Fury over Christmas Cake

Posted by AsiaViews | Jan 2, 2018 | 0 |

The Jakarta Post

27 Dec 2017
Christmas has become a time when joyful revelers must try to ignore blights on celebrations. This Christmas in Makassar, South Sulawesi, for example, a bakery refused to write “Merry Christmas” on a cake, drawing fresh debate over the routine greeting.

Arguments emerged on whether we should respect freedom of belief or condemn what many may construe as a gesture of intolerance.

We choose to respect diverse beliefs, but urge more citizens to speak up for moderation and what it takes to live in a richly diverse country.

Tweeting his Christmas greeting, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo said: “Our pluralism is a blessing to the nation.”

It seemed a neutral but significant signal rejecting the wave of intolerance among us.

Jakarta Archbishop Ignatius Suharyo also called for stronger unity to uphold the state ideology Pancasila for citizens of diverse backgrounds.

In the spirit of the festive season, we should be seeing, say, Indonesians pouring out solidarity for the hungry, whether at home, in war-torn Yemen or in Venezuela, where women are choosing to be sterilized rather than helplessly witness their babies die of starvation.

The world rushed to help us in the wake of the Boxing Day earthquake and tsunami 14 years ago. Yet unfortunately, we must resolve old battles.

In Makassar, an apparent long-time customer canceled his order for a Christmas cake. Arnold Serestyen, a native of Hungary, said he assumed the rejection to print “Merry Christmas for my family” was based on religious grounds, which he said he respected.

The bakery, Chocolicious Indonesia, then apologized on its Instagram account, saying that it fully respected customers’ religions, but had chosen to act based on its religious principles, drawing both of praise and condemnation from thousands.

In response, the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) stated that Muslims are free to choose based on their convictions whether to say “Merry Christmas” or not.

Weeks earlier, MUI advisor and former chairman Din Syamsuddin reiterated that the council had never issued a fatwa against the greeting; its 1981 ban is on Muslims joining religious Christmas celebrations, as Muslims would risk acknowledging Jesus as the son of God, which is against Islamic teaching.

Amid today’s religious conservatism, MUI leaders have confused believers with their nonbinding fatwa and individual statements. Muslims have argued every Christmas on a simple greeting, to both the sadness and amusement of their Christian friends and relatives — for the greeting was largely a non-issue until the last decade or so.

We wholeheartedly join those who express “Merry Christmas” to share the joy and hope for blessings for Christian friends and relatives. And we reject all efforts to impose a ban on the greeting, as we embrace our precious heritage as a diverse people who struggled together as one nation.

(source:http://www.thejakartapost.com/academia/2017/12/27/editorial-fury-over-christmas-cake.html)

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EXTRICATING NDONESIAN CHILDREN FROM ISIS INFLUENCE ABROAD

Indonesia urgently needs to revisit the possibility of repatriating the neediest of its young citizens stranded abroad, whose families had earlier joined ISIS. Most of these children are in camps in northern Syria but there are also small numbers in the Philippines, Afghanistan and Iraq. “Extricating Indonesian Children from ISIS Influence Abroad”, the latest report from the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) argues that the government could begin by bringing back small groups of unaccompanied children under ten years of age, who pose minimal security risk and are most vulnerable to deteriorating conditions in the camps.“The problem is that health and security conditions are worsening by the day in the Syrian camps, and the children are growing older,” says Dyah Kartika, IPAC analyst. “They need access to schools, a nurturing environment, and medical attention. If the government waits too long, the children will be further exposed to ISIS ideology.” The new report examines a 2019 list of Indonesians in camps and prisons run by the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The Indonesian government has been trying to verify their citizenship, but with pseudonyms, misspellings and bad transliterations, it is a daunting task. At the time the data was collected, between March and June 2019, there were 555 Indonesians in SDF camps and prisons, including 367 children. Among the children, approximately 277 were under the age of ten and 34 were unaccompanied. In June 2021, there are fewer than ten children who are both unaccompanied and under the age of ten that could be prioritized for return. Bringing back children of ISIS families is no easy task. The report analyses the main challenges faced by the Indonesian government. These include definitional issues, bureaucratic competition, the difficulty of verifying nationality, evaluating the toll of exposure to conflict, assessing security risk, and finding relatives or others willing to provide care once the children are returned. In addition, COVID has meant stringent restrictions on travel, placing further obstacles in the way of repatriation. There are several models for rehabilitation of children exposed to violent extremism in Indonesia that could be modified to accommodate the needs of children repatriated from abroad. The report examines these models and argues that the government does not need to have every detail of rehabilitation programs in place before it starts extricating children from ISIS influence. It can start by bringing back the most vulnerable children and then modify programs as needed.

“It’s important that the government see these children as victims” says Dyah. “They deserve a chance to be children again.”

Fury over Christmas Cake