Name : Adrian Syal

Student ID Number : B1024201011

Faculty of Economics and Business

Department : Management International Class ( A )

Majority Syndrome Among Religious Communities In Indonesia.

Religion is one of the topics that repeatedly debated in Indonesia and as we know, the
majority of Indonesians are Muslim, but this does not mean that Indonesia is an Islamic
country. As stated in the first principle of Pancasila, "Ketuhanan yang maha esa" which
means Belief in the one and only God. This means each Indonesian society has the right to
believe in "God" and each religion they profess. But if we see in a different perspective, some
“toxic” people are considered being a majority in the society (not only Islam but others too
that have been a majority in Indonesia) carrying the name of their religion doing destructive
and harassing things with a purpose to make the minority have the same belief as themselves,
people like them can be called having a majority syndrome.
To explore deeper about our topic, we need to know the meaning of the majority
syndrome. The majority syndrome is an attitude of fear against the threat of the existence of
"something new" that causes the loss of the socio-political privileges that have been obtained
so far, said Michael J. Sheeran in his book Beyond Majority Rule. The majority group usually
gets many kinds of privileges and conveniences in socio-political life and in the end, these
kinds of desires make them steadfastly maintain that convenience and privileges by
generating majority arrogance. From this attitude, emerged an attitude of intolerance between
religious communities so that conflicts began to occur, minorities felt insecure, and injustice
occurred anywhere for the minorities.
Majority syndrome has become a problem in various countries including Indonesia.
This kind of harassing and destructive activities are done by the majority in the country. They
are being fanatical to their religion and they are mostly completely irresponsible people who
boast about their religion for being the best while insulting other religions which in the end
will only lead to divisions in that country. Every religion is considered equal in Indonesia, but
there are still many injustices felt by the minorities, and history already proved that religious
issues are the most effective trigger to promote social conflict especially in Indonesia.
The history that shows the existence of a majority syndrome is shown in several cases
that have occurred in Indonesia. Several cases illustrate the occurrence of injustice for
minorities due to the majority syndrome in several cities in Indonesia. The cases such as the
Persekutuan Gereja-gereja Kabupaten Jayapura (PGGJ) which issued a letter containing two
PGGJ requests related to the construction of the Al-Aqsa Sentani Mosque, namely
dismantling the mosque tower and lowering the mosque building's height parallel to the
height of the surrounding church building, another case is the Front Pembela Islam (FPI),
which used Islamic attribution to try to justify several acts of vandalism against bars, clubs,
billiard halls, and Christian churches as well as Ahmadiyah mosques. Cases like this show
that there are still some people who suffer majority syndrome which ultimately results in
hatred toward their respected religions.
In conclusion, we cannot directly prevent the majority syndrome which causes
divisions, because religion is a very sensitive matter to discuss, a few offensive words will
result in hatred and punishment from various parties. The only thing we can do as a religious
community in Indonesia is to always cultivate an attitude of tolerance among religious
communities, always respect one another. Even though there will still be people with a
syndrome like this, actually they only need to have open-minded thoughts to accept the
differences between people in Indonesia. The differences are beautiful if we see them as a
complement to our lives in the world.