Indonesia’s Rising Religious Intolerance Survey, HTI Spokesman: “Silly, If Feeling of Discomfort is Misconstrued as Being Intolerant”

HTI-Press. Jakarta. A survey conducted in Indonesia concluded that religious intolerance is on the rise, apparently due to the rising feeling of discomfort of communities that live with neighbours  following different religions or sexual orientations. It is a silly conclusion, says the spokesman of Hizb ut-Tahrir Indonesia, Muhammad Ismail Yusanto,

“So, this is silly. Its methodology as well as its structure of the conclusion is also silly”, he said to mediaumat.com, on Monday (22/10) in Jakarta.

It is silly, because the survey jumps to a conclusion. “How can they conclude the feeling of discomfort as intolerance?” he asked.

According to Ismail, the feeling of discomfort arises due to the lack of conformity to people’s mindset, culture and lifestyle. Therefore, this is something natural that people feel more comfortable amidst people with the similar ideas and fit in either with their culture and lifestyle. Likewise, people will feel uncomfortable with someone whose ideas, culture and lifestyle are contrary to theirs.

This, he adds, cannot be directly related to intolerant attitudes, because being tolerant refers to people’s willingness to accept different circumstances in the environment or to be together with other people. So, when people are asked whether they feel comfortable living with the non-Muslims, they probably will answer that it is more comfortable to live with fellow Muslim neighbors. It means that they feel uncomfortable to live with the non-Muslims. “But it does not mean that they are intolerant. The reason is that when they know that their neighbors are non-Muslim, they can understand the fact and co-exist with the non-Muslims, “he said.

Ismail also questions the logic which makes a sudden jump to the conclusion, as it appears that the conclusion had already been formulated before the survey was conducted. “So, this is a research that shows the urgent wish of the organizer to promote the conclusion of the rising intolerance. It is not news if the conclusion is a declining trend,” he said further.

In relation to the increasing level of violence, Ismail commented that there are many factors leading toviolence conducted in the name of religions. Generally, this happens because the state apparatus is not firm in its actions.

“How can we draw the conclusions of the religion-based violence as intolerance? In fact, what happens is that the state apparatus does not deal with those who insult the religion firmly, such as in the case of the Ahmadis, “he uttered.

If the apparatus immediately act against those who insult the religion, people will certainly not take direct actions. However, since the problems are left unsolved, finally there are some who take shortcuts because they no longer bear to see their religion being insulted.

“Well, something like this is often called intolerance. So, isn’t the so called tolerance means not dealing with those who insult religion? Isn’t that the logic behind it? ” he asked rhetorically.

Recently, the Indonesian Survey Circle (LSI) and Denny JA Foundation released the results of a survey that shows increasing level of intolerance compared to last year due to the increasing discomfort of neighbors of different religions (from 8.2 to 15.1 percent), Shiites adherents (from 26.7 to 41.8 percent), Ahmadiyah adherents (from 39.1 percent to 46.6 percent), and LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender) community (from 64.7 percent to 80.6 percent).

In addition, the results also relate the increasing level of violence in the community as a way to uphold the principles of religion. In 2005, the use of violence was only accepted by 9.8 percent of the respondents compared to 24 percent in 2012. [] JP/RZ