Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin speaks in a symposium themed “Religious and Cultural Relations in Indonesia” in Bantul, Yogyakarta, Friday (2/11/2018). Sponsored by the Religious Affairs Ministry, the symposium, directed by cultural observer Radhar Panca Dahana, was attended by religious and cultural figures from various regions throughout Indonesia.
The people have both the right and the responsibility to resolve the nation’s various challenges, including disruptions in the interpretations of religious texts in recent times.
A symposium themed “Religious and Cultural Relations in Indonesia”, held by Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin in Yogyakarta last week and attended by many religious and cultural figures, concluded that real changes were necessary in all dimensions of the nation-state’s life.
These changes were necessary considering that these disruptions may potentially undermine and even destroy people’s religious beliefs and the ideal relations between these beliefs and the cultural and social realities these people face in their daily lives.
Historically, among communities in the archipelago, there have always been close links between religions and local cultures -- they are much like two sides of a coin. Our founding fathers confidently build the nation upon its people’s cultural diversity as is reflected in state ideology Pancasila. Everyone must unite to reach a singular goal, namely creating a just and prosperous society.
The people’s right to resolve disruptions in the interpretations of religious texts are coupled with the responsibility to resolve the nation’s challenges through prioritizing noble values. This was why the symposium urged religious and cultural figures to first understand and be able to resolve the disruptions within themselves.
Everyone must also be together in resolving these disruptions by prioritizing the noble values espoused by our forebears, including honesty, patience, gratitude, equality, recognition of our diversity, mutual assistance, discipline, responsibility, independence, propriety, compassion and openness.
It was agreed upon to, first and foremost, ask families to teach such social and spiritual virtues at home as the nation’s smallest unit. The state was urged to create a collective narrative on what Indonesia is, where it comes from and where it is heading.
As disruption caused by globalization has affected our people, who have always been diverse, the big question that we face is how to strengthen our cohesion in the face of both internal and external challenges.
In order to strengthen our national cohesion, we need to foster a sense of being one nation with one collective goal. In order to determine who we are and where we are heading, we already have agreed-upon foundations, namely Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution. Therefore, it is not an exaggeration for the cultural consensus in Yogyakarta to request the government to foster a collective narrative as the nation’s common foundation.
We urgently need to ground a collective identity, a mutual understanding and respect of our collective norms, a mutual trust, cooperation, mutual respect and to ground practices that ensure the creation of a just and prosperous society.
