying to understand why folks feel the way they do about inter-religious relations.
The Islam-Christian relationship in Indonesia is complex & juicy. There seem to be plenty of inconsistencies and efforts to use religion as a tool of political leverage. Happens everywhere I guess. The idea of Pancasila, penned & delivered to Indonesians by President Sukarno on 1 June 1945, is described as an effort to address the complex multi-religious make-up of Indonesia by declaring the nation neither a Muslim state nor a completely secular one. Walking the fine line in between could describe the desired effect… and for 61 years- it’s been fairly successful; leaving a loud minority disappointed and a silent majority content. The difficult part is discerning how big or small those two groups really are.
Highlights: writing & reading my new book, “Muslim-Christian Relations in the New Order Indonesia: Exclusivist and Inclusivist Muslims’ Perspectives” by Fatimah Husein.
My trip to Bali is pushed back to Friday.
Back in front of the computer… for more lessons in patience.
To take a break, I jumped back into my new book, Muslim-Christian Relations in the New Order Indonesia. Good read. As testament to good structure in keeping to her main points, every few paragraphs or pages my mind wandered down a series of tangents & spin-off arguments. Makes for a fun read, if not a fast one. I admire folks who can summarize controversial subjects so well. Few people like seeing their beliefs summarized on paper by someone else’s hand; especially when abutted against descriptions of other beliefs- because invariably there are many shades of grey in between the lines. I feel that way anyways. But it’s that effort which gives people like me a place to start from and refer to when trying to understand why folks feel the way they do about inter-religious relations.
The Islam-Christian relationship in Indonesia is complex & juicy. There seem to be plenty of inconsistencies and efforts to use religion as a tool of political leverage. Happens everywhere I guess. The idea of Pancasila, penned & delivered to Indonesians by President Sukarno on 1 June 1945, is described as an effort to address the complex multi-religious make-up of Indonesia by declaring the nation neither a Muslim state nor a completely secular one. Walking the fine line in between could describe the desired effect… and for 61 years- it’s been fairly successful; leaving a loud minority disappointed and a silent majority content. The difficult part is discerning how big or small those two groups really are.
posted by jonathan adventures at 3:23 AM
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