After the Yogyakarta Agreement, Then What?

We need to closely watch the "reciprocal shouts” between religious and cultural leaders and Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin about the important religious and cultural relations.

Last Saturday (3/11/2018), a number of religious and cultural figures met and declared the “Yogyakarta Agreement” in Omah Tembi, Tembi village, Timbulharjo, Sewon, Bantul, Yogyakarta. The agreement was issued as a form of joint concern on frictions which frequently happen in the grass root community lately. The recent rejection, even vandalism, against the sea ritual in Bantul and Gandrung Sewu Festival in Banyuwangi, is only two examples how the frictions happened.

The essence of the “Yogyakarta Agreement” is an invitation to all components of the nation to make radical changes, to return to the real identity of the nation on the way to think, feel, behave, or act in the name of religion and culture. The “migration” to the roots is important to do at a time when disruptions happen in all levels of lives, including in practicing religion.

The agreement, which was read by cultural observer Radhar Panca Dahana, reminds the importance of actualizing again the honorable values which have been inherited by the ancestors of the Indonesian nation, including to live in diversity, do mutual cooperation, be polite, love each other, and always be open to receive pluralism. The segregation of the community, which is increasingly divided, has forgotten those honorable values.

The idea has got warm response. The invitation by the religious and cultural figures was responded by Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin, whose essence of the message was later spread through Letter to the Editor section (Kompas, 6/11/2018). Lukman emphasized that religion and culture should not necessarily be set in opposition.

The history of religions is always overlapping, walking side by side with the development of cultures where religions were born and are developing. The harmony between religions and cultures have given birth to the civilization. Lukaman also agreed to evaluate the management of the religion education so as to make it more synergistic and harmonious with the cultural development.

What is wrong?

Then, why in reality there is still friction in the field between those who claim to be executing the religious teachings and others who are carrying out cultural rituals? The cultural diversity and also our capability to manage it has got very good admiration from the other part of the world, but why a part of us themselves want to damage and destroy it? Why does individual piety shown in the religious spirit not manifest into social piety?

I am a bit worried that the current deterioration of religious and cultural relations is caused by the fact that a part of the "composition" of religious education material intake has not been proportional. A survey by the Center for Islamic and Community Studies (PPIM) at Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University in Jakarta, at the end of 2017, released that only 31.36 percent of moral material was taught

in religious education in schools, while 63.47 percent consists religious, piety and worship material. It means that the portion of religious material to form social piety is far below the material to form individual piety.

As a result, religion is increasingly comprehended and oriented to for piety which is inward looking, intolerant, having the tendency to be conservative, and having less projection to form a joint civilization. Muslim Scholar Amin Abdullah said that this phenomenon is a reflection of disruption in the religious field. The time is changing rapidly, but the relevant and contextual religious interpretations have not been as rapidly as the changes.

This is not a matter of which is more important, faith material or social morality, because the two are actually like the two side of money which cannot be separated. We only have to be aware that when religion has been present in the social practice, the universal moral values will increasingly become measure for someone’s piety.

Our cultural strategy

One day after the meeting of the religious and cultural figures, which was sponsored by the Religious Affairs Ministry, and then gave birth to the “Yogyakarta Agreement”, I attended the Indonesian Culture Pre-Congress which was held by the Education and Culture Ministry in Jakarta. The congress itself will only be held in December this year.

Even though it still help separately, I see that the initiative of the Religious Affairs Ministry to facilitate the meeting between the religious and cultural figures, who are restless about the current relation between religion and culture, and the program of the Education and Culture Ministry to hold the culture congress, to have a link and momentum which is very important to be further encouraged and followed up.

The meeting between the religious and cultural figures should not end simply on the agreement. The Religious Affairs Ministry is expected to encourage cultural development which always appreciates the principal values of religion and the religious development should not destroy the cultural diversity, and should also be interpreted as a part of the Indonesian cultural strategy, which will be formulated as a road map of the Indonesian culture for the next 20 years.

Both the Religious Affairs Ministry and Education and Culture Ministry have to jointly strengthen their commitments to implement a religious and cultural education model, which can lead Indonesian children to have confidence on equality, not Indonesian children, who by John A Titaley, is said to have a “golden children syndrome”, feel to be the most correct so that they act discriminatively on any different religious interpretations.

Regardless whether agree or not, we express concern over the findings in the recent national survey by PPIM UIN Jakarta, which indicated that 56 percent of teachers in the Religious Affairs Ministry and Education and Culture Ministry have intolerant religious views.

Possibly this is the right time for us to jointly form a model and strategy of religious and cultural education that is more open, dialogical, not just memorizing. However, it should be more substantive, and does not negate diversity because diversity is a gift from God that we must be grateful for.

We must be able to "reconcile" religion and culture! (Oman Fathurahman, Professor, FAH Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University Jakarta; Expert Staff of the Religious Affairs Minister)