Co-sponsored by the Department of Religious Studies

The Caodai religion is unique.  Born in French Indochina in 1926, it mixes Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism with organizational elements from the Catholic Vatican and French spirit-writing practices.  It is a masculine monotheism that worships Cao Dai (the Jade Emperor) as the head of an elaborate pantheon of “spiritual advisors” who include, alongside Asian sages, Jesus, Victor Hugo, Vladimir Lenin, and Jeanne d’Arc.  The religion emerged in tandem with the Vietnamese struggle for independence as a form of “cultural nationalism” expressed as spiritual revival.  Described as both conservative and revolutionary, nostalgic and futuristic, it has been called an “outrageous form of syncretism”—an excessive, even transgressive blending of piety with blasphemy, obeisance with rebellion, the old with the new.   It counts some four million followers worldwide and has grown rapidly in the US, with dozens of temples in California.  Using the case of Caodaism, Prof. Hoskins will explore the controversial concept of “syncretism” and its application to Asian religions.

Janet Hoskins is a professor of anthropology and religion at the University of Southern California.  Her books include Fragments from Forests and Libraries (2001); A Space Between Oneself and Oneself: Anthropology as a Search for the Subject (1999); Biographical Objects: How Things Tells the Stories of People’s Lives (1998); and Headhunting and the Social Imagination in Southeast Asia (contributing ed., 1996).  The Association for Asian Studies awarded its Benda Prize in Southeast Asian Studies to The Play of Time: Kodi Perspectives on History, Calendars and Exchange (1993).  She has also written and produced three ethnographic documentaries, including “The Left Eye of God: Caodaism Travels from Vietnam to California” (2008).

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The Left Eye of God: Caodaism Travels from Vietnam to California

Since the resignation of Indonesia’s authoritarian president Suharto in 1998, the country has made great strides in consolidating a democratic government. But it is by no means a model of tolerance. The rights of religious minorities are routinely trampled. Regulations against blasphemy and proselytizing are routinely used to prosecute minorities including atheists, Ahmadiyah, Bahais, Christians, and Shias. As of 2012 Indonesia had over 280 religiously motivated regulations restricting minority rights. 

Hard-line groups such as the Islam Defenders Front use narrow interpretations of local and national legislation as a key tool to suppress minorities. In 2006 two ministers in President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's cabinet jointly decreed stricter legal requirements for building a house of worship. The decree is enforced only on religious minorities, often when Islamists pressure local officials to refuse to authorize the construction of Christian churches or to harass those worshiping in “illegal” churches. More than 430 such churches have been closed since. Violent attacks on religious minorities have become more frequent—from 216 cases in 2010, to 244 in 2011, to 264 in 2012. What explains this record of intimidation? Can it be stopped, and if so, how?

Andreas Harsono is widely published. He co-wrote In Religion's Name: Abuses against Religious Minorities in Indonesia (Human Rights Watch, 2013). His commentaries appeared in 2012 in outlets ranging from The New York Times to The Myanmar Times. Other writings include My “Religion” Is Journalism (2010), a collection of his Indonesian-language essays. In 2003 he helped establish the Pantau Foundation, which trains Indonesian journalists and defends media freedom. In 1999 he was awarded a Nieman Fellowship on Journalism at Harvard. He co-founded the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (Bangkok,1998), the Institute for the Study of the Free Flow of Information (Jakarta, 1995), and the Alliance of Independent Journalists (Jakarta, 1994). Earlier in his career he edited Pantau, a monthly Indonesian magazine on journalism and the media. Still earlier he worked as a reporter for The Nation (Bangkok) and The Star (Kuala Lumpur). He describes himself as a “journalist-cum-activist”—an identity richly illustrated by his career.

Related Resources

Indonesia: Religious Minorities Targets of Rising Violence (HRW, press release)

Indonesia: Rising Violence Against Religious Minorities (HRW, slideshow)

In Religion’s Name: Abuses Against Religious Minorities in Indonesia (HRW, report)

Indonesia has undergone democratization since 1998. Islamic political parties have re-emerged, but they have failed to gain significant support. National politics in Indonesia today are mainly secular. Yet religious values are held in high regard, and religious sentiments are expressed in books, films, fashions, and television programs, among other media. Why has this enthusiasm for religion not yielded a dominant role for Islamism as a political force? The popularity of Islamic political parties has actually declined. Why? What factors have enabled non-religious parties to maintain political prominence while, at the same time, society has become more pious?

Anies Baswedan, currently president of Paramadina University in Jakarta, is a leading intellectual figure in Indonesia. In 2008, the editors of Foreign Policy named him one of the world’s top 100 public intellectuals. As an advisor to the Indonesian government, he is a leading proponent of democracy and transparency in Indonesia, a creative thinker about Islam and democracy, as well as a charismatic leader in the educational field. Anies Baswedan will be on campus in May 2011 through the International Visitors Program sponsored by the Stanford Humanities Center and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He was nominated by the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies.

Co-sponsored by the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies, the Southeast Asia Forum, and the Stanford Humanities Center