clacke
I spoke to a guy the other week who casually mentioned that sure, most Indonesians are Muslim, but he's Chinese Indonesian, so his family is Catholic.
I would have loved to go further down this conversation branch, but that's not where we went.
According to him there are Buddhist Chinese Indonesians too, but at least in the Jakarta area, the Catholics seem more common.
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Doug Whitfield [Minneapolis]
@clacke are there Chinese Indonesia Punks?
Bandar Baru
@clacke So, first of all, Indonesia itself linking religion norms/law into their legal law, based on the first point of Indonesian foundational philosophy, called Pancasila: "Belief in the One and Only God".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancasila
If people is about to go to marry (for same-religion marriage), they just doing some of administration paperwork to Religious Affairs Office (Kantor Urusan Agama - KUA), & follow all procedures there, to make their marriage are legally recognised & protected by law.
clacke
@bandarbaru_1 Thank you, I am so interested in learning more about Indonesia, directly from people who live there.
Could there also be difficulty with the administration if a marriage is between two people of different registered religion? Does the religion have legal scope in terms of how the marriage works and what rights and responsibilities it creates?
Bandar Baru
@clacke Yes, there are some disadvantages if the religion section are blank, especially if the administration is relating with religion, such as marriages. Not to count, in some places, that section may be required to fill.
clacke
If your local official follows the rules, you don't have to display one of six approved religions on your ID card.
Is there a structural disadvantage to going blank? Would you miss out on some benefits or quotas? Would your community frown upon it?
clacke
There's the confirmation of the anecdote.
clacke
... you list your religion on your identity card. 🤯
According to an analysis of the 2000 census data, about half of Chinese Indonesians were Buddhists, and about one-third Protestant or Catholic.
clacke
It's difficult to find this kind of demographical matrix of ethnicity and religion, and Indonesia itself doesn't track ethnicity in its census.
The Wikipedia page on Chinese Indonesians says:
Minority:
Taoism, Islam, Hinduism, and others
Bandar Baru
@clacke And the cross religion marriage in Indonesia currently can't be administered legally.
https://www.hukumonline.com/klinik/a/nikah-beda-agama-cl290/
Apparently, cross religion marriage was allowed, but in some conditions, including if one of them are ignoring the religion norm. But now, seems the chance of it has been closed. As from government perspective, cross religion marriage may also invalid from the religion perspective too.
If religion perspective invalid = invalid by legal law too.
Bandar Baru
@clacke So, for people who just wanna to being atheist or agnostic, de jure, they must stated what their religion on their ID card. But de facto, they can do whatever they want, without being tied or practising with the religion law/norm they stated on their ID card, as long as whatever they did isn't break or violating with the general legal law.
Non-religion behavior such as atheist or agnostic, are not legally recognised, as its incompatible with Pancasila.
Bandar Baru
@clacke Yep, as Indonesian, living in Indonesia, single never married, not have a legal background, and have religion, I also just learn about this too, tbh 😅
I read your question, browsing some resources a little bit, as most resources are indeed in Indonesian, and I try to understanding from what I read, so I might be wrong or biased at some point 😅
But hopefully (from me), the overview about this topic that I just talk about it, its still relevant with the factual condition.
Bandar Baru
@clacke This is also the reason of why, LGBT rights is also not legally recognised by Indonesian legal law.
De jure, isn't legally recognized. But de facto, some peoples may tolerating about it, as previously there are less legal persecution if people practicing LGBT.
Until recently Prabowo regime recognised it as non-military threat. That recognition causing some of backlash & controversies too, make the queer more vulnerable from public persecution.
https://www.bbc.com/indonesia/articles/c5yzzpjjrklo
Bandar Baru
@clacke There are some effort for some peoples to legally petition for the removal of the religion column on ID card. But this was rejected by Constitutional Court.
https://www.hukumonline.com/berita/a/permohonan-penghapusan-kolom-agama-di-ktp-kandas-di-mk-lt677b595579c2f/?page=all
Again, from the court perspective, the concept of religion and religion freedom here is always based, follows, and inseparable from the Pancasila, especially of the first point.
clacke
@bandarbaru_1 Thank you, much appreciated. I'm learning a lot from your comments.
I read the Pancasila article. It's a really interesting topic and a thorough article too.
The principles are beautiful, and I really appreciate that Indonesia has something like that in its founding document. It has some parallels to Dr. Sun's philosophy for the Chinese nation a few decades earlier.
clacke
Then there is of course the matter of how the principles are interpreted and applied, and that's always the tricky part, isn't it. It's interesting to me how Sukarno, Suharto and the movements in the modern era all draw on the same text for legitimacy, while their concrete direction for the nation may be very different.
Again, it's not entirely unlike how both the PRC and the ROC refer to Dr. Sun as their founding father.
Indonesian Guided Democracy and Chinese Political Tutelage sound like echoes of each other as well.
clacke
I often think of these things, and when I think of how a society could be built, I often end up telling myself "now you're just trying to build Hong Kong again", or Singapore, or Sweden, or the US, and now I can see that Indonesia tried many different ideas as well, some of which I have tried myself in my head. It's always harder out there, with real people.
Self-determination, justice and nation-building were difficult 300 years ago, they were difficult 100 years ago, and they're difficult today. So many ideas have been tried, partially worked, partially failed, and there is still no magic formula. Humanity needs to keep trying, each community in their own circumstances.
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