USIPP #2: Lectures on Democracy and Religious Discussion

The journey of USIPP 2012 has just actually begun today. I and Shannon were woke up early this morning and had a nice conversation. I really appreciate that. We started the day at 7 am with breakfast then an hour later we took a campuss bus to UI's library. They have an impressive library, all in one. It is a new and the only library in UI. They have like 8 floors, the two-last floor are used occasionally for meeting or official event hold by the campuss. In the first floor, they have "times" bookstore, travel agency office, tupperware and kitchen stuffs, the cinema, the bank, music studio, and they also have starbucks!! Yes, they seems like having a mall inside of their library. Wow!

Worth to be noted that they also have some old documents like the old testament which written in Old Ducth, Lontar (made from leaves and covered by two slices of wood) written in Balinese or Old Javanese about ceremonial thing in Bali, and the last one (that they showed us) was the copy book of Chinese 3 Empires.

Mr. Junaedi, the Head of International Office, was kind enough to give us a mini tour. The last room to visit was the "Meditation Room", yes that's how I call it. It's a place of 100 rooms to "seriously" work on your dissertation, reseach paper, etc. Doctoral students and lecturers are allowed to book the room for 3 months.

The rest of the day was filled with two lectures from Prof. Maswadi Rauf and Mr. Muhammad Fuadi, continued with a discussion with religion-affiliated student's organizations, and we end the day with shopping session in Margo City.

I'm going to discuss a little about our discussion and lectures today. So Prof. Maswadi started the lecture regarding Democratic Society in Indonesia: The Issues and Challenges. He went through a brief history of democracy in Indonesia to a lively discussion about the true meaning of freedom, individual democratization, and Special Region of Yogyakarta case. There was an interesting issue on how we define the so called "public interest"? Is it the interest of the majority people? If the answer is yes, then how can we believe that  democracy not come in to majority rule?

He personnaly thinks that a freedom should not violate other's interest (either public or individual one). The interesting thing is, how can we ensure that everyone doesn't has a conflict of interest? Cause if they do, then it gets hard not to confront other's interest.

Regarding the Special Region of Yogyakarta matter, he stated that we should distinguish the role of Sultan and Governor. His opinion is that the Sultan can be a symbol of culture, meanwhile the Governor has to play a political role. So we do have to hold an election to determine who's gonna be our political leader. This issue reminds me to my previous discussion with a political and science lecturer in UGM. She told me that the legal status itself is being questioned since in the post-independence day's agreement between President Soekarno and Sultan HB IX, it stated the specific name of a person that is Sultan HB IX, not only Sultan of Yogyakarta or something like that. So, does the agreement also prevail for his next generation?

My response was "why don't we just have the election and the Sultan can also participate in it, can't he? So if people really want him to be their leader, they'll definately know who's to vote."

And her answer was, "the case is, the Sultan is not elected. They are inherited."

Well, I was sort of "hmm..that can be true. nice answer." but then now, I'll ask more, "We don't vote for the Sultan's position, we vote for the Governor. And the Sultan will still be the Sultan."

It MUST be noted that my responses don't mean that I pick a side. I'm just trying to make sense of the matter..

with Prof. Maswadi Rauf

The second discussion by Mr. Muhammad Fuadi was about the role of Muhammadiyah and NU, the two biggest Islamic organizations in Indonesia. It gave us some interesting informations related to those two, like I just notice that we don't have many schools or hospitals under the name of NU but we do have some under Muhammadiyah. In short, Muhammadiyah tends to purify the Islamic teachings from cultural values that is not relevant to Islam, knownly as reformist. Meanwhile NU is more embracing the cultural side. He also went through about Alm. Abdurrahman Wahid's idea on Islam in Indonesia. Then continued with Q&A session.

with Mr. Muhammad Fuadi

The last one, we had a fruitful discussion with students from many religion's organization in UI which comprises of KMHD (Keluarga Mahasiswa Hindu Dharma), KMKUI (Keluarga Mahasiswa  Katolik UI), Islam, and Kristen. Unfortunately, we didn't have Buddhism but it was quite interesting topic we discussed though, such as the Lady Gaga (L) matters, their activities, and such. I was also asking about the experience whether they had been intolerated in any ways by other religion's believer. And the answer was pretty sad to me cause unfortunately, we still preserve the intolerant attitute toward differences including in religion. Like it or not, a research conducted by Australian researcher showed that some schools, public as well as private, still practising "unrealized-intolerant-attitude" toward their students, like for some schools they require their student to wear hijab for example though they are not moslem, or Christian school ask their student to take a class on Christianity, or such. Those cases shows that we need to change our early education if we would like to make a change for Indonesia especially regarding tolerance toward others. Sadly, the religion' teachers do play a part on this matter. We need a  more formal action, could be from the Government. And this is a true story conveyed by the Hindu student, she said that when she was in the elementary school, her friend making fun of her belief by saying, "you are worshiping a stone."

That was really mean, in my opinion. and a kid said that. Something really need to change.

with UI students

Well, that's all for today. Can't wait what they have for us tomorrow! Gotta get some sleep. Nite all! ;)