Minister against governorate: clash on the Christian official in the Islamists' crosshairs
Jakarta (AsiaNews) - Minister ofthe Interior against the governorate of Jakarta; constitutional rights against an extremist drift; pluralism and integration against a sectarian and radical Islamic vision of the country. It has become a frontal collision between institutions and different ways of understanding the future of the nation. The controversy centers on the Protestant Christian Susan Jasmine Zulkifli, head of the sub-district of Lenteng Agungin South Jakarta area (West Java province) with a large Muslim majority. Fuelling the tension was the intervention of a prominent minister of the executive branch of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who called on the Jakarta government to transfer the official; the reply of the capital's administration was a turn of the screw, which rejected the appeal and invited the minister to judge people based on their work, not the faith they profess, in a state that calls itself "multicultural and open to religions".
For weeks the Islamic extremist fringe has been seeking in various ways - demonstrations, defamatory campaigns, collecting signatures (later revealed to be from non-existent persons) - to obtain the expulsion of Zulkifli, whose only fault is that of being a Christian in a Muslim-majority district. In fact, behind the attack would be the lunatic fringe attempt to delegitimize Christian personalities who are taking on more and more political weight and space in the most populous Muslim country in the world, in which religious freedom and equal rights are guaranteed by the Constitution and are the foundation of the state, but are not always respected.
In recent days in the district of Lenteng Agung, there have multiplied the demonstrations by extremist groups against the chief clerk. The demonstrators label the woman an "infidel" and someone inappropriate for government from a "religious and moral" perspective. "We want to expel her from here", said Suparma, an inhabitant of the area "because she is not one of our own". An opinion shared by Hamdan Rasyid, leader of Jakarta section of the Indonesian Ulemas Council (MUI), according to which the presence of Zulkifli threatens to exacerbate the "tensions between Muslims".
Exacerbating the clash (until now political), was the unexpected intervention of Interior Minister Gamawan Fauzi who has brought the dispute to national prominence. He declared his closeness to protesters opposed to the Christian official, because "her presence is not greeted with warmth by the majority of the population".
There was a quick reply from the head leadership in Jakarta, with the intervention of the (Christian) Deputy Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama - better known as "Ahok" - who defined as "inappropriate" the comments issued by a high-profile politician and member of the government. The vice-governor called on the Minister to "study the Constitution" that provides for pluralism "in the spirit of the Pancasila", the founding principles of the nation. Ahok asked him moreover not to drag a political dispute onto the religious level, inviting opponents to beat him "at the next elections in 2017" after a political struggle, not with specious attacks of a confessional nature.
Indonesian political experts explain that the fight around Zulkifli and, indirectly around the Ahok-Jokowi duo at the head of Jakarta's governorship, hides in reality a much broader challenge, which reaches the national level. Along with Governor Joko Widodo (Jokowi), Ahok has created a tandem government which has been able to improve the quality of life in the capital, by adopting a number of laws that have received the approval of the population. It is therefore reasonable to assume that one part of the country is using the guise of religion, to launch attacks of a "purely political" nature, in an attempt to discredit opponents and recover the lost consensus. Moreover, in view of the 2014 national elections the Islamists are bothered by the active collaboration between Christian and Muslim leaders.
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15/09/2021 17:35
