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Nindyo SasongkoProfessor Mark Markuly, Ph.D.STML 564 Spiritual and Religious Values in the Public SquareJune 10, 2013

Reconstructing Heaven: Living a Fragmented Identity and Searchingfor Unity of Spirit and Outlook

I began to write this paper on the day when the president of

the Republic of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, received the

World Stateman’s Award for religious tolerance from the US-based

Appeal of Conscience Foundation in the city of New York. Yet,

President Yudhoyono has been criticized by a number of world’s

human right groups for ignoring the cries of religious minorities

in Indonesia, the nation with the world’s largest number of

Muslims. The Jakarta Post today reports that the government has

failed to cope with a rapid increase in brutal attacks to

Christians, on Shia Muslims, and on members of Ahmadiyah, an

Islamic sect. Setara Institute, a nonprofit organization in

Jakarta, recorded 264 such attacks in 2012, an increase from 244

in 2011 and 216 in 2010.1 In this light, many Indonesians feel 1. “Indonesian Leader Gets Religious ‘Stateman’ Award,” The

Jakarta Post, May 31, 2013, http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/05/31/indonesian-leader-

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ashamed for the country and seriously question this award to the

nation’s leader.

In this situation, how can I, a member of one of the

religious minorities in Indonesia, take my Christian values into

the public square “with gentleness and reverence” (1 Peter 3:16)?

In this paper, I try to answer that question. I begin with

briefly sketch of the elements which I have gone into the making

of my spirituality today. Then, I present an historical, ethical

and cultural analysis to compare the spirituality and religious

values of Indonesia and the United States of America. From this,

I believe it is clear that both countries were built not be

theocratic but democratic states. Since its independence in

1945, however, Indonesia has repeatedly faced barriers to its

unity. Pancasila, the philosophy of its nationhood has often been

threatened with abandonment and/or perversion. To deal with

this, I believe the most effective approach to people is through

interreligious discourse, using cultural media.

To be a Javanese means to be part of the majority, since the

Javanese is the largest among the 1,128 ethnic groups in

gets-religious-statesman-award.html (accessed May 31, 2013).

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Indonesia.2 I was born into and grew up in a multi-faith

Javanese family in the north part of Java, the central island of

the Indonesian archipelago.3 My grandparents on both sides were

traditional Javanese. The paternal grandfather was “an esoteric

knowledge teacher” (guru ngelmu) with the mystical powers of

healing and fortune-telling. He and my grandmother were

categorizes with “nominal Muslims” (kaum abangan).4 My maternal

grandparents were devout Hindus, but they were open-minded to all2. In February 2010, the Chairman of the Central Bureau of

Statistics reported to the House of Representatives that there are 1,128 ethnic groups in Indonesia. See “Indonesia Memiliki 1.128 Suku Bangsa,” JPNN.com, February 3, 2010, http://www.jpnn.com/index.php?mib=berita.detail&id=57455 (accessed May 31, 2013).

3. The recent report revised the old one which said that Indonesia had 17,508 islands. In fact, Indonesia only has 13,466islands. See “Hanya Ada 13,466 Pulau di Indonesia,” National Geographics Indonesia, February 8, 2012, http://nationalgeographic.co.id/berita/2012/02/hanya-ada-13466-pulau-di-indonesia (accessed May 31, 2013).

4. Anthropologist Clifford Geertz introduced typologies abangan, santri, and priyayi in his classic study on Javanese religion.Abangan, “the red,” has its root from color red (abang) connotingnominal Muslims, in contrast with santri, also known as “the white” (putihan), devout or firm believers. Priyayi refers to sultanate relatives, the aristocrats. See Clifford Geertz, The Religion of Java (New York: The Free Press, 1960).

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religions, and they allowed their children to choose for

themselves religiously. Indeed, religious pluralism has been

strong in my family, and I have uncles and aunts and cousins who

embrace Islam, Christianity (both Protestant and Catholic),

Hinduism, and Buddhism.

As a young adult, my father embraced the socialist-communist

outlook in late 1950s. He became one of the leaders in the

Indonesian Communist Party in a small town in the province of

East Java. He believed that social and economic justice is the

heartbeat of the world and that poverty and excessive disparity

of wealth are humankind’s worst enemies. He tried to promote

justice through educational and cultural means. After the

genocidal attack on communists and alleged communists in 1965-

1966, he converted to Christianity.5 My mother’s story is quite

different. From preschool through high school, she was educated

in Catholic schools and was moving towards becoming a nun.

5. According to the report of World Council of Churches in 1969, after the massacre in 1965 to 1968, no less than 2.5 million abangan Muslims became Christians. See especially Avery T. Willis, Indonesian Revival: Why Two Million Came to Christ (Pasadena: William Carey Library, 1977).

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Approaching the time of her final vows, however, she found

herself questioning whether such was indeed God’s call for her.

She moved to a small town, Kudus, in the north of the province of

Central Java, and began working and studying nursing in a

Christian hospital. She began attending a Mennonite church. In

Kudus, she met my father; they were married; and I was born as

their one and only child.

From early in my childhood, my parents took me to Sunday

School. There, from Sunday to Sunday, I heard stories and songs

about the great master who gathered followers with his teaching,

healed the sick, ate with social outcasts, was put to death as a

disturber of society, but then rose again. Jesus seemed to me as

one who loved the world without comparison, and he became my

hero. I also came to know other figures, such as Joseph, David,

Solomon, Peter, Paul, and John through accounts of them in the

Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian New Testament.

My Javanese social-cultural context has also nurtured me.

Here are three examples. My first language, learned at home, was

Javanese; the national language of Indonesia, bahasa Indonesia, was

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taught in school. The Javanese language is a language with five

levels of speech, with differing vocabularies, tones, and speeds,

and one must use the level considered appropriate to the social

status of the person with whom one is speaking. Secondly, there

is a special dish of food which can also be seen as carrying a

social-cultural impact. It is called tumpeng and is a rich

flavored cone of yellow steamed rice, filled with various

vegetables and slices of meat (See Figure 1). This special dish

is of central importance in anniversary celebrations for the

Javanese, adding to the feeling of togetherness between hosts and

guests. From my childhood, I remember the birthday tumpeng,

often prepared by my aunts. And thirdly, there is a traditional

drama, wayang purwa, adapted from the Indian epics, Ramayana or

Mahabharata, accompanied by the traditional percussion orchestra

called gamelan (See Figure 2).6 At 9:00 p.m. on the eve of the

New Year, my father or my aunt would wake me up and we would

6. There are technical debates on the origins of wayang. I agree with Eka Darmaputera that wayang achieved its own characteristics among the Javanese despite being introduced by the Indians. (Eka Darmaputera, Pancasila and the Search for Identity and Modernity in Indonesian Society: A Cultural and Ethical Analysis [Leiden: Brill, 1988], 94.)

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watch the wayang on our black-and-white screen television until

5:00 a.m. In my early years, my hero in the drama, not

surprisingly, was a mighty warrior-knight named Gathotkaca. As I

grew older, however, I found myself more and more impressed with

the character of Semar who appeared to be simply a servant of the

warrior-knights, but who was actually the embodiment of bathara

Ismaya, the world’s care-taker god (See Figure 3).

My life-values have been determined primarily by a trinity

of elements: Javanese tradition, Christian virtues, and

democratic-socialism. The above three examples, especially that

of language, aid in grasping characteristics of the first

element, Javanese tradition. For the Javanese, the complexity of

their language is an expression of their hierarchical worldview.

A sentence with one and the same meaning will sound different in

each of the five levels noted above, and this is due to the

“degree of difference and intimacy,” that is, “difference” in

social status and “intimacy” of relationship, between the two

speakers. A father, when speaking to his child, will use one

level, but when he, as a teacher, is speaking to a colleague, he

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will use another; and, if he is speaking to the mayor of his

city, he will use still another.7 As expressed by Eka

Darmaputera, for the Javanese, “the cosmos is elaborately ranked

and ordered; in it everything has its own fixed place and

status.”8 It is not a caste system as in India, but rather a

refined adaptation of the core idea of such a system, one

determined more by function than conferred by birth. It is not

predetermined that one will be a king or a slave, but the rights

and obligations of a king or a servant are predetermined.

Therefore, one should behave in accordance with one’s status.

If humans keep strict norms according to status and place

in the order of cosmos, then harmony is preserved in the

universe. This implies the absence of an absolute norm—a

“norming norm.” That is, there is no one norm which always

applies in every place and situation. What is right for a king

may be wrong for the common people. What really matters is not

whether one’s conduct is right or wrong but whether it is 7. A. Effendi Kadarisman, “Wedding Narrative as a Verbal Art

Performance: Explorations in Javanese Poetics,” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Hawaii, 1999), 134.

8. Darmaputera, Pancasila and the Search for Identity, 111.

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“appropriate” (appropriate), or “shameful” (ngisin-isini). Any failure

of right action brings about no punishment other than “shame”

(rasa isin). This is due to the fact that living as a Javanese

means living in “moral pluralism” or “ethical relativism,” even

“religious syncretism,” as Darmaputera suggests.9 To what extent

is such relativism to be tolerated? Anything viewed as

supporting the harmony of the universe is welcomed, but anything

which is seen as likely to threaten cosmic order is to be

avoided.

I was raised in the Mennonite Christian tradition which

believes that peace is the will of God and that Jesus offers an

alternative way of living to his followers. Christianity is not

about abstract conceptions of God, but more about the way of

Jesus Christ as the embodiment of the love of God. It is based

not on a rigid system of doctrines but, in the words of the

Mennonite theologian Gordon D. Kaufman, “Jesus’ creativity—in his

ministry, his comportment, his healings, his teachings, and

especially in the manner in which he went to his

9. Ibid., 112.

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crucifixion . . . .”10 For Jesus, the kingdom of God has broken

into human history, and is moving people to a new way of life

based upon the attitudes, ones in anticipation of the

reconciliation and peace soon to come here on earth. I contend

that the narrative of divine incarnation is one of self-

abasement, voluntary humiliation, and personal submission, with

Jesus himself as exemplum and with all disciples invited to

follow the “course of ignominy” (cursus pudorum) rather than the

“course of honor” (cursus honorum), in order to lift up others.

The third element in “the making of my spirituality” has

been democratic-socialism. I take historical materialism as a

tool with which to analyze human society. Its analysis has made

me aware of the reality of injustice: the dominant and the weak,

the haves and the have-nots, the owners of capital and the

workers, those at the center of power and those at the margins of

power. The idea of “common ownership” in (Acts 2 and 4) is close

to the socialist idea. As a Mennonite, however, I oppose the

violent revolutions sometimes endorsed by socialists. The

10. Gordon D. Kaufman, Jesus and Creativity (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006), 110.

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revolution of Jesus calls for non-violence, not only within human

society but within the entire cosmos.

With the impact of the Javanese worldview, Christian values,

and democratic-socialist outlook, my personal values have become:

humility and openness to others, justice, reconciliation and

sharing of goods among all people, and harmony in the universe.

I can also formulate this by noting that the three core values of

pluralism, pacifism, and ecological-economic justice (to borrow

from Cynthia Moe-Lobeda) for me have been informed by my

religious and cultural traditions. And these values have

developed a personal spirituality which is not focused on other

worldly matters, but on the presence of the kingdom of God.

A worldview, I believe, in influenced by religious values.

I shall try to depict the Indonesian worldview, noting how

religious values both flourish and often collide, one with the

other, in Indonesia. First, I shall assert that religion has a

public role worldview; then, I shall outline the religious and

cultural traditions which have formed the Indonesian worldview.

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Religion is not dead or dying. In fact, in our time there

has been something of a revival of religion in the public square.

It may well have begun toward the end of the Cold War. In 1967,

the sociologist Robert N. Bellah published a paper entitled

“Civil Religion in America.”11 He defined civil religion as “a

genuine apprehension of universal and transcendent religious

reality . . . as revealed through the experience of the American

people.”12 The transcendence is felt in the pervasiveness of a

religious orientation in many areas of life through beliefs,

symbols, and rituals. For instance, a religious dimension can be

sounded in the political realm, even when there is a strict legal

separation between religion and the state. Thus, President

Kennedy used the word “God” three times in his 1961 inaugural

address, although he never felt it necessary to characterize the

god whom he was referring. Bellah concludes that Kennedy’s use

11. Robert N. Bellah, “Civil Religion in America,” Dædalus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 96, no. 1 (1967): 1-21.

12. Ibid., 12. In different place he gives definition “the subordination of the nation to ethical principles that transcend it and in term of which it should be judged.” (See Robert N. Bellah, Beyond Belief: Essays in a Religion in a Post-Traditional World (New York: Harper and Row, 1980), 168.

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could neither be termed specifically Christian nor sectarian.

The United States was not founded on one specific religious

outlook, but since its beginning, as Bellah notes, “religion,

particularly the idea of God, played a constitutive role in the

thought of the early American statesmen.”13 Without pointing out

to a particular conception of God, such as the Christian one, the

founding fathers of this country nevertheless dreamed of a

freedom for religion and for religious expressions in discourses,

commemorations, documents, and monuments. Civil religion,

therefore, is a product of a society; it is a reflection of the

dynamic nature of one culture. Civil religion aims to unite

people of one nation by giving them free spaces to express their

13. Ibid., 6. Jon Meacham highlights the same concept. When the founding fathers of the United States believed in the existence of a God, the “Creator,” and “Nature’s God,” it was notthe God of the Christian scriptures; one “is free to define God in whatever way he chooses.” Meacham assert “a habit of mind andof heart” which nurtures the people to be “tolerant and reverent,” so that the nation might come to unification, not division. See Jon Meacham, American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers and the Making of a Nation (New York: Random, 2007), 22-23.

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common interests for the society, without causing conflicts and

divisions among the people.14

In the twilight of the Cold War, the world reached the “end

of history” with the reign of secular liberal democracy; “the

best solution to the human problem”; so claims Francis

Fukuyama.15 He has, however, been proved wrong. In the 1980s

and early 1990s, there was a strong flow of religious movements

from the private realm into the public one. José Casanova, in

contrast to Fukuyama, claims the religious “deprivatization,” is

a sort of refusal “to accept the marginal and privatized role

which theories of modernity as well as theories of secularization

had reserved for them.”16 These movements take place not only in

the non-western world where tradition and religion permeate in

14. John A. Titaley, “A Sociohistorical Analysis of the Pancasila as Indonesia’s State Ideology in the Light of the RoyalIdeology in the Davidic State” (Ph. D. dissertation, Graduate Theological Union, 1991), 30; cf. Os Guiness, The Case for Civility: And Why Our Future Depends on It (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2008), 16.

15. Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Avon Book, 1992), 338.

16. José Casanova, Public Religions in the Modern World (Chicago: TheUniversity of Chicago Press, 1994), 5.

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all spheres of life, but also in the western world where

democracy has been longstanding. Benyamin Intan contends that

religion has become one of the most important forces in the

public sphere since the end of the Cold War.17

On the other hand, this “common revival of religion in the

public square,” remarks Mark Juergensmeyer,18 ushers more

tensions in society and deepens social conflict. In the 1980s,

as Casanova has noted, many of the world’s conflicts were

triggered by the “hand of religion.”

In the Middle East, all the religions and fundamentalisms ofthe region—Jewish, Christian, and Muslim—fed by old power struggles, were meeting each other in civil and uncivil wars. . . from Northern Ireland to Yugoslavia, from India to theSoviet Union.19”

Samuel Huntington calls these conflicts the “clash of

civilizations,” and claims that they will “dominate the global

politics,” since religion is the most important element in a 17. Benyamin F. Intan, “Public Religion” and the Pancasila Based State of

Indonesia: An Ethical and Sociological Analysis (New York: Peter Lang, 2006), 7.

18. Mark Juergensmeyer, The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 4.

19. Casanova, Public Religions, 10.

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civilization, along with history, language, culture, and

tradition.20 If it is true, then religion clearly has a perverse

element within it. Fortunately, however, that element is not the

whole story of public religion. R. Scott Appleby contends that,

based on the observation of contemporary religious movements,

there is an “ambivalence of the sacred.” Each religion does

contain doctrines which can lead to violence, but besides such is

much teaching which can lead to peace and reconciliation in the

world, as these movements bring their beliefs into the public

square with an agenda promoting justice, tolerance, and peace.21

Religion, in spite of its ambivalence, has played and will play a

significant role in the history of the world.

In the contemporary United States, due to democratization

and secularization, many people choose not to be affiliated with

20. Samuel Huntington, “Clash of Civilizations,” Foreign Affairs 72, no. 3 (1993), 22-49. Huntington depicts Islam has “bloody borders”—a religion of anti-pluralism and anti-democracy. This claim is rejected by Intan, “Islam is at its core [not] a religion of conflict.” (Intan, “Public Religion,” 9.)

21. R. Scott Appleby, The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence, and Reconciliation (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000), 121-65, 245-80.

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a religious institution. “Spiritual but not religious” is a

slogan currently much heard. This spirituality might be called

the “new hybrid spirituality,” because it seems to be developing

through exchange and interaction between many religious

traditions. Eric Mazur and Kate McCarthy suggests that

“spirituality now exists for many in American culture as a free-

floating entity unto itself, the eclectic product of exposure to

multiple religions, psychological, and other interpretive

frameworks.”22 They conclude that such a reality underlines the

fact that religious patterns undergo an endless mutation in a

multicultural society. In cyberspace, music, Disney world, one

can find values such as justice, joy, love and tolerance once

associated primarily with traditional religion.23

22. Eric M. Mazur and Kate McCarthy, eds. God in the Details: American Religion in Popular Culture, 2nd edition (New York: Routledge, 2011), 175.

23. In a fine study, Leigh Eric Schmidt claims that the Spiritual Left, which includes venerable figures as Walt Whitman,William James, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, affirmed a faith of “spiritual liberty, mystical experience, meditative interiority, universal brotherhood and a sympathetic appreciation of all religions.” (Leigh E. Schmidt, Restless Souls: The Making of American Spirituality, second edition [Berkeley: University of California, 2012]). It seems that Schmidt suggests that spirituality can be

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Having described the revival of religion in the public

arena, I shall herewith outline the traditions which have shaped

the Indonesian worldview, with particular attention to the input

from Javanese culture.

Historically, people in the so-called western world have

tended to hold to definitions of religion formulated by their

Orientalists and missionaries, and these definitions were often

colored by the presupposition that “religion,” in the fullest

sense of that word, was to be found only in the western part of

the world, whereas elsewhere most people would have to be

considered “heathen.” In the Indonesian language, the English

word “religion” is indeed translated by the word agama, but that

word is an “an integral part of a semantic field which it

composes along with the categories adat (‘tradition’), budaya,

(‘culture’) hukum (‘law’), and various signifiers involving

political authority.”24

an alternative to the waning of institutional religion. In my perspective as an Asian, however, spirituality cannot be an alternative to religion as much as part of it.

24. Michel Picard, “Introduction: ‘Agama,’ ‘Adat,’ and Pancasila,” in The Politics of Religion in Indonesia: Syncretism, Orthodoxy, and

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Thus, with regard to law, agama can be traced back to

Javanese and Balinese textual traditions which refer to morality,

religion, and law. In the Sanskrit text Manava Dharmashastra, the

law related to the idea of dharma which refers both to the

natural order of cosmos and to the obligations and rights of

every individual according to one’s status (varna) and stage of

life (ashrama)—the varnashramadharma. The term agama also

pertains to a literature (shastra) which was handed down by the

gods and which has been kept in Javanese (and Balinese) codes of

law. The god Shiva is the custodian of and therefore the

guarantor of the authority of these codes.25

With regard to tradition (adat), religion has to do with

cosmic harmony and ordered social life. In this sense, religion

and tradition are intertwined and define each other. Michel

Picard therefore concludes that

there is no separation between religion and ethnicity, no differentiation between a religious and a secular sphere of experience. No clear-cut distinction is made between the natural and the social worlds, the human and the non-human,

Religious Contention in Java and Bali, eds. Michel Picard and Rémy Madinier (New York: Routledge, 2011), 3-4.

25. Ibid., 4.

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the transcendental and the immanent. The main purpose of the rites is to maintain the proper connections between people, the natural world, and the world of the spirits and ancestors, on which the equilibrium the well-being of community and cosmos depends.26

Syncretism, especially with its eclectic spirituality, is

perhaps a new phenomenon for the people of the United States, but

it is not so for the Javanese people. Beginning about the year

920s C.E., under the rule of king Dharmawangsa of the Synduk

dynasty, the Singhasari (often incorrectly spelled “Singosari”)

kingdom in the East Java not only tolerated the existence of two

religions, Hinduism and Buddhism, but also a blending of the two

into a form of syncretic Tantrism, with the worship of Shiva-

Buddha. And this new religion was apparently made the official

religion of the kingdom. Meanwhile, the common people followed

their own syncretism—the Shiva worship blended with traditional

Javanese culture (budaya).27

26. Ibid., 6.

27. Samuel A. Patty, “Aliran Kepercayaan: A Socio-Religious Movement in Indonesia” (Ph. D. dissertation; Washington State University, 1986), 39-40. In this period, the popular Hindu epicMahabharata was written in prosaic style. The prose was an interpolation of the Indic poetic verses.

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This syncretism continued with the arrival of Islam in the

thirteenth century C.E. The Islam brought to Java by merchants

from Gujarat, India, was Sufism, a mystical form of Islam, mixed

substantially with mystical Hinduism. This mystical form of

Islam spread rapidly both because the Hindu-Buddhist population

was then very receptive to a new kind of religious mysticism and

because this mystical Islam helped to avoid—or at least to lessen

—any potential conflict between traditional Javanese animistic

religion and Islam. Samuel Patty asserts that the mingling of

the old animistic religion, Hinduism and Buddhism with Sufism

produced a new hybrid religion which grew in many nominal

Javanese people.28

In brief, the religion of Java is not a matter of doctrine,

but an understanding of the place of one’s self as an individual,

as member of society, and a part of the cosmos. In the public

square, these spiritual values are conveyed through a form of

28. Ibid., 41, 42, 44; Picard, “Introduction,” 8. Sumarsam confirms that the introduction of Islam to Java initiated “crisisand adjustment,” but the compatibility of the mystical Islam withthe local belief smoothed out the Islamization process. See alsoSumarsam, “Historical Contexts and Theories of Javanese Music” (Ph. D. dissertation; Cornell University, 1992), 43.

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drama known as wayang, a word literally meaning “shadow.” There

are at least eight ways to perform wayang, but the most well

known is wayang kulit, which literally means “shadow-made-by-

leather.” This form is described by Darmaputera as “shadows made

by puppets cut out of leather, and the whole performance is hence

a theatrical performance by shadow puppets.”29 For the Javanese,

wayang is a representation of the existentiality of the Javanese

people in their relationship to each other in the material world

and to the beings of the realm beyond the material.

A wayang performance is always made up of three parts, each

of which is marked by distinctive symbols, creates a distinctive

mood, and conveys distinctive values. The appearance and dress

of each character is traditional and so is immediately recognized

by the audience, but the puppeteer (dalang) is free to use the

creativity in providing the dialogue and the movements of the

puppets. The first part is called pathet nem, begins at 9:00 pm

29. Darmaputera, Pancasila and the Search for Identity, 93. Wayang existed in Hindu-Buddhist Java, around 850s – 900s C.E. The story of this shadow performance was adapted from the Indian sagas, but it has been transformed, in technical composition and in style, in Javanese settings and contexts.

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and ends at midnight. It represents the earliest stage of life,

childhood and adolescence, the period during which the individual

learns values and etiquette in keeping with Javanese tradition.

At midnight, the second part, called pathet sanga begins and

continues until 3:00 am. It represents the young adult stage of

life, when one struggles deeply in the conflict between good and

evil values. The third part, called pathet manyura, represents the

mature stage of life when good has triumphed and the individual

has become a wise person. At around 4:30 or 5:00 am, the

performance ends with a dance of victory called tayungan.

The philosophy clearly conveyed by wayang is that harmony is

always challenged by forces of evil, but that the good always

triumphs. The harmony is symbolized by the gunungan (Figure 4),

a leaf-shaped piece of leather placed straight up before the

center of the screen on which the shadows of the puppets fall.

It is placed there before the performance begins; then taken

away; then placed there again to mark the end of the performance.

The leather is beautifully painted with a mountain—the cosmic

mountain, considered by the Javanese as the natural symbol of the

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universe. The standing of the gunungan in its place at the

beginning of the wayang and then again at the end symbolizes the

Javanese conviction that a world begun in harmony will end in

harmony.30

Not surprisingly, this Javanese mysticism (Javanism), as

manifested in the wayang and in so much of Javanese traditional

beliefs and practices, has produced some impact—often much impact

—on religious and philosophical thinking and life style brought

into Java from elsewhere in the world. This was clear in the

coming of Islam in the thirteenth century, brought from India by

merchants, and then later, when Christianity was brought by

Portuguese traders in the seventeenth century and further spread

by Dutch missionaries in the eighteenth century. Positive

evaluation of Christianity was aided if and when it was viewed as

a new esoteric knowledge along the lines of traditional Javanese 30. Ibid., 95; see also Sumastuti Sumukti, “Gunungan: The

Javanese Cosmic Mountain” (Ph. D. dissertation, University of Hawai’i, 1997), 17, 119. One can find another gunungan in the form of tumpeng offering. It is a small cooked-rice cone, decorated with cooked vegetables, fish and slices of meat, offered to the spirits in order that they may not disturb the harmony of the universe. For traditional Javanese people, the spirits have more direct influences on their life than “God.”

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knowledge (ngelmu). The impact of Javanism on both Islam and

Christianity, however, resulted in their often being quite

different than was considered their orthodox forms elsewhere in

the world. Only in the second half of the nineteenth century did

these two religions begin appearing in a form which was more like

their normative orthodoxy in other parts of the world. And this

development was related to efforts to make their two communities

more distinctive in the Javanese socio-cultural milieu. Since

that period, encounters between Muslims and Christians have been

marked by much apologetics on each side and all too often

unfortunately by confrontations.31

Then, in the early twentieth century, as Indonesians in

general were increasingly calling and acting for independence

from the Netherlands, many Muslims found themselves in serious

confrontation with the nationalist movement for that

31. Picard, “Introduction,” 10. See also Intan, “Public Religion,” 35. Intan contends that, although the Islam orthodoxy became more developed, it could not change the specific characteristic of Indonesian Islam. The two kinds of Islam—the traditional and the modernist—coexist until today.

Sasongko 26

independence.32 In the first session of Badan Penyelidik Usaha

Persiapan Kemerdekaan Indonesia (BPUPKI, The Investigating Committee

for Preparatory Work of Indonesian Independence), held on May 29,

1945, Dr. Radjiman Wediodiningrat raised a question, “What is to

be our Weltanschauung [worldview] if we intend to establish an

independent Indonesia?” Behind this question was the Muslims

wanted pronounced difference between the many Muslims who wanted

the state to be based on Islamic law (shariah) and the secularist

among the nationalists who wanted no established religion in the

unitary state of Indonesia.

The serious difference was developing into a series of

conflict. Then, in the last session of the BPUPKI, on June 1,

1945, Sukarno, a secular nationalist, rose from his chair and

delivered a brief speech. He outlined five principles which he

called Pancasila and which he believed could be accepted by all

parties as the basis, the Weltanschauung of the new state, thereby

avoiding a serious rupture in the movement for independence.

These five principles were: (1) nationalism, (2) internationalism

32. For historical accounts, see Intan, “Public Religion,” 39-48; Picard, “Introduction,” 11-14.

Sasongko 27

or humanism, (3) deliberation or democracy, (4) social justice or

social welfare, (5) [divine] Lordship. He also suggested that

these five principles could be condensed into three: (1) socio-

nationalism, (2) socio-democracy, and (3) [divine] Lordship. In

fact, he said, they could be further condensed into just one:

“mutual cooperation” (gotong-royong)! Making either the five of

the three formulations as the basis of the nation would remove

the issue of an Islamic state over against a secular one.

On June 22, 1945, a committee known as the Committee of

Nine, or Small Committee, revised Sukarno’s five principles and

proposed calling them the Jakarta Charter (Piagam Jakarta): (1) the

principle of Lordship with the obligation that Muslims must carry

out Islamic law (shariah); (2) a just and civilized humanity; (3)

the unity of Indonesia; (4) the principle of peoplehood to be

guarded by the spirit of wisdom in deliberation and

representation; and (5) social justice for all Indonesian

citizens. Latuharhary, a Protestant Christian and member of

BPUPKI from the Moluccas islands, objected to the formulation of

the first principle because, in his opinion, it would likely

Sasongko 28

cause a conflict with some customary traditions (adat-istiadat) of

the Indonesian people. And Muhammad Hatta, who later became the

first vice-president, informed his colleagues that, from several

quarters, he had been advised of the opinion that this

formulation of principle one was “discriminatory against all

minority groups.” In light of such questions and objections, the

Muslim committee members agreed to formulate the first principle

simply with the words “The principle of One Lordship.” They felt

that this formulation was acceptable because it was in harmony

with the monotheism (tauhid) of Islam. And it became clear that

this final formulation of the first principle was acceptable to

Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, and even communists!

The founders of the Republic of Indonesia did not specify

which religions would be officially recognized in the new nation.

Then, in 1961, the Ministry of Religion (which had been

established in January 1946, at least in part to compensate

Muslim nationalist for their legislative “loss” in 1945) issued a

definition of religion which included a denial of traditional

religion centered on nature (aliran kepercayaan) as a recognized

Sasongko 29

religion. In the subsequent political atmosphere, President

Sukarno issued a decree intended to provide official recognition

to six religions: Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism,

Buddhism, and Confucianism.33 Since then, however, Islamic

political activists have repeatedly agitated to restore the

original wording of the first principle in the Jakarta Charter

which obligates Muslims to keep Islamic law (shariah). Also

repeatedly, such activists have tried to persuade national and

local legislative bodies to prohibit the conversion of people

already registered as an adherent of a recognized religion and to

restrict the building of places of worship.34

As a Javanese, I believe that a worldview is deeply

influenced by spiritual values which arise out of the

33. During the period of Indonesian independence, the statusof Confucianism as an official religion has often come under disputes because it relates to the status of the Chinese people and thus upon the assumption of nationalist state’s heritage derived from the Dutch colonialism. See Andrew J. Abalahin, “A Sixth Religion?: Confucianism and the Negotiation of Indonesian-Chinese Identity under the Pancasila State,” in Spirited Politics: Religion and Public Life in Contemporary South East Asia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005), 119-142.

34. For fuller treatment see Intan, “Public Religion,” 50-68.

Sasongko 30

understanding of self, community, and the universe. Whatever one

believes will be of little value if it does not promote the well-

being of community and cosmos. Each person has to know his or

her place and status in the cosmic order, and to strive for the

harmony in the universe—harmony between material and spiritual

realms. Being a Christian in Indonesia, however, I cannot preach

in the public square, for instance about Jesus as one who can

bring about reconciliation. People will not be persuaded by such

outspokenness in the public square. This is not just to the fact

that many people still regard Christianity as a western religion.

But I think that I can effectively convey religious convictions

during cultural events when many people gather and when I am

asked to make some remark.

The anniversary of my hometown, Kudus, is an example of such

an event. I can imagine the people gather in the central park

(alun-alun) in the evening to watch wayang performance; religious

leaders of the community, including myself, have been asked to

make brief remarks before the performance; I have decided to

speak about unity, justice and peace in Christianity and other

Sasongko 31

religious traditions and to utilize cultural symbols to do so.

In this, I am striving to hold to the vision of a civil public

square,” such as described by Os Guiness:

everyone—people of all faiths, whether religious or naturalistic—are equally free to enter and engage public life on the basis of their faiths, . . . but always within the double framework, first of the Constitution, and second,of a freely and mutually agreed covenant, or common vision for the common vision for the common good, of what each person understands to be just and free for everyone else, and therefore of the duties involved in living with the deepdifferences of others.35

Here follow my remarks:

Sisters and brothers, Peace be to you from the One true God,

Today is a historic day for our beloved town Kudus—a day of

happiness, a day filled with grace for all the people. I, one who

was born in Kudus, feel this happiness in my whole being; my

heart beats in the same rhythm with all who love this town.

Our town is small, but prosperous and is inhabited by people

of various groups with differing religion and culture, and yet

who live side by side in peace and with a spirit of mutual help

(gotong-royong). Shortly, through wayang, we will be caught up

again in the country of Amarta. It is a story of a country which 35. Guiness, The Case for Civility, 135.

Sasongko 32

protects its citizens and provides them with the freedom to work

and earn a living, as well as to embrace the religion to which

each citizen chooses to entrust him of herself. This is also the

story of Kudus, our town. From generation to generation, civic

leaders, such as all of us gathered here now, can live in safety

and peace.

As I look around, my joy increase because I realize that we

together represent a rich multiplicity of religious beliefs and

practices. So, I greet you, the Muslims brothers and sisters. I

greet you, the Christians, both Protestant and Catholic. I greet

you, Hindus, you, Buddhists, and you, Confucians. And I greet

you, followers of Javanese religion (aliran kepercayaan). I rejoice

that none of us, as individuals or as groups, suffer any

discrimination, but rather all of us live side by side in harmony

and peace. I am sure we all agree that this harmony has its

source from the gift of One God Almighty. Harmony is a godsend.

Harmony is heavenly grace.

At the same time, I am sure that we also share the

conviction that it is our responsibility to guard and maintain

Sasongko 33

this harmony, and because of this conviction we are deeply

saddened when we learn that there are places in our country where

our sisters and brothers do not experience this harmony. Indeed,

there are those who have suffered threats, even persecution,

because of their religious views and practices. We recall with

sorrow our sisters and brothers in the church (Indonesian

Christian Church Yasmin) in the city of Bogor who were forbidden

by the local authorities to hold worship services and to that end

their church building was sealed closed. It is difficult to hold

back tears when we hear of the loss of places of worship

experienced by sisters and brothers of the Muslim Shia tradition.

And we may well want to cry out when we learn that members of the

Ahmadiyah community of Muslims are considered heretics, attacked,

beaten, and their places of worship torn down. All these people

are our sisters and brothers as fellow citizen of our Republic of

Indonesia.

In a report from the Setara Institute, a nonprofit

organization in Jakarta, we find a listing of the acts of

vandalism on religious groups and places of worship: 216 attacks

Sasongko 34

in the year 2010, 244 in 2011, and 264 in 2012. I was saddened

to see that the rate of violence has tended to rise, and in my

heart I ask what may be the number of attacks during this year

2013, even while praying that such violence will cease. Have we

Indonesians achieved true justice and full peace? With a bowed

head, I must answer: “Not yet!”

Sisters and Brothers, remember our founding fathers as they

were trying to build this state which came to be called the

Unitary State of Republic of Indonesia. Dr. Radjiman

Wediodiningrat, in the inaugural session of BPUPKI on May 29,

1945, raised this question: “What is to be our Weltanschauung

[worldview] if we intend to establish an independent Indonesia?”

The responses to his question were varied. One party demanded

that this country be founded on the basis of religion, namely the

religion of the majority of the population. Others, however,

sensitive to the interests and concerns of the diverse minorities

within this country, called for the state to be a unitary state

without any governmental ties to any one religion.

Sasongko 35

In the midst of a deadlock, on June 1, 1945, Ir. Sukarno

rose and proposed as the basis this new state the Pancasila, the

five principles of nationalism, internationalism or humanism,

deliberation or democracy, social justice or social welfare, and

divine Lordship. At the next session on June 18, 1945, a

revision of the five principles of Sukarno was proposed. In this

revision (which came to be called the Jakarta Charter), the first

principle would have required all Muslim citizens to follow

Islamic law (sharia). I am always moved when I recall the courage

of representatives from the East Indonesia to object to this

requirement because of its possible impact on religious

minorities in Indonesia. And I am also moved to recall the

generosity of the Muslim nationalist group in agreeing to remove

this requirement for the sake of the peace and unity of the new

nation. Thereby, the founders of Indonesia manifested their

unity of vision for a truly free nation, that is, one of freedom

both inwardly and outwardly.

Sisters and Brothers, the agreement to make the Pancasila the

basis of our country cannot be separated from the soul and spirit

Sasongko 36

of our national identity which is reflected in the two items here

before us and will be experienced shortly through the wayang

performance. Look first at this cone of yellow rice which we

call tumpeng. The rice is studded with vegetables, fish and

meat, and this we take as a symbol for unity and harmony in our

society and nation. Looking at the beauty of this tumpeng, we

feel again our vocation to strive for “beautifying this beautiful

world” (memayu hayuning bawana).

Now look at the center of the screen on which will fall the

shadows of the wayang. There, standing in the center, is the

gunungan, that leaf-shaped piece of leather beautifully painted

on each side. The puppeteer (dalang) will put this in place

before the performance begins, then remove it during the

performance, then put it back to mark the end of the performance.

Look at the front side of the gunungan where we see the tree of

life, with apes receiving shelter, a bull and a tiger coexisting,

and a house guarded by two giants. A picture of harmonious

nature and human life is a part of the order of the cosmos. But,

Sasongko 37

what do we see on the back side of the gunungan? Burning flames,

clearly symbolizing a world of chaos.

Which one of these do we choose? That beautiful harmony, or

that of disharmonious chaos? When we come to the morning and the

gunungan stands again before the screen, its beautiful,

harmonious side will be highlighted before us, reminding us that

we are a people who live within a tradition which remains certain

that, in the end, good will prevail.

Sisters and Brothers, during the wayang performance, reflect

on its theme: “Semar Rebuilds the Heaven.” Semar is a simple

figure, a humble servant of the warrior-knights. Semar is not

Gathotkaca the mighty, the symbol of powerful humans. Semar is

not Arjuna, the able archer and charmer of women because of his

good looks. Semar is not Puntadewa, the figure behind the

political power. Semar is not Krishna, a strategist and

politician. Semar is just a servant. 36 He has no form of

36. On Semar, see Sumastuti Sumukti, “An Analysis of Semar through Selected Javanese Shadow Plays Stories” (Ph. D. dissertation, University of Hawaii, 1990).

Sasongko 38

majesty that one should look at him. Nothing in his appearance

that one should desire him.

However, Semar is actually Bathara Ismaya, the caretaker god.

He, though once in the form of a god, did not regard equality

with gods as something to be exploited. Bathara Ismaya went down

and was transformed into a human being, taking the form of a

servant. Remember this traditional Pocung song:

Semar iku pamonging satriya luhur,Trahing wita radya,Tut wuri pan handayani,Esthinya Sang Hyang Ismaya manjing jalma.

Semar is a tutor for the noble knights,Those who are aristocrats,Semar gives wise advice from the back.He is god Ismaya incarnated into a human.

Although a humble figure, Semar takes the initiative to overhaul

heaven, and reconstruct the order of the cosmos. Where there is

no human who cares for the world, when the princes and knights

are concerned with their own interests—as groups or as

individuals, Semar acts to build a new world order. How many of

us would be like Semar?

O Sisters and Brothers who sit in the governmental bodies,

would that you be as Semar and strive for noble and fair

Sasongko 39

governance, and become protectors of the weak. O Sisters and

Brothers who work in offices or on the highways, would that you

give of yourselves to make a world a truly just and peaceful one!

To those of us who identify ourselves less in terms of work

or profession and more in regard to our religious beliefs and

practices, my call is this:

O Muslim Sisters and Brothers, let us make life one of mercy

to all nature (Arabic rahmatan lil-alamin). O Christians Sisters and

Brothers, whether Protestant and Catholic, let us make life be

that of following in the footsteps of Jesus of Nazareth who

embodied peace and righteousness, justice and truth for all the

oppressed. O Hindu Sisters and Brothers, let us make life the

eternal dharma (Sanskrit sanatana dharma) its emphasis on harmony

among all people. O Buddhist Sisters and Brothers, let us make

life the means of enabling all creatures to rejoice (Pali sabbe

satha bhawantu sukitatta). O Confucian Sisters and Brothers, let us

make life, our outer and inner being a commitment to divine power

(Mandarin zhong yi Tian) and true love (Mandarin shu yi ren), thereby

achieving solidarity among all humans. O Sisters and Brothers

Sasongko 40

who follow Indonesian traditional belief (aliran kepercayaan), let

us do “patience-piety,” remembering patience and surrendering

ourselves (Javanese lakonana sabar-trokal; sabare dieling-eling; trokale

dilakoni).

If each of us cannot live up to the teachings of our

respective religions, surely we cannot appreciate the religious

beliefs and practices of others. If each of us holds firm to the

good in our religion, surely we shall be ready to accept people

of other faiths as sisters and brothers.

Here we are on the slopes of Mount Muria where our beloved

town Kudus is located. Here we stand in this prosperous and

peaceful town. Here is where we make our living, caring fully

for mother earth. Here is where we work, creating a city which

is full of love, justice, and peace.

Happy Anniversary, Kudus! “Seek good and not evil, that you

may live; let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness

like an ever-flowing stream.”

Sasongko 41

Appendix 1: Figures

Figure 1. Tumpeng

(http://theasiangrandmotherscookbook.wordpress.com, June 1, 2013)

Sasongko 42

Figure 2. Wayang Show (http://retakankata.com, June 1, 2013)

Figure 3. Semar (http://wayangprabu.com, June 1, 2013)

Sasongko 43

Figure 4. Gunungan (http://tjokrosuharto.com, June 1, 2013)

Sasongko 44

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