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Zuhairi Misrawi
Obama’s speech at the University of Cairo (4 / 6) has received nuanced responses, both in the West and the Islamic World. There are a number of critics, but the majority applauded the speech as marking a new relationship of Islam and the West, primarily the United States.
Tareq el Hamed described in the daily newspaper of al-Syarq al-Awsat that Obama’s speech as something very extraordinary. Messages that are in fact complex and laden polemic, but it can be delivered with a language that is simple and effective, especially for the ordinary Arab public. Therefore, his speech is marking a new era of relations between U.S., Arab and Islamic world. No exception, the fundamentalist faction of Hamas who often neck at neck against U.S. Zionist-pro-policies has welcomed the speech as something special and historic for the Islamic world.
A disharmonious relation between Islam and the West was literally owed to the inability of the West to explain more clearly its position especially regarding to the longstanding Israelis-Palestinians stalemate to the Muslim world. The only language being conveyed to the Muslim world was the nuanced foreign policy that is characterized as repressive and unjust, especially in the matter of Palestine and Iraq.
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Since a decade ago, the problem of intolerance becomes alarming and worrying phenomenon in Indonesia. The data gathered by United Nations Support Facility for Indonesian Recovery (Unsfir), shows, since 1998 up to 2003, there have been at least 428 cases of religious conflict. Frequency of conflict most often occurs in the first three years of reform, namely 1998 - 2000, as many as 297 cases.
By the end of 2008, symptoms of intolerance do not decrease. Data issued by the Setara Institute in January 2009 reveals, in the year 2008 occurred 367 religious freedom violations and 265 religious incidents. Three provinces shows a number of high religious violations, namely West Java (73 events), West Sumatra (56 events) and DKI Jakarta (45 events). Three provinces mentioned have a low tolerance level as well an extremely alarming potentiality of religious conflicts. From 367 violations which occurred since 2009, the state has been impotent to seriously redress religious infringements except the heinous Monas tragedy of June 1 which explicitly inflicted Rizieq Shihab and Munarman.
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M. Hasibullah Satrawi
Islam and Christianity are almost always "together" in commemorating its respective religious festivities. On Thursday the (20/03), for example, Muslims celebrate the birth of Prophet Muhammad, whereas Christians celebrate the Passover commemoration (Saturday, 21/03).
Similar scenes occurred before. That is when Muslims celebrate the Feast of Sacrifice last December. Several weeks later, Christians celebrate the Feast of Christmas.
These respective commemorations are certainly ‘comforting.’ Muslims and Christians carried out their commemoration and celebrate their beliefs without hindrance and being disturbed by others. Nevertheless, the amicable relationship is often threatened by some fundamental differences stemmed from both religious teachings which often provoked distrust, exclusivism, and even conflict.
Against this backdrop, some parties are cognizant to undertake more intensive and open dialog. The dialog is not only limited at the level of day-to-day social contexts, but also extended into the sphere of theological understanding seeking to overcome seemingly existing differences for the harmony of the amicable relationship to thrive.
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