Memory of Religious Conflict and Identity Politics

The impact of the memory of the Ambon conflict is still felt. Building the pluralist character of the younger generation is the solution.

Indonesia is a region with thousands of clusters of islands that are home to diverse ethnicities, religions, and different races. In the context of this multireligious society, there are six major religions in Indonesia: Islam, Christianity, Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Confucianism. Nevertheless, Indonesia has a tragic history of conflict between different religious groups.

Religious conflict in Ambon City, between Islamic and Christian groups, a few years ago, for example, had a quite lengthy series of scenarios. This conflict destroyed the harmony of the community, resulted in deaths, burning of public facilities, and Islamic-Christian religious buildings. This should be the responsibility of the state.

The impact of memory on religious conflict

Religion in Indonesia, within the framework of Islam or Christianity, is a belief system that teaches love. "Love is dynamic, not narcissistic," so believers should not see one religion as the most correct and disregard the existence of other religions.

Indonesia, despite its shortcomings, must preserve its integrity. In the concept of pluralism, religious adherents should not necessarily impose dogmatism. Indonesia needs religious thinkers who can create a paradigm of social capital. The following explains the impact of religiously nuanced conflict memories on two different generations.

Also read: 25 Years of Maluku Conflict, Peace Continues to Be Maintained

The most radical impact after the conflict, namely phobia of different religions which can occur due to regional segregation, has occurred in Ambon City. Conflict events remain imprinted in the memory of every individual directly affected.

In this section, the author observes that there are two categories: the first is the generation directly affected, and the second is the generation who only hears stories about the conflict. It can be seen that the generation directly affected tends to have difficulty forgetting the memories of the conflict (hearing gunshots, cries, blood, and death).

The conflict in Ambon City psychologically in the early days after the conflict gave birth to Christianophobia and islamophobia, which were specifically experienced by the generation directly involved. The phobia of two opposing religions experienced by the generation directly involved has resulted in the formation of a society that is often wary.

Regarding segregation, Ansori et al. stated in their book that there is a mechanism for relocating refugees that stems from the government's policy offered as part of the solution, namely returning to their original area, relocation, or settling in a refugee camp.

Among these options, relocation was the main choice for the refugees at that time. This relocation resulted in the community being indirectly segregated. Refugees affected by conflict tend to choose places to live close to communities that have the same identity as them (Ansori et al, 2014).

In line with Ansori, Braithwaite et al said that post-conflict, real estate became one of the challenges. The area in Ambon will become more segregated, for example, there are Christian residents who buy many houses from Muslim residents who have left the majority Christian area at very low prices, then sell them to other Christian residents (Braithwaite et al, 2010, p 160).

After the conflict, almost all elements worked together to build peace between the Islamic-Christian religious conflict in Ambon City.

The author sees that segregation in Ambon City is a cycle of phobia about memories of conflict. Post-conflict segregation is not only part of the political setting of local government areas, but also the adaptive awareness of post-conflict society, because the groups who choose to relocate are mostly immigrants who have lived in the city since pre-conflict. Ambon.

In contrast, it is different for the local community whose area is located on Ambon Island. After the conflict, some refugees have returned to their respective areas, although it took quite a long time for them to come to terms with the past conflict and muster the courage to return to their place of origin. There are even families who chose not to leave their homes.

After the conflict, almost all elements synergized to build peace between Islam and Christian religious followers in Ambon. Generally, memories of the conflict and violence lie in the realm of history and psychology, between remembering and forgetting the bitter experience, and choosing whether to forgive or not forgive the perpetrators (Subanar, 2016).

KOMPAS/FRANSISKUS PATI HERIN

A number of Muslim youths from Hitulama Village, Leihitu District, Central Maluku Regency, were involved in the construction process of the Imanuel Protestant Christian Church in Galala Village, Sirimau District, Ambon City, on Tuesday (1/17/2017).

In my opinion, conflict has a lot of diverse effects on individuals who experience direct impact, so there are some who accept and some who have not accepted in the early post-conflict phase. However, what is interesting is that in an interview with one of the young victims of the conflict, he said his father died during the conflict. Even so, he does not hate the incident because it has been a long time since the event.

It can be seen that memories of conflict are inevitable in an individual's historical recollection of the past, but individuals will accept and try to forget. Efforts for peace in Ambon City should be a sign that the Muslim-Christian community of Ambon have individually surpassed the boundaries of segregation that bound them during the conflict.

This can be seen during the conflict in 2011, when some areas began to heat up, but there were some areas that did not get involved, for example in the Negeri Passo (Christian) and Negeri Tulehu-Liang (Islamic) communities. The community in Negeri Tulehu-Liang continued their activities in the Negeri Passo area. Therefore, memories of violence during the conflict will fade over time as bitterness disappears with the collective awareness of all elements of society.

Efforts to achieve peace in the city of Ambon should serve as a sign that the individual members of the Muslim-Christian community in Ambon have surpassed the boundaries of segregation that have held them back during the conflict.

Building a peaceful history for the future is the most appropriate step for the younger generation in Ambon city. It can be seen that the target for building pluralism character for the future generation should come from the community. The paradigm of solidarity values ​​must continue to be developed. This is to prevent the post-conflict impact and to produce a young generation character who loves peace.

Quoting Van Klinken in the story book Orang Basudara (Manuputty et al, 2014), "Stories of the civil war in Ambon must be told in public. However, it is more appropriate if the expression of this conflict memorial story needs to be facilitated in formal and non-formal educational institutions, so that they are more academically responsible, because the target is to focus on the young generation with a birth year classification of 1999-2000's who have not been directly exposed to trauma. ”

In the context of Indonesia's multireligious society (Islam, Christianity, Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism), actors and radical groups often emerge as disruptors of religious harmony and stability in Indonesia. The issue of religion is indeed crucial in Indonesia, particularly after the religious conflict in Maluku.

Religious sensitivity triggers religious leaders and the government to work together to combat religious provocateurs. The integrated role of religion and affiliated government through religious dialogue which becomes a space for encounter in maintaining interfaith unity as a form of reconciliation and education. In my opinion, the way is to buildimagine peace as a peace narrative.

Also read: Religion and Social Conflict

In today's society, religious institutions (Islam-Christian) have fulfilled their responsibilities, but have not yet focused on a systematic networking system. Therefore, peace movements carried out by religious institutions must provide ample networking opportunities. Until now, religious institutions have represented social relations with audiences that belong to a certain small scale, resulting in minimal social interaction between individuals or groups that must be acknowledged.

In general, religious institutions need to recognize that the next generation requires an intake of pluralistic spirit, which should become the basis for the future generation's peace movement. Pluralistic spirit specifically focuses on building the character of the younger generation who are not directly affected by conflict era, to be able to understand other religions.

Revaldo Pravasta Julian MB Salakory, Pastor of the Maluku Protestant Church