After a not so pleasant night of
stomach sickness, a call in to my family doctor informed me that I should not
be eating spicy foods because of a certain medication--now they tell me! Now
that we know, our ever-helpful volunteers are now helping me to find crackers
and other such bland food to get me through the next days in Indonesia.
Everything thus far has been beautiful: the landscapes, the city, the
university, our wisma (the hostel-esque place we are staying in) and the
wonderful setting for our dinner last night, which was traditional style in
bamboo huts on the water. I'm looking forward to today, which includes seminars
at the university as well as a little bit of shopping! Hopefully, now that we
know the spicy food overload has been causing my stomach issues, they can be
avoided in the future!
--Ellie McGuire, Lehigh University
--Ask
Fira and the others to introduce you to IndoMe -- like Rahman noodles, and put
an egg with it and you will be great. I had it every morning -- with Kopi, of
course.
--Jack
Lule, Lehigh University
Today was jam-packed! I woke up
today around 6 am, got dressed and ready to start our activities. Soon after
breakfast, we headed to the Central Library. We were told that the 7th floor of
the Central Library is the best room in the library- this was true! The
structure of the building allowed for much natural light to fill the room,
allowing not only warmth and light, but also a space to view the beautiful
scenery of the campus.
We had three lectures today. First was about the
University of Indonesia campus and its history. We were also privileged enough
to tour this beautiful campus. The UI is a university where over 50,000
students attend! Lehigh is quite small compared to this number! After this
tour, we had a lecture called, “Democracy in Indonesia by Professor Maswadi
Rauf of the University of Indonesia. After that, we had our second lecture
called, “Multiculturalism in Indonesia by Professor Muhammad Fuad. Both of
these lectures were very interesting because both gave an Indonesian
perspective on religion, democracy, and people’s role in Indonesia. My favorite
discussion that we had was the one with UI students. During this discussion, we
were able to interact with student representatives of various religious
organizations on campus. The topics were all very important aspects of the
religious pluralism and democracy dialogue.
--Theresa Mejia, Lehigh University
Today,
we attended our first Indonesian lectures. Professor Miswadi Rauf
taught our morning class, which analyzed Democracy in Indonesia. As we
discussed the history of Indonesian Politics, it became evident that
within both the Sukarno and Suharto regime, implementing a democratic
government was an unfavorable experience. From the beginning, Sukarno
embraced Authoritarian rule because he felt democracy was not suitable
for Indonesia and it should thus be replaced by his own system of
government. He denied freedom of expression, association, and thought,
believing any idea that countered his was subversion. When Suharto came
to power, he was expected to lead a democratic system of government.
However, this hope did not become reality and the New Order developed
into a period of authoritarian rule. History reveals that modeling the
U.S. democratic system is an ideal hope, but very difficult to put in
practice. The democratization of Indonesia did not begin until 1998.
At this point in time, Indonesia has completed the most important
institutional democratization needed to make their political system
democratic, but individual democratization is far more challenging.
Professor Rauf concluded that have still not yet been able to integrate
the values of democracy into the hearts and minds of citizens, which is
limiting Indonesia’s ability to fully develop. The beauty of democracy
is that it allows for religious pluralism, however what happens when it
begins accommodating a specific religion? Indonesia is often idolized
because it reveals that democracy and Islam are in fact compatible.
However, Islamic extremist threats still permeate this society and are
used to manipulate the government as exemplified by the recent Lady Gaga
controversy. Does this suggest that argument is false? A key value of
democracy is freedom of expression, but when put in practice, it often
violates Islamic principles. If the competing values of democracy and
Islam deny the ability for each to reach their full capacity, then are
they actually compatible? At the end of the day, we spoke with a group
of students who represented each religious club at UI.
I asked them
their varying perspectives on the cancellation of Lady Gaga’s concert
and the reasons behind it. The majority of the students, whether they
were Christian, Hindu, or Catholic, believe Lady Gaga has the freedom to
express her style and music. While her appearance and dress is often
concerning, they quoted today’s popular belief, “one thousand lady
gaga’s can’t change my religion.” They did, however, suggest that Gaga
should respect and accommodate to Indonesia’s culture before making an
appearance. The girls representing the Muslim club were not as
frustrated about the government’s decision to cancel the concert solely
because they fear her values will influence Indonesian society. A
specific comment that stood out to me came from one of the Hindu
students. Her belief is the Gaga was rejected because of the “silent
majority” that dominates Indonesia. There are many who are very
tolerant of Gaga but remain silent, while Islamic extremists, though are
minority, assure their voice is heard. She referred to is as
“tolerance of intolerance itself.” I then wondered if they preferred
that the majority take a different approach? Should they have
retaliated? If they continue to remain silent, will Islamic extremists
continue to get their way? Does silence represent their way of
achieving their objectives by peaceful means? If so, what objectives
have they achieved? It is evident they do recognize that evil does not
eradicate evil, so what other options do they have?
--Angela Farren, Lehigh University
--Anggita Paramesti, Gadjah Mada University
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