Chinese Muslims in Indonesia

Only a small percentage of the ca 2% Indonesian citizens of Chinese offspring opted for Islam as a religious identity. Some say that it is only 1% of this considerable minority: from 240 million some 2% or 5 million are more or less Chinese. And so some 50.000-100.000 are Muslim.
They have a long history: some prominent Muslims of the 1930s until 1980s are Abdulkarim Oey (for whom Hamka wrote his Tasauf Moderen in 1937. The richest was definitely Haji Masagung who received so many orders from the Ministry of Religion, but besides confessing Islam also practised aspects of Javanese folk religion. He had a wonderful collection of daggers (keris) and used to clean these themselves and gave the water of the cleansing as medicine. The most active preacher was Yunus Yahya, long time leader of PITI, Persatuan Islam Tionghoa Indonesia.

On Friday 23 February Syuan-Yuan Chiou from Taiwan defended his dissertation in Utrecht in this topic. Like so many modern dissertations it was written as a series of articles and this was relevantg in this case, because the growing self-confidence of Chinese converts to Islam is not one great movements, but can be seen in many different aspects. There are some (five are described) mosques in Chinese style. The most spectacular is the new Zeng-He mosque of Surabaya. On the cover we see this recent building with a background of mountains, clouds or even snow. When we look to the black and white picture of p. 115 we see that this cover is the result of photo-shopping or alterations!

The black and white photograph belowe shows the real condition of the modest mosque (10x20 m) that is a quite impressive manifestations of the combination of Chineseness and Islam in Surabaya. There is no similar mosque in Jakarta, but some others are in Palembang, Bogor, Salatiga and Pandaan (East Java).
Chiou start his dissertation with the debate on Zeng He as Muslim admiral who travelled to the region in the period 1400-1430. The follows the practice of Salat Imlek, a short ritual prayer at Chinese New Year. It was allowed by a fatwa of the MUI, Majelis Ulama Indonesia of Yogyakarta in 2002. He has analysis of some 79 interviews and 56 conversion stories: not surprising most opt for Islam because of marriage/love affairs. He elaborates on some famous preachers who are popular among non-Chinese population. One group even sings nasheed in a Lampion (Chinese lanterns) style.

Most Chinese Muslims are from trading families and they are not religious specialists, but still earn money through trade. This could have been a good occasion to develop the theory of relation of Indoensian Islam and trade versus religious specialists: were it the Brahmans or ksatriya or rather the vaisya who brought Hinduism to Indonesia? What about the internal developments here? The theoretical sections now like to quote Pierre Bourdieu or theories about the rise of Islam in Western Europe: there must be theoretical analysis in a dissertation (or any academic book), but I like the theory to be close to the reality and not taken from absolutely different background!
You may download the dissertation soon through the programme http://igitur-archive.library.uu.nl/dissertations/2012..  Here Utrecht University makes available all its dissertations.

Just a few days before this Utrecht dissertation there was a lecture in Leiden by Wai-Weng Hew from Malaysia. He studied a similar subject and defended his thesis at ANU in Canberra in 2011. In Leiden he presented some of his results: about the mosques, the preachers and the Imlek Prayers. His work has not yet been published. I have some photographs of him, as shown above, besides Marieke Bloemberg who was the chair at the Leiden event.

Miracles

In our European country of the Netherlands it is uite suspect to talk about miracles. People easily use terminology like charlatanism and suggest that we use healthy science or go to well educated medical doctors instead of believing supernatural theories. But in modern Indonesia miracles are nearly affairs. In my present research on the history of Catholics in Indonesia,  I meet them nearly every day. One of these is a Dutch born lay brother of the SSCC order, Jan Heuts, a qualified carpenter. He orked since the 1970s in the island of Bangka and developed paranormal gifts, searching for water and providing alternative health care. No he is called Yanuarius Husada (after the Sanskrit word for medicine or Husada and is still practising his medical service for many people in Indonesia.
Another member of the SSCC order was the priest Rolf Reichenbach, of German origin, who worked in the diocese of Pangkalpinang for a long time and became a charismatic preacher and healer.
One of the best known Catholic healers is the diocesan priest from Tanimbar, Yosep Somar. He is described by anthropologist Paskalis Laksono in his book on Kei culture from a meeting in 1989. I wrote about him to John Prior and received this answer:

I met Somar many years ago. He was employed (among so many others) by Ibu Tien at the Presidential palace. I jokingly said that he has sinned against the Holy Spirit by restoring her health and not putting a knife into her husband! Yes, he was well known as a para-normal healer (using photos etc.).

But one of the most astonishing stories is about a Jesuit priests from India, James Bharataputra. Born in 1937 he came to Medan in 1972 to serve the small community of Tamil Catholics in this region (already mentioned in vol. I:30, 59, 64-5; also vol II, 333). He started to build a grandiose church in 2000. He had Tamil and Chinese sponsors in various places of Indonesia and abroad. One day he had Rp 10 million  in his room, hile staying in a friend's house (about € 1000). He had to go to Jakarta and hile travelling the room was set in fire. Everything was lost, but only the mopney was found intact among the rubble. This became known and people asked for this miraculous money and gave him more until he received much money from all kind of donators and in 2004 his Indonesian replica of the Indian place of pilgrimage Graha Maria Annai Velangkanni was finished.
The photographs here are taken from an interesting article in the academic journal Archipel (no 82, 2011) by Daniel Perret. I could not make the quality better, but in the original journal they are perfect!

So, what about miracles? In Indonesia quite a few people are still fond of spectacular stories and events, while we dream sometimes also of similar stories.

French Research on Indonesian Christians

Recently I received three publications in French on Christians in Indonesia.
The first is the special issue by the journal Histoire et Missions Chrétiennes (no 19, September 2011). It is an issue with 164 pages, edited by Marc Spindler and Karel Steenbrink (my name has been added, but most of the work was done by Marc Spindler and Paul Coulon).
The issue has the French translation of my speech in Paris, in 2008 at the invitation of Remy Madinier. Theme and title was: The Indonesian Exception. Why and how can we explain that several millions of converts from Islam came to Christianity in the island of Java between 1820-1980? It can be explained by the special character of tradional abangan Islam in Indonesia. There is an overview by Marc Spindler about the writing process of the book A History of Christianity in Indonesia. Spindler has also a quite theoretical study about the working area of church history and missionary history. Budi Subanar presents the challenges of modern Catholicism in Java.
The most interesting contribution, as to me, was by Jan Aritonang who asked himself how far the Indonesian protestant churches already have reached independence: in the field of finances (no!!), personnel (yes, but..) and theology (no!!).

(Pictures are here chosen from our last trip to Indonesia, September-October 2009. Above our hotel in Bali).

A second publication is by Remy Madinier in the journal Archipel on the history of  the Ursulin Sisters in Indonesia, 1856-1956. Much of this contribution is based on research in the Roman Archives. The Ursulin sisters were very international but for a long time French was their major language. This is about a period that I also discussed in the first two volumes of Catholics in Indonesia. Madinier could add many interesting details, that are quite easy to understand if one knows the greater story. He stops at the end of a period: the Ursulin sisters focused on Europeans and they had to move to Chinese and Indonesians in the early 1950s. They did so, although some older sisters were not able to switch to Indonesian. (I can not find the text at this moment and hope to discuss this nice article later in some more detail).

(Above a picture of the central mosque of Ambon and Mrs. Paule Steenbrink-Maas, taking off her shoes).

The most interesting contribution is clearly the chapter written by Remy Madinier in a book on the missionary endeavours in the borders of the Muslim World. 
Bernard Heyberger & Remy Madinier (eds), L'Islam des marges. Mission chrétienne et espaces périphériques du monde musulman, xvi-xxe siècles, Paris: IISMM/Karthala, 2011, 288pp.
The book has ninen major contributions: on the missionary efforst in India at the time of Akbar (ca 1550), on Syrian Druzes and Nusayris; Alevi, Kurds; the Berbers of Morocco; on Cameroun.
For me the most interesting is the contribution (231-265) by Remy Madinier on Java, 1800-1940. He starts with the difference among Protestant professional and free missionaries between strict orthodox, Dutch style Christianity (kristen londo) that asked converts to live in a European style, against Kristen Java who were allowed to continue a Javanese style of living, like circumcision, community meals or slametan, to enjoy wayang performances and many other local practices. Madinier compares the division among Muslims in a santri  and a abangan variety with this division and concludes that there are many similarities in the way of believing of the Kristen Java with the abangan. Madinier gives ample attention to Eurasian women here, like Mrs Le Jolle and Philipps (with conclusions similar to those of Th. Sumartana, without mentioning his (Mission at the Crossroads).
As to Catholic mission, Madinier gives some new material from Roman Jesuit archives: he starts with the very negative judgments by early and mid-19th century leaders like Apostolic Vicar Vrancken defines all native Javanese as Muslims and who excludes the possibility of the conversion of these persons to Catholicism. Then he turns to a quite peculiar figure, the Jesuit priest Jan Palinckx who served about 30 years as the parish priest of Yogyakarta, but worked only among Europeans and Eurasians. Palinckx attacked to thesis about a solid and monolythic Muslim confession in Java and sees more variations. This looks like an important source, also seen the thesis by Merle Ricklefs about the rise of abangan Islam in the seconds half of the 19th century.
The conflict between Hoevenaars and Van Lith (that I did not really emphasize or even elaborate in my discussion in the two volumes of Catholics in Indonesia) is for Madinier the difference between a Dutch style Catholicism (Hoevenaars) and abangan/Kristen Java or Jowo (Van Lith). This is an interesting thesis, especially when concentrating on the considerable flock of ex-Sadrach Christians who addressed Van Lith and became his first major group of baptized.
Madinier has some problems in describing the majority of converts who came through the schools, after 1904. He calls the rightly priyayi but this priyayi versus abangan idea is not so deeply elaborated. Catholicism (like Protestantism) received a modern character against Islam as old-fashioned and traditional in the first decades of the 20th century.

Madinier has nice descriptions of what he calls les acrobaties théologiques of Van Lith: even a defence of a priest who could act as a civil service official and cooperate in a divorce, in order to minimize the religious meaning of the work of the kaum or penghulu, the civil servant who officiates in the public administration rather than in religion. This is a nice piece of work! Thank you, Remy for sending me this!

Happy 2011-2012!

Dear friends, colleagues and even unknown followers of these messages on the internet: Paule Maas and Karel Steenbrink wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year for 2012. In good Indonesian tradition we express: Mohon maaf lahir batin, we do apologize for all our mistakes, blunders and offenses!

A good summary of the common condition of Dutch people at this moment was given by Paul Schnabel, director of the National Office for Monitoring of Dutch Culture: Dutch people are among the happiest of the whole world as to their personal situation, but they worry about their society. As retired people we suffered during the last year 7% degrading of our pension plan. These are the official statistics, but personally we did not really feel the effect of this decline, due to some extra income from unexpected assignments! We worry about the financial crisis and most of all about the European dream and ideals that are under have attacks from financial markets, but much from weak politics. The continuing influence of Mr Geert Wilders in Dutch politics with his outrageous slander about Islam and Muslims is a daily cause of trouble. We feel not able to counter his influence, although quite many people suggest that we should be more active in this field. The continuing stream of publications about the sexual and other offenses of Catholic orders, priests, brothers and nuns, also was a fierce attack on the integrity of religion in general. It showed once again the ambiguity and dark side of  everything of truth and beauty. There is no absolute and impeccable truth and beauty found in human life.
We are on the verge of our 70th birthday and had to hear the death of two in-laws last year and several other in our family and among close friends who experience the decline of the body and mind. Although average life expectancy rose to 81 for men and 85 for women in our society, we are conscious that we enjoy now the last full decade.

As you may grasp from the pictures, we are happy with good health. Other reports in this blog wrote about trips to Albania (March, for a Gülen/Hizmet Conference), Barcelona, Scotland and in early December we could make picture in lovely Madeira with its beautiful nature and impressive Mediterranean culture.
Also our children were healthy, busy and happy. Floris and Inge are expecting their first child in May 2012 while Stijn and Irene already celebrated the second birthday of their daughter Sophie.
Paule continued her work as editor of our family magazine Steenbrink Times and kept the family together with many reports, contacts and telephone calls, now also with messages on her iPad. Karel could see the English translation (in Hyderabad) of the Jesus Verses in the Qur'an and the Dutch publication of a commentary on the long second chapter of the Qur'an. Besides the Qur'an he continued preparation for a third volume of Catholics in Indonesia.

HAMKA, the Japanese occupation and fight against the Dutch in Qur'an 2:243

In June this year I published a book together with Gé Speelman, a colleague at the Kampen School of Theology. In the academic year 209-2010 I gave a course on intercultural theology in Kampen (replacement for Volker Kuester). Speelman suggested that we write a book on reasfing the Qur'an. She wrote the introduction, while I contributed a commentary on sura 2, Al Baqara, under the titel Een Kleine Koran (a Little Qur'an). I had given courses for HOVO, lectures for retired or 'senior' people. This autumn I resumed these courses in Tilburg and Doetinchem.
While working on the last section I read different interpretation of Qur'an 2:243:
Are you not aware of those who forsook their homeland in their thousands for fear of death, whereupon God said to them: 'Die' and later brought them back to life?
Who are these people? Paret here follows the 'Jewish' interpretation of Speyer and sees a reference to Ezechiel 37 in reference to the Jews who went in exile around 550 BCE.
Muhammad Asad follows here Abduh who rejects any effort to identify the historicity of the people: 'the commentators are most contradictory'.  Sayyid Qutb referes to his earlier references of the Children of Israel and has a vague indication that 'some Muslim generations will be going through situations similar to those experienced by the Israelites'. Was he referring to the Meccans who he to flee to Medina? There is no outspoken reference to Palestians here, although I expected this to find here.

A quite different interpretation is given by HAMKA in his Tafsir al Azhar.
My translation follows here:
We have experienced the time of change, especially the trabsition of the fall of the government of the Dutch-Indies and the arrival of the Japanese army can be read here in this verse. We have seen ourselves, at the time of the fall of Singapore, that the spirit of the Dutch army collapsed and the Dutch who were always so arrogant in our country of Indonesia and who considered themselves as the owners of the land and who hated to true owners of this cuntry, lost their confidence and they delivered their arms without defending themselves. At the moment thousands of people fled their houses and villages and in rows they fled for fear of death. First of all it were the Dutch citizens and the army of the Dutch Indies, but also the original population followed for fear of death. They came out of their houses, not to fight and defend themselves, but fled to save their lives. At that time we heard for the first time the word evacuation, a word that we write as epakuasi in the meaning of flee or run away! [...] The Japanese army entered and the Dutch flag was no longer hoisted, because their power had gone, and instead the Japanese flag was hoisted. The Dutch Governor General was no longer in his palace bu in prison. No power was given to Saiko Sikikan, the highest Japanese authority .. We introduce here this comparison, because many of our readers experienced this period and are themselves witness of it. So, they can easier understand out interpretation of this verse.
The Dutch government collapsed after it was allowed to live by God during 350 years. After the death of the governments of the Indonesian tribes there was the rise of the Dutch power. 
In this style HAMKA continues his interpretationfrom page 338 until343! During a long period the Indonesian kingdoms or sultanates were dead, only living somewhat in the memory of the people (namun mereka terus hidup dalam kenangan). After the fall of the Japanese, the Dutch tried to return, but then there was a Holy War, Sabilillah and it was a personal duty for all Indonesians to join fughting the Dutch , Maka sepakat ahli Fiqhi menyatakan bahwa apabila musuh telah masuk kedalam negeri orang Islam, menjadi fardhu-'ain-lah berperang pada waktu itu.

Pilgrimage and the political/economic aspects of religion

Snouck Hurgronje wrote in 1880 a dissertation on the Muslim pilgrimage of Mecca, the hajj. He constructed the theory that the hajj is one of the main four signs of the compromise between the Meccan Prophet and the Medina Politician. In Medina Muhammad could really see his community grow, but in order to win over the elite of Mecca 'the prophet had to make some compromises with the politician'. The major one for Snouck is the greater and modified role of Abraham as the first Muslim and the first Meccan prophet. Additional there was the change in direction of prayer (instead of the Jewish-Christian direction of Jerusalem), the qiblah, the move towards Ramadan as the month of fasting (instead of the Jewish 10th of Shura?) and finally the inclusion of the Meccan pilgrimage into the new religion of Islam. So, it were political reason, besides a reformed religious motivation, that put the hajj in Islam.
The hajj has been always of great political and economic importance in Islam. The Dutch Three Sisters (steamer companies) earned much money with this religious devotion. In 2006 Said Agil Munawar (minister of religion of Indonesia between 2001-4) was sent to jail because of embezzlement, among others with the money involved in the organization of the Meccan pilgrimage.
Recently also among Christians in Indonesia pilgrimage has become popular and important. It started with the Catholics and their tours to Europe: Rome, Lourdes, Fatima, Medjugorje, besides Paris and Amsterdam are popular destinations. Protestants prefer Palestine and the modern territory of Israel to visit 'their' holy land.
Fredrik Doeka, in September 2011 doctor in Utrecht on a dissertation about the man who never came to Israel, Moses, wrote a typical protestant article, doubting whether there is real 'holy land': no places of pilgrimage are without debate and the trip itself is often subject of corruption, entertainment rather than devotion. Read his spicy article in Sinar Harapan:

http://www.sinarharapan.co.id/content/read/betulkah-jerusalem-tanah-suci/

 I was born in a Catholic family with a mother who loved all kind of pilgrimage: she did not like crowded services in big churches with complicated liturgies, but rather wanted to visit small places with statues of Mary, Joseph, Saint Anthony or other popular saints. She did not bother so much about all the business surrounding the pilgrimage: she like the souvernir shops of Lourdes with their booklets, statues and images. Also these people have to earn their money and pilgrimage may be a mixture of religion and business. This is not the style of our austern and serious young doctor from Kupang. Doeka reasd the Qur'an and Jewish scripture and concludes that it is not all praise for Jerusalem, but also strict defamations. Therefore Israel in general or Jerusalem more specifically is not per se a sacred place or holy land. Doeka also blames the modern business among Protestants: apparently the new president of the Synod of GMIT, the Timorese Evangelical Protestant Church, is quite active in the business of religious travelling. He initiated short after his election to his function, a trip of quite a few Protestant minister of Timor to the Holy Land. The journey is partly supported by one of the candidates to become mayor of Kupang: in order to secure his election this candidate has paid the ticket for a nice number of minister and their partners. In this way the pilgrimage has become business as usual again. Is this old or new tradition in Timor? For me, it is definitely an old mixture of religion and politics, of the serious and some entertainment. I wish all travellers a nice, profitable and pious trip!

Religious Freedom discussed in Brussels

On 13 October 2011 a meeting was organised in Brussels by the Polish Presidency of the European Community, COMECE (the office of the European Bishops at the EU) and the Indonesian Embassy. Major guests was a small delegation of three guests from Indonesia: Prof. Atho Mudzhar, between 2002-2010 Head of the Research and Development Section of the Ministry of Religion, now teaching the UIN, Universitas Islam Negeri Syarif Hidyataullah of Jakarta (where he shares a room with our old friend Husni Rahim). Second was Prof. Margaretha Hendriks, former president of the Synod of the Moluccan Protestant Church and now Dean of Theology at the Christian University in Ambon. Third was Dr. Toni Wanggai, Nahdlatul Ulama head in Papua and also rector of the Papua Branch of the UIN Jakarta.

Topic of the discussion was the Freedom of Religion as enshrined in the Indonesian Constitution. I was invited to give a first talk of some 30 minutes. I stressed that religion or belief in God is mentioned twice in the 1945 Constitution. First it is mentioned in the preamble where (belief in) the Unique Supreme Deity (Ketuhanan yang Maha Esa is mentioned as one of the five pillar or Pancasila of the Indonesian nation. We must understand this formula as a rejection of Islam or sharia: no Islamic State but also no secular state. Instead, Indonesia considers religion/spirituality, personal belief in God as a positive aspect of society, without binding this to one concrete religion. Further, in article 29 individual freedom of religion and faith is firmly guaranteed. In its implementation these principles were still quite broad in the Soekarno period (1945-65) when Pancasila was even considered as compatible with Communism. But after 1965 religions, especially the 'big five' have gained more status and it has become more or less necessary for Indonesians to formally become member of one of these five religions. No marriage is possible without this and even no identity card can be obtained in practice. Various implementations of freedom of religion can be discussed as recent issues. I mentioned the 2003 Law of Education where it is stipulated that children must receive religious education according to their (and their parents') religion. The Catholics have finally accepted this rule as in line with the religious tolerance as [preached by Vatican II and here I quote Prof. Magnis Suseno who publicly defended this position. More problems are related to the two decrees of 2006 where at the level of provinces and districts Committees for Religious Harmony or FKUB (Forum Kerukunan Ummat Beragama) are instituted which have authority in permits for religious buildings. The definition of religious buildings is quite complicated. I quote my text: The FKUB must issue permits for the construction of new places of worship with the condition that at least 60 adherents in a village or district of a city must support this house of worship. The village head must warrant this number of 60 adherents. Also a recommendation of FKUB at district level must be issued for each new place of worship. In the subsequent debate it was emphasised that Protestants with their large number of different denominations were in a difficult position as well as other minority religions, because a majority could obstruct the opening of new places of worship. Besides, the definition of houses of worship is not clear. Many Catholics come together in small groups in private houses to pray the rosary, to have meetings of Basic Ecclesial Communities, for choir rehearsals or just to prepare for Sunday Mass: are such meetings to be considered as worship and so the garage of a private house to be seen as an illegal house of worship? Militant Muslim groups, especially FPI, Forum Pembela Islam or the Muslim Defence Front, have set private houses on fire in Jakarta and West Java with these accusations.

In her reaction Mrs. Hendriks emphasized the problem of the many Protestant denominations that she finds `annoying` also in her region because so many different churches are now under construction. Atho Mudzhar explained that there are two terminologies: rumah ibadah of Houses of Worship for the larger buildings that need officials permits (mosques, churches), while the smaller ones tempat ibadah or places of worship (musalla, kapela) do not need special permits, because they are only used by one family or just a small neighbourhood. Two suggestions for control of interreligious conflicts were suggested: the most important is a clean and effective police force, free from corruption and really intended to protect citizens. This was discussed related to the attacks on members of the Ahmadiyya movement who until 2008 could live quite peacefully during more than seven decades in West-Java but then were attacked by 'Muslim' gangs. Another suggestion was a decrease in the importance of religion in general: The public role of religion increased dramatically in the New Order period after 1965. Here also the possibility of inter-religious conflicts arose, especially in the turbulent era preceding the fall of President Suharto continuing during the first decade after his resignation. Dr. Mujiburrahman, a lecturer at the State Academy of Islamic Studies in Banjarmasin, wrote a doctoral dissertation on this process at Utrecht University under the title Feeling Threatened. He analyzed the fear of Muslims towards Kristenisasi, loosing Muslim dominated territories to growing numbers of Christians, while the Christian minority fears that they will lose freedom to express their religion in regular churches, and that they will have to dress and live in an Muslim way as in a quasi Muslim state.

In 1996 the Catholic priest, architect, novelist and social activist Y.B. Mangunwijaya made an odd statement about the condition of his country. In his opinion there is ‘too much religion in Indonesia’. Beginning with his own Catholic Church, he complained that it is much too concentrated on its internal affairs, on its own community and also on its position in society. Here we may think about the slogan of Ignatius Kasimo, founder of the Catholic Party who always stressed that the Catholic Party was not founded to support and strengthen the condition of the Catholics alone, but for the bonum commune, the common prosperity of the whole nation. Many observers, both Muslims like members of the Liberal Network, Jaringan Islam Liberal as well as non-Muslims feel that during the last decade sometimes a narrower interpretation of the broad and inspiring formula of the 1945 Constitution has gain political backing. I am struck how the view of JIL is parallel to that of Soekarno. These Muslim liberals state that creed and cult belong to the private sphere, the concern of individuals only where the State must not interfere, while religion's ethical and civilising role belongs to the public sphere in open debate. Soekarno wrote letters from exile in Ende, Flores, back in the 1930s stating precisely this. Sure, Sukarno was "instrumentalising" Islam; but his "theology" is interesting too. And We should consider Soekarno as the main interpreter of Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution. In the 1980s, while I was teaching at the State Institute of Islamic Studies Syarif Hidayatullah in Jakarta, my rector, Prof. Harun Nasution wrote a quite challenging small book on ‘Reason and Revelation in Islam’. He analysed the question ‘Are all aspects of life and all knowledge to be found in the Qur’an?’ Nasution stated bluntly that the Qur’an does not provide us with a clear system for political and economic life. Again and again the Qur’an repeats sentences like ‘there is in nature a sign for people who reflect’ (la ayat li kaumin yatafakkarūn, Q. 16:69; also 42:12-13). There is a modest role for religion in worship, in ethics, but in many fields human beings have to find their own way. We should respect but not exaggerate the role of religions. Even more: we should not be blind to the negative side that is also included in the practice of religion.

At the end of the formal exchange of ideas (which lasted from 9/11.30AM) the issue of Blasphemy Laws was discussed. Apparently there had been some debate about the Law of 1965 again last summer, but we did not really go deep into this issue under this label. After the formal session there was a lunch between 12.30-14.30, in fact a second more informal session where more personal exchange was possible. This is a very nice protocol in the diplomatic life of Brussels. After the meeting I asked myself about the real meaning of such event. The three Indonesians had arrived on Wednesday 12, but left one day before. They were planning to return on the 15th. Just for a meeting of some 5-6 hours. The ambassador stressed that Europe is important for Indonesia: to have bigger export quota, to remove Indonesia from a black list as an attachment to the Schengen agreement. In the discussions it became clear that Freedom of Rewligion is only part of a large social process an d that it should not be discussed too isolated. Anyhow, for me it was a special experience, not talking with academics, but in a political environment; not about the processes of the past that created the present, but to talk with politicians about what is good for the next future.