2ND SINGAPORE GRADUATE FORUM ON SOUTHEAST ASIA STUDIES

Organized by Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore 26 27 July 2007

Can Those With Ambiguously Defined Religious Identities Engage in Interfaith Dialogue? A Case Study of a Grassroots Interfaith Empowerment Program in East Java, Indonesia
Siti Sarah MUWAHIDAH
Asia Research Institute ASEAN Graduate Student Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia sitisarahm@gmail.com

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2nd Singapore Graduate Forum on Southeast Asia Studies Organized by Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore (26 27 July 2007)

Can Those With Ambiguously Defined Religious Identities Engage in Interfaith Dialogue? A Case Study of a Grassroots Interfaith Empowerment Program in East Java, Indonesia1

Abstract Interfaith dialogue is commonly used in building peace and understanding among religious groups. Swidler (2000) claims the interreligious project cannot be carried out only by scholars and leaders of the world religions; the ideas and concerns of the grassroots communities must also be voiced and heard. Such a project must work on all three levels-scholars, leaders, and grassroots-or it will not work at all. I will present findings of my fieldwork in a small village in East Java, Indonesia where land authority problems became a common ground for conducting interfaith cooperation. I observed interfaith empowerment efforts led by a group of Catholic activists and students who arrived in 1997, which successfully supported the villagers in claiming their land. According to Knitter (1995), the grassroots interfaith cooperation will necessarily be followed by interfaith dialogue. My general finding is that in communities that have a lack of knowledge of their own particular religions, the subsequent dialogue may take other forms, which are different from that of Knitter's description. This leads to the question, Can such a dialogue be claimed as an interfaith dialogue? What constitutes an interfaith dialogue in such a community? Does this particular community need such an interfaith dialogue?

The term interreligious or interfaith dialogue is commonly understood as a cooperative and positive interaction between people of different religious traditions (i.e., faiths), at both the individual and institutional level, mostly with the aim of deriving a common ground in belief through a concentration on similarities between faiths. Several scholars have stressed the importance of interfaith dialogue in building peace and understanding among religious groups. Hans Kng argues that interfaith dialogue has to be fostered at the level of the community, and deal with concrete problems, not only with philosophical, theological or theoretical textual exegesis. 2 Leonard Swidler claims the interreligious project cannot be carried out only by scholars and leaders of the world religions; the ideas and concerns of the grassroots communities must also be voiced and heard.3 Such a project must work on all three levels-scholars, leaders, and grassroots-or it will not work at all. Anton Kozlovic recommended further research into grassroots dialogue praxis.4 In this paper, I present my observations and findings on an interfaith program at the grassroots level. The data in this paper is based on my fieldwork in Banyu Urip, a small village in East Java, Indonesia. The significance of my research is the observation of factors that contributed to an interfaith cooperation that was not followed by a

Part of this paper will be published in Political Theology Journal , 2008. Hans Kng, Global Responsibility : In Search of a New World Ethic (New York: Crossroad Pub. Co., 1991), 158. 3 Leonard J. Swidler and Paul Mojzes, The Study of Religion in an Age of Global Dialogue (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000), 229. 4 Anton K. Kozlovic, "Three Tactics for Encouraging Newer Faiths to Participate in Interreligious Dialoguing," http://www.quodlibet.net/kozlovic-dialogue.shtml.
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mainstream interfaith dialogue, particularly as the people engaged in the program have a limitation in articulating their religious identity. A prominent scholar in interfaith dialogue, Paul Knitter, explained that grassroots interfaith dialogue starts with a discussion of common problems in a local community, which leads to interfaith cooperation among the different religious adherents of the community, and is finally followed by dialogue about their own particular religions.5 The remaining question is, however, if part of a grassroots community itself only claims a religion on the nominal level, and consequently lacks in-depth knowledge about this religion, can interfaith cooperation between these two proximal faith communities bring them to such a deeper dialogue? Can such an enterprise be claimed as an interfaith dialogue? What constitutes an interfaith dialogue in that kind of community? Does this particular community need such an interfaith dialogue? BANYU URIP: BACKGROUND AND PROBLEMS Banyu Urip village is located in a remote area, quite far from any center of economic and political administration. Most villagers of Banyu Urip are poor farmers who only received their legal right to the land in 2001. The origin of this village can be traced to 1922, when a Chinese merchant converted the forestland to agricultural land and started cultivating cassavas. People from surrounding villages then started coming and expanding the land, for about ten years, until the Dutch occupied this area. At that time, land tenure became a major problem: the earlier farmers were subdued by a Dutch landlord since the legal authority for using the land belonged to him.6 This problem later became the unifying ground for interfaith cooperation in this area. In the Banyu Urip community, most of the members have weak religious backgrounds. Most of the villagers would acknowledge themselves as nominal religious adherents. The main reason they claim any religion is to comply with Indonesian laws that mandated all citizens choose one of the five formal religions.7 The first tenet of Indonesias national doctrine, Pancasila, is the belief in a supreme God, thus atheism is prohibited. Furthermore, the Ministry of Religious Affairs in Indonesia extended official status to only five faiths: Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Religious organizations other than the five recognized faiths were able to register with the Government, but only with the State Ministry for Culture and Tourism, and only as social organizations.8 Before 1965, the only formal religion that existed in Banyu Urip was Islam. There was no mosque at that time; the Jumat prayer and other communal prayers were conducted in the houses of the villagers. Some villagers, including the Muslim ones, preferred to do meditation (nepi/semedi) in order to be close to the Ultimate: this practice of Javanese mysticism is recognized as an element of kejawen9 or Javanism.
Paul F. Knitter, One Earth, Many Religions : Multifaith Dialogue and Global Responsibility (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1995), 218. 6 Based on interviews and observations that were conducted and documented by the activists of the interfaith program in 1999-2000. 7 The current Indonesian government has changed this law. In early 2006, Confucianism became the sixth religion to be officially acknowledged by the government. 8 However, not all religious organizations were approved to be registered by government ("Indonesia Annual International Religious Freedom 2003," (the Bureau of Democracy Human Rights and Labor, 2003)). 9 According to Beatty the term kejawen -- if it includes Geertzs culture of priyayi and abangan -implies an emphasis on the pre-islamic inheritance, or at least what is taken to be such. (Andrew Beatty, Varieties of Javanese Religion, vol. 111, Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology (1999), 29). For Woodward the popular and mystical form of Javanese Religion is an adaptation of Islamic Sufism (Mark R. Woodward and Studies Association for Asian, Islam in Java : Normative Piety and Mysticism in the Sultanate of Yogyakarta, vol. 45, The Association for Asian Draft Copy Not to be Quoted Without Permission from the Author 3
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However, Javanism has been restricted since the collapse of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). According to Mortimer (1972), the supporters of the PKI were to be found among the poor peasants, especially those who were kejawen followers. The influence of the Communist Party had also reached Banyu Urip. I could not get specific information concerning the penetration of the Party there since the existing villagers resist talking about this dark age. Some people admitted that there had been banners and graffiti of the Barisan Tani Indonesia (BTI), a peasant organization affiliated with PKI. The common explanation is that some villagers got involved in BTI because they were invited to do so, without any thorough understanding of the political position of this organization. In the early 1960s, PKI became more popular among the peasants since it proposed land reform laws, including land distribution and crop-sharing regulations that would benefit them.10 This party also pushed the local government to implement the Basic Agrarian Law (1960) that required state officials to redistribute and re-register the land. Indeed, in the meantime, authority over Banyu Urip land was uncertain; no one had legally controlled the land since the end of colonialism. According to recent law, the local government was responsible for the redistribution of the land.11 In fact, the local government (pemerintah kabupaten)12 took over control of Banyu Urip land arbitrarily. Therefore, although the current villagers of Banyu Urip did not want to explicate the reason behind their past affiliation with BTI, I assume that some of them were aware of the land reform issues that gave them the possibility of claiming authority of this land. By the end of 1965, sweeping arrests and executions of people affiliated with the PKI took place in Java, Bali and Sumatera.13 It was said that some PKI activists were hiding around Banyu Urip. A number of villagers had also been accused of being PKI members; some of them were killed in a massacre in the river nearby the village. The conditions at that time were frightening and rather chaotic, since there were so many rumors and random accusations which raised distrust among the villagers. They did not even know who killed whom. Some villagers became the executioners while others were executed. Rex Mortimer recorded the significant involvement of devout Muslims in the execution of people who were accused as communists in East Java: most of them were peasants. This tragic time became a traumatic memory for all villagers; this negatively influenced their trust in other people, especially outsiders.14 In 1967, a Catholic missionary came to Banyu Urip and recruited villagers to be Christians. One villager claimed about ninety percent of the neighborhood converted to Christianity. Though, in this case, Christian proselytizing was led by a local missionary, mass conversion to Christianity occurred broadly in Java. In the meantime, the New
Studies Monograph (Tucson: Published for the Association for Asian Studies by the University of Arizona Press, 1989), 311). 10 Rex Mortimer, The Indonesian Communist Party and Land Reform, 1959-1965, vol. 1, Monash Papers on Southeast Asia (Clayton, Vic: Centre of Southeast Asian Studies Monash University, 1972),73. 11 The Basic Agrarian Law, enacted on 24th September 1960, compromises two important alterations of the previously valid old Netherlands Indies agrarian legislation of 1870. For one thing, it canceled the old land registration, titling laws and regulations which were subsumed under the erfpacht rights (Ulrich Lffler, "0rw1s34rfesdcfkexd09rt0 Land Tenure Developments in Indonesia: Executive Summary 1rw1s34rfesdcfkexd09rt0 Summary," http://www.mekonginfo.org/mrc/html/loeffler/loe_summ.htm.). Actually, after the end of erfpacht the control of the land went to the state, after which the government should have distributed the landownership to the local villagers who had been living in that area.

Pemerintah kabupaten is the local government that is responsible to a kabupaten, which is a city-sized territory. 13 Some estimates put the number of deaths at several hundreds of thousands 14 Mortimer, The Indonesian Communist Party and Land Reform, 1959-1965, 73.
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Order government declared their recognition of only five formal religions, meaning restriction of the other existing beliefs; in addition, the anti-atheist attitudes of the anticommunist movement raised the importance of converting to a formal religion. Robert Hefner wrote that, upset by Muslim participation in the anticommunist massacres, some three percent of ethnic Javanese converted to Hinduism or Christianity in the first year of the new order.15 Less than a year later, in 1968, the military came, ordered the Banyu Urip villagers to re-convert to Islam and then trained them to read the Quran, pray and build mosques. In the end, however, a small percentage of Banyu Urip villagers remained Christians. Hefner recorded that, during 1967-1971, the departments of religion, education and the interior sponsored a series of programs for cultural building up (pembinaan) in which ex-PKI strongholds, purged of their communal cadres, were targeted for religious indoctrination.16 Donald Porter confirmed the military involvement in this ideological guidance program as part of a communist rehabilitation project.17 The revival of formal religious practices, both in the Muslim and the Christian community, temporarily occurred during the military supervision and the Christian missionary presence. Nevertheless, this revival declined as the military left the village, and the Christian community also lost some of their adherents when the local Christian teacher moved to another island. Currently, most of the oldest villagers (60-70 years old) still perform Javanese religious rituals. While many of the younger villagers (15-30 years) do not claim kejawen, they still attend the slametan18even though they are slightly more familiar with Catholic and Islamic religious ceremonies and teachings.19 In fact, most of the people only attend religious ceremonies during major holidays. Most Muslims do not pray five times a day nor fast during Ramadhan, and most Christians do not go to the church every Sunday or read the Bible. In 2005, about fifteen percent of the villagers in Banyu Urip were Christians (Catholic) and the rest were Muslims. Nevertheless, most Muslims and Christians do believe that every religion worships the same God; diverse religions are seen as different paths to this one, ubiquitous God. I assume that the inclusive belief- that they share the same God- is influenced by kejawen mysticism.20 This fact makes me refer to some of them as people who have ambiguously defined religious identities. Notwithstanding how family kinship and Javanese belief reduced the difference between religious groups, differential treatment was a main issue that triggered tension between these groups. The problems stemmed from two different sources: first from outside missionary aid which favored Catholic adherents, thereby breeding jealousy among community members; second, from a Muslim religious leader, Sutiyoso, who was Robert W. Hefner, Civil Islam, Princeton Studies in Muslim Politics (2000), 18. ibid.,80. 17 Donald J. Porter, Managing Politics and Islam in Indonesia (London ; New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002), 264.
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Slametan is a communal ritual; it is often conducted as a ceremonial meal consisting of offerings, symbolic foods, a formal speech and prayer. Slametan is considered to be the core of Javanese religion. Though it is said that slametan is a symbol of syncretism between Islam and local tradition, in practice, the attendees of slametan come from any religious background (Clifford Geertz, The Religion of Java, A Phoenix Book ; P658 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976),392., Beatty, Varieties of Javanese Religion, 272). 19 Most of the young villagers believe in God, but they easily convert to another religion if it is required, for instance when they get married, or when they work in an Islamic country (Malaysia). They also rarely do their daily religious ritual. 20 In this case, most people of Banyu Urip no longer consider kejawen as a religion, but as a traditional belief system; a distinction which originates in the Indonesian constitution. Draft Copy Not to be Quoted Without Permission from the Author 5

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used by the government to control the people. The overlapping role of Sutiyoso as both unofficial liaison between the government and plantation owners on the one side and the villagers on the other, 21 as well as Muslim marriage officer (modin), led to implicit discrimination against Catholics in interreligious marriage requirements. THE INTERFAITH EMPOWERMENT PROGRAM In 1997, several Catholic activists and students visited Banyu Urip. The poor economic, social and political conditions of the village motivated some activists to conduct an empowerment program for the villagers. Since one of the main problems in this area is land reform -- there is conflict between the villagers and the government concerning land tenure -- the activists then facilitated villagers in organizing a farmer group and land reform movement. The different religious backgrounds among the farmers who were involved in this action made this cooperation the first interfaith program in the area. Furthermore, though at that time the activists were not familiar with the terms interfaith dialogue or interfaith cooperation, they were aware of the importance of maintaining interreligious solidarity, as well as avoiding the dominance of one religion which characterized the earlier missionary programs that disturbed the social harmony of the village. In the beginning (mid 1998), it had been very hard to convince the villagers to become involved in the farmers movement. Earlier efforts in claiming the land had always been followed by accusations of communism. With such a traumatic history, most villagers rarely trust outsiders; land tenure seemed to be a taboo issue for them. However, after a while, the number of villagers who wanted to join this movement increased. Presumably, having a priest as a leader of this cooperation eroded the communist stereotype of the land reform movement. This removed the villagers fear of that kind of stigma. On the other hand, the existence of the priest seemed inevitably to comfort the Christians more than the Muslims. Preliminarily, the Christians seemed to be more involved in this movement, but in the end Muslims and Christians struggled together for their common rights. The effort to unify all existing religions in such a movement is necessary. The activists tried to balance the power of both religious groups from the very beginning of this action. Therefore, the agreements created during this program were accepted by most villagers, even on sensitive issues such as mapping land distribution, and counting land redistribution fees, as well as the settlement of public and religious buildings. Knitter has said that maintaining interreligious aspects of a (voluntary) community is a way of preventing the abuse of religion. 22 He quoted Michael Amaladdoss warning of the exploitation of religion for particular political interests, called communalism, in India: It seems advisable that we do not have political groupings based on a particular religious identity in a multireligious community. Politics and religion are a dangerous mixture that we can do without in India.23 The interfaith cooperation in Banyu Urip successfully supported the villagers in claiming their land in 2001. However, on the other hand, it also created interreligious tension since the land reform movement, which was led by the priest, was rejected by the modin, the most powerful Muslim leader in that village. The success of this program was followed by the decline of influence of the modin, consequently changing the power equation in that area.
The plantation owner built a good relationship with the Modin who helped him against the villagers/farmers movement to claim their land. 22 Knitter, One Earth, Many Religions : Multifaith Dialogue and Global Responsibility,145. 23 Michael Amaladdoss 1992, Liberation as an Interreligious Project. In Leave The Temple: Indian Path to Human Liberation. Ed. Felix Wilfred. (New York: Orbis Book, 1992), 169 in ibid.,145. Draft Copy Not to be Quoted Without Permission from the Author 6
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The Catholic activists together with Muslim activists from another organization built a non-profit organization in 2004, and expanded their work area. Currently, they manage a new formal interfaith program that deals with issues of land reform, education, peace building and good governance. This program also was conducted in Banyu Urip, as a continuation of the earlier interfaith cooperation. The activists awareness about the complex mix of formal religion, Javanese religion, government obligation, and military pressure, that had influenced the religiosity of the villagers made them careful to allow the villagers set their own religious identity. Thus, the current interfaith program does not impose religion-talk in the dialogue. They merely try to conduct a stable interreligious relationship, promote religious solidarity, and try to reduce missionary action in that area as well as empower the villagers in social, economic and political spheres. DISCUSSION The interfaith program in Banyu Urip seems compatible with Knitters theory of liberative dialogue where the interfaith dialogue started from non-religious issues, reflecting the existing problem of the community. This kind of dialogue contains four steps: compassion, conversion, collaboration, comprehension. 24 The compassion stage begins with a shared feeling, suffering with those who are suffering. The reality of the victim and of the victims suffering calls people to community and to dialogue. The second stage, conversion, is when people turn around and change their lives after they feel with and for others who are suffering. Next, at the collaboration stage, motivated by the same concerns, members of different religious communities act together in doing something about the reality of suffering. Then, at the fourth stage, the explicit religious dialogue begins, and the participants start speaking about the religious teaching that supports their acts.25 In Banyu Urip, the common problem that initiated interfaith cooperation was the land tenure issue. In relation to Knitters model, the compassion stage began when the activists and the farmers began discussing this problem, and arranging an organization. The farmer movement of Banyu Urip represented the collaboration stage. Accordingly, the villagers progressed to the comprehension stage. Knitter illustrated, religious persons who have acted together will now speak and witness religiously togetherNow, they will attempt to rehear or re-view their scriptures and belief and stories and explain not only to themselves but to others what it is that animates and guides and sustains their compassion, their conversion, and their collaboration for eco-human well being.26 But unlike Knitters description, at this stage the dialogue participants in Banyu Urip are not discussing any particular religious teaching, but rather how religion in general had been used to oppress, divide and unite their society. CAN THIS DIALOGUE BE CLAIMED AS AN INTERFAITH DIALOGUE? In order to answer that question, let us take a look at some definitions and theories of Interfaith Dialogue.
24 In this paper I distinguish interfaith dialogue with interfaith cooperation to fit the four steps of Knitters Liberative Dialogue. 25 Knitter, One Earth, Many Religions : Multifaith Dialogue and Global Responsibility, 218 26 Ibid.,143.

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Since the promulgation of Nostra Aetate in 1965, the Catholic Church has maintained that interreligious dialogue is no less than all positive and constructive interreligious relations with individuals and communities of other faiths which are directed at mutual understanding and enrichment in obedience to truth and respect for freedom. 27 Leonard Swidler describes interfaith dialogue as a conversation among people of different faiths on a common subject, the primary purpose of which is for each participant to learn from the other so that s/he can change and grow. In his famous ground rules for interreligious dialogue, the Dialogue Decalogue, Swidler required that the dialogue partners come to the dialogue as a person somehow significantly identified with religious or ideological community. 28 Similarly, Cilliers (2002) said that the participants in interfaith dialogue need to be well-grounded in their own faith. Cilliers argued that participants with firm religious background can have a deeper religious sharing rather than what Cousin (1989) called a polite meeting of participants from different traditions who engage in swapping superficial information.29 Accordingly, in order to learn the roots of others values and beliefs, many people claim that theological reflection or comparison of religious teachings are the main aspect of interreligious or interfaith dialogue. The discussion of religious scriptures and participation in the others religious rituals can help dialoguers observe each others values and beliefs, as well as temporarily experience their worldview. Thus, Abu-Nimer said that the involvement of spirituality, rituals and sacred text are the unique features that distinguish interfaith dialogue from secular dialogue.30 I argue that those, indeed, are aspects of interfaith dialogue, but are not necessarily the key aspects nor requisite. The firm religious identity requirement and sacred text discussion might be helpful for some communities but can have limitations in other types of community, especially when the community in question has little knowledge of their religions, such as what we discover in Banyu Urip. of A simpler guideline for dialogue is produced by a sub-unit of Dialogue with People Living Faith and Ideologies of the World Church Council, as follows: Dialogue begins when people meet. Dialogue depends upon mutual understanding and mutual trust. Dialogue makes it possible to share in service. Dialogue becomes the medium of authentic witness.31

According to these guidelines, the key point of dialogue is developing a conversation among people with different faiths, in order to create and maintain trust and
27 Dialogue and Proclamation: Reflection and Orientations on Interreligious Dialogue and the Proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, promulgated by the Pontifical Council on Interreligious Dialogue [May, 1991]., sec. 9; italics represent a quotation from an earlier document entitled, The Attitude of the Church Towards the Followers of Other Religions: Reflections and Orientations on Dialogue and Mission [hereafter, DM for Dialogue and Mission], Acta Apostolicae Sedis 75 (1984), pp. 816-828; also Bulletin Secretariatus pro non Christianis 56 (1984/2), no. 13. For an online English translation, see http://www.melbourne.catholic.org.au/eic/pdf/art-Interfaithattitudenonchristian.pdf. 28 Leonard J. Swidler, "The Dialogue Decalogue," (1983), http://astro.temple.edu/~dialogue/Antho/decalog.htm. 29 Jaco Cilliers, "Building Bridges for Interfaith Dialogue," in Interfaith Dialogue and Peacebuilding, ed. David R. Smock (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2002), 49. 30 Mohammed Abu-Nimer, "The Miracles of Transformation through Interfaith Dialogue: Are You a Baliever?," in Interfaith Dialogue and Peacebuilding, ed. David R. Smock (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2002). 31 Martin Forward, Inter-Religious Dialogue : A Short Introduction (Oxford: Oneworld, 2001), 11.

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understanding among them. The issues that are discussed can be diverse, and need not be limited to theological or scriptural ones. This interfaith dialogue guideline might seem too simple but it provides a broader chance of application and elaboration in order to fit various types of religious communities. Moreover, Smock (2002) said that at its most basic, Interfaith Dialogue is a simple concept: persons of different faiths meeting to have conversation. But the character of the conversation and the purpose of having the conversation are not simple to describe or categorize since they cover a variety of types. In order to understand how this different model of interfaith dialogue occurred, I examine some concrete models of liberative dialogue presented in Knitters book. Knitter wrote that some communities in India and Sri Lanka represent this kind of dialogue. Community organizers in the secular Dalit movement in Bangalore, India discovered that when oppressed people who are also religious come together to do something about their oppression, they generally want to and need to talk about their religious motivations and ideals.32 After they shared praxis for human well-being they started sharing their religious teachings. They discussed several texts and narratives from the Upanishad period, the Bhagavad-Gita, and the story of Buddha that actually empowered the oppressed and criticized the caste system. In Sri Lanka, The Christian Workers Fellowship showed that shared commitment to social justice can enable people from different religious communities not only to cooperate socio-politically but to share their religious identities and rituals. 33 The Buddhist workers who joined this program nourished the value of the activities and the organization. The CWF even developed an interfaith ritual: the CWF May Day Mass. Though the Mass is primarily Christian, the Buddhist workers were actively involved in this ritual whose liturgy includes BuddhistHindu texts for its readings. These illustrations depict that in those communities, discussion of the common problem inevitably brings people of disparate faiths to communal action, thereby creating the connection and space to share information about their religious backgrounds. Here, interfaith dialogue acts as a bridge between orthodoxies. These communities successfully portray Knitters comprehension stage. From my point of view, generally, there are several significant characteristics the Sri Lankan and Indian communities have in common that are missing in Banyu Urip. First, people from each community have a strong religious culture, knowledge and belief. Second, the separation between religions is very explicit in daily social interaction, and the majority of kinship groups are of the same religious faith. In a community where most religious adherents have a strong religious identity and scriptural knowledge base, discussion about each religious ritual and teaching is easily facilitated because each religious group has the capability to discuss these matters. The main priority, in this case, is to increase communication and understanding between different religious groups. The people in my fieldwork area have different characteristics when compared to those kinds of communities. The Banyu Urip villagers do not have a strong knowledge of their religion, which is often claimed at the nominal level and which makes them less capable of educating others in scriptural and liturgical matters.34 They do not have strong religious backgrounds, cultural ties or beliefs as they can be considered to be in a transition period between their traditional religion and their formal religion. The separation between religions is less explicit, since most families have multireligious members. The activists who, in this case, have become facilitators and part of this dialogue itself argued that some people in Banyu Urip do not yet have any definitive position in
Knitter, One Earth, Many Religions : Multifaith Dialogue and Global Responsibility, 168. Ibid., 173 34 Some older villagers who have good knowledge and continue practicing Javanese rituals had to claim themselves as Muslims or Christians, while the younger villagers do not have good knowledge in either Javanese or formal religious.
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regards to specific religions; neither do they have a firm foundation in their formal religions. Therefore, they prefer to talk about universal ethics, and contemporary religious issues, such as terrorism, interreligious marriage dispensation, missionaries, etc. In a private communication, Knitter confirmed that this stage still represents comprehension.35 Though the dialogue is about issues beyond particular religions, the participants experience a new understanding about the roles of religion. The people in Banyu Urip had experienced how religion can be used to oppress people, and this dialogue might acquaint them with how religion can be used to liberate people. The discussion of the destructive and constructive role of religion, as well as peoples reflection of how they experience religions can be claimed as a type of interfaith dialogue. I think it is important to mention that Banyu Urip villagers rarely had any voluntary meetings that involved multifaith villagers. Besides several types of slametan, the voluntary groups activities there include doa lingkungan (for Catholics), and Yasinan (for Muslims). However, these activities focus on ritual matters and rarely involve interpersonal conversation. The formal meetings held by government elements did not give them any significant chance to speak either. The activists said that, in the beginning, it was so hard to encourage villagers to articulate their thoughts and ideas. The villagers were not used to dialogue. They were accustomed merely to listen and agree. The absence of any legal authority over their own land in the past is one key element to justify their lack of autonomy. They were accustomed to be controlled, and to be dictated to by the government apparatus or plantation officers.36 Therefore, I argue that it is a significant achievement to make the villagers start articulating themselves, not to mention discussing sensitive issues such as religion. Previous cooperation might have cultivated personal confidence and interpersonal trust and respect. I think in its very core, the interfaith dialogue that occurred in Banyu Urip still has some basic elements in common with other types of interfaith dialogue. It is constituted of openness, willingness to talk about religious issues and the aim to strengthen mutual trust and understanding between the participants which is a hallmark of this type of dialogue as described by Knitter and by the World Council of Churches, as cited above. Recently, the villagers began to openly communicate their problems. Complaints, curiosities and gratitude relating to religious law, leadership, or the group were delivered in the community meeting and were discussed by people from different faiths. This might sound trivial when compared to deeper discussions about theology and religious doctrines, but it matters, is important and is more applicable for the people of Banyu Urip. A deeper discussion about religious teachings might occur later, after the people are more knowledgeable about their own religions. At this time, the activists in Banyu Urip encourage and support community members to increase their religious education, but they avoid educating villagers themselves as they strive to maintain a neutral stance. DO THEY NEED SUCH AN INTERFAITH DIALOGUE? One might argue that Interfaith Dialogue in Banyu Urip was a coincidence and that the interfaith factors merely existed due to different religious groups inhabiting the area, as well as the additional coincidental religious backgrounds of the activists. Thus, it might be considered as coincidental or accidental in the beginning due to the fact that even the activists did not have any ideas about interfaith dialogue or any intentions to instigate same. However, my previous argument demonstrates that interfaith dialogue exists there, and that it has helped people to deal with their problems. I think the very fact that interfaith dialogue naturally occurred there could be a justification that it was
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Personal discussion in May 2006. Interviews with the Catholic activists, November 2005. 10

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somehow needed. Furthermore, although most villagers of Banyu Urip might not be considered deeply religious persons, the fact that their religious background is saturated with military violence, and their most recent religious leader, Sutiyoso, had been used by political and economic blocs to manipulate them, made an interfaith program in this area necessary. Precisely because religion had been a tool to stir up group fears and to control the people, counter efforts that use a religious approach to liberate and empower them are imperative. I think, even though the people in Banyu Urip are accustomed to communicate with religious others on a daily basis they still need a conducive forum or organization that can facilitate them in sitting together to solve problems with respect and responsibility as a collective group. Since religious issues are one of their problems, interfaith sensitivity became a great advantage in executing this forum. Interfaith dialogue could be expected to make people more comfortable when dealing with their religious identity issues. The impartiality of an interfaith forum might make those who still have this problem not feel forced to convert or commit to any religion without their educated consent. In fact, nowadays, many interfaith forums struggle to lift the restriction on religious freedom in Indonesia, so that the choice is not only limited to the six formally approved religions. Although interfaith dialogue is likely to be needed by communities with strong religious identities and those who are engaged in open conflict, one has to be careful not to undermine other types of communities. Appleby argues that weak religions invariably offer inadequate resistance to manipulation by external agents that seek to exploit their symbolic and social resources. 37 Weak religions relates to religious illiteracy, the low level or virtual absence of second-order moral reflection and basic theological knowledge among religious actors, which is a structural condition that increases the likelihood of collective violence in crisis situations.38 Appleby also said that ethnoreligious chauvinism sometimes occurs in societies in which religious institutions are suppressed or underdeveloped, where religion as an independent cultural and social presence has been weakened by neglect, oppression, or a history of self-subordination to a hostile or indifferent state.39 Thus, theoretically, those with an ambiguously defined religious identity are included as a group who should engage in interfaith dialogue as a matter of conflict prevention. In fact, the manipulation of religious issues in the peasant movement in East Java is not unusual. The plantations and the government office usually maintain good connections with religious figures in the areas in dispute. They bribe them by giving great contributions during religious festivals and in the construction of mosques and churches. On the other hand, religious issues are also used to steer conflict among the peasants. In 2000, there was a peasant riot in Banaran, Blitar which was tainted by religious issues. According to some third party activists who work in that area, this riot was based on the resentment of the peasants as the plantation had not given them their promised financial compensation.40 Then, there was a riot in which some peasants and unknown outsiders destroyed the clove trees in the plantation. This riot ended with two peasants killed, and several of them injured by the military. This was followed by a rumor that the riot were triggered by religious sentiments, for the plantation authorities were Christian and most of the peasants were Muslim. The rumor jeopardized the peasant
37 R. Scott Appleby and Conflict Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly, The Ambivalence of the Sacred : Religion, Violence, and Reconciliation, Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict Series. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000), 58. 38 Ibid., 69. 39 Ibid,. 58. 40 ICDHRE, "Hasil-Hasil Pemetaan, Analisis Dan Solusi Atas Potensi Konflik Yang Tumbuh Dan Berkembang Di Daerah Tingkat II Dalam Merespon Otonomi Daerah Dan Penciptaan Good Governance," (2002).

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community; it badly influenced the relationship between the Muslim and the Christian peasants. Another rumor of upcoming revenge that would destroy both the church and the mosque made the situation worse. This tragedy has shaken the peasant organization in that area, as well as traumatized overall inhabitants in that village.41 Until now, the juridical disclosure of this event has not yet occurred. 42 However, these facts were greatly considered in the current-formal interfaith program; therefore, the activists have included peace-building and conflict management in their training curriculum. CONCLUSION The discussion of whether the program in Banyu Urip can be claimed as an interfaith dialogue or not may sound too rhetorical. It seems merely to be playing with a semantic variation of words, definitions and interpretations. However, I think the very definition of interfaith dialogue might significantly influence the scope, goal and agenda of any interfaith program. As we notice, interfaith dialogue discourse has been more broadly developed in the last decades. It no longer concentrates on the religious elites; it has begun embracing laypersons and grassroots communities. It is not merely talk about religious and theological discourses but instead represents engagement in practical cooperation. It is not only about discussing divine salvation and commonalities between different religious traditions, but it is also about trying to liberate every creature from every type of mundane oppression. Nevertheless, most interfaith dialogue discourses tend to discuss communities that have rather strong religious identities, neglecting the fact that in some areas religious identity is a problem in itself. I think it would be a great mistake if those who still have problems in reconciling their faith and religious identity are excluded from interfaith dialogue. The limitation of knowledge and the weak religious identity of a faith community should not undermine their interfaith effort. If interfaith dialogue is to be implemented by those who suffer and are victimized, it should be able to comprise their religious knowledge, identities and proclivities. Therefore, I think any effort that unites people from different faiths in a dialogue about religious issues that involves openness and the aim to strengthen mutual trust and understanding between the participants can be considered as Interfaith Dialogue. Interfaith dialogue is, indeed, greatly needed so long as people do not have enough power and knowledge to freely articulate their faith.

41 42

Interview with Sitas Desa Activist, November 2005. ika, "Tak Mau Seperti Alastlogo," Radar Tulungagung, Rabu, 06 Juni 2007. 12

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