Religious Pluralism in Indonesia

Threats and Opportunities for Democracy

Chiara Formichi editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Cornell University Press

Published:15th Dec '21

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

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Religious Pluralism in Indonesia cover

In 1945, Sukarno declared that the new Indonesian republic would be grounded on monotheism, while also insisting that the new nation would protect diverse religious practice. The essays in Religious Pluralism in Indonesia explore how the state, civil society groups, and individual Indonesians have experienced the attempted integration of minority and majority religious practices and faiths across the archipelagic state over the more than half century since Pancasila.

The chapters in Religious Pluralism in Indonesia offer analyses of contemporary phenomena and events; the changing legal and social status of certain minority groups; inter-faith relations; and the role of Islam in Indonesia's foreign policy. Amidst infringements of human rights, officially recognized minorities—Protestants, Catholics, Hindus, Buddhists and Confucians—have had occasional success advocating for their rights through the Pancasila framework. Others, from Ahmadi and Shi'i groups to atheists and followers of new religious groups, have been left without safeguards, demonstrating the weakness of Indonesia's institutionalized "pluralism."

Contributors: Lorraine Aragon, Christopher Duncan, Kikue Hamayotsu, Robert Hefner, James Hoesterey, Sidney Jones, Mona Lohanda, Michele Picard, Evi Sutrisno, Silvia Vignato

As this lively, informative multi-author volume shows, Islamists from the beginning argued that Indonesia should be an Islamic state, and they pressed this demand with renewed force after the country's transition to democracy in 1998.

* Foreign Affairs *

Readers interested in Indonesia from a more comparative perspective might have benefitted from more comparisons from farther afield, but they will gain very useful overviews especially from the first two chapters by Chiara Formichi and Robert Hefner, who skillfully disentangle the complicated landscape of religious and political actors.

* The University of British Columbia *

Finally, Duncan provides an mportant account of the very real tensions that continue to exist between Christians and Muslims in Maluku and North Maluku.

* Sojou

ISBN: 9781501760433

Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 25mm

Weight: 907g

276 pages