Summing up the study tour
Indonesia is the world’s 4th most populated country and has the outmost largest expansion in Muslim influence. In no other country in the world are there more Muslims situated. The culture, however, has been affected by numerous other religious over the centuries, and still today many different religious groups are settled among the dominating Muslim communities.
Before we left Norway we had the impression that Indonesia was a country of conflicts, authoritarian governance, and that there is a lot of fear and prejudices among the people. This was intensely contradicted by everybody we met, both official representatives and regular people, in the cities as well as in the rural districts on every island.
Everywhere we heard that all over Indonesia there is nothing but peace and harmony between the different religious groups and organizations. After digging deeper into the society’s structure and function, we found that there was more to it than just utter happiness.
Indonesia is a very complex country. There are more than a hundred languages, and ‘culture’ is not a unilateral notion. In the first island we visited, Lombok, Islam has a great impact on the people and the local Sasak culture, many are very fundamental, but in their own way.
In Lombok, here the religious organizations like Muhammadiyah, NU and NW run a lot of institutions like schools and hospitals, and religion and politics walk hand in hand. Peace mostly prevails between Hindus and Muslims, while Muslims and Christians sometimes act like dog and cat, and Christianity struggles to get fully accepted as a part of the Lombok society.
When it comes to Flores and the majority of Catholics, we saw the same pattern in most part of the function of the society. The Church involves in almost every part of the society by running institutions and development programmes. The Flores people, like the Sasak in Lombok, are very dedicated to their religion and also their traditions, something that affects the cultural product. Here we saw conflicts related to KKN and political matters mostly.
People take little interest in political matters, which is a result of their fear of being punished for having meanings. Both the Church and the officials said it was important to be careful when it comes to modernization and globalization, and the development work was mostly run by the Church.
In Java, on the other hand, people are again mostly Muslims. Traditions stay as strong as religion, and the two are clearly interwoven. Most people claim that their belief and religious commitment will give them a better life, but in everyday life and action of ordinary rural people, we found that religion did not have a very significant impact. Traditions play the more important role. In addition to the overwhelming number of Muslims, there are a lot of other religious groups on the island but conflicts in society are mainly related to KKN and political matters. The religious leaders seem to have the power, and people tend to follow them orderly and politely.
From this, we can conclude that in spite of people’s jolly
good mood and their bright vision of the community, there is more to it. Indonesia is very difficult to get an insight in, and we got the impression that people are not included in neither political nor religious decisions. It is therefore easy to underestimate their knowledge about it. But the people are very devoted to their religion and traditions, and can in that way also have an influence on political decisions.