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)

How do jihadists and militant Papuan pro-independence groups in Indonesia analyze each other's behavior? How do government policies toward the two groups differ? Why does the murder of a policeman warrant a murder charge when committed by a Papuan guerrilla but a terrorism charge when committed by a jihadist? Why is speech in favor of independence banned but speech exhorting the killing of deviants allowed? Why are "deradicalisation" programs, such as they are, aimed only at jihadists and not at Papuan militants? Why is the Papuan independence flag banned while flags that promise an Islamic caliphate are allowed? Some inconsistencies may be unavoidable, but when "terrorists" are not producing mass casualties and some "rebels" are beginning to target civilians, it may be time to rethink policies toward both. Sidney Jones will address these disparities using evidence drawn from interviews and from these groups’ own statements and actions.

Sidney Jones is a globally acclaimed expert on inter-group conflict in Southeast Asia. Topics she has covered for ICG include radical Islamism and communal violence in Indonesia and the Philippines. Previously she held positions with Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the Ford Foundation. Her writings in 2011–12 have appeared in Southeast Asian Affairs 2011, The Straits Times, and Strategic Review among other outlets. Her earlier work includes Making Money Off Migrants: The Indonesian Exodus to Malaysia (2000). A frequent media interviewee, she also lectures widely—most recently in Sydney on extremism and democracy in Indonesia at the Australian Institute of International Affairs. Based in Jakarta, she has spent Fall 2012 as a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley.

Why does ethnic violence in multi-ethnic states revolve around one identity rather than another? Why, for example, do some conflicts revolve around religion whereas others revolve around language? This is an important question for understanding ethnic bloodshed in a variety of plural states in Europe, Africa, Asia, and elsewhere.

Ajay Verghese has examined these questions through an investigation of India, one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the world. Using a mixed-methods research design that combines a quantitative analysis of 589 Indian districts with 15 months of archival work and elite interviews conducted in six case studies, he argues that the legacies of British colonial rule are the major determinant of contemporary patterns of ethnic conflict. 

Verghese finds that areas in India formerly under the control of British administrators experience more contemporary caste and tribal violence, but areas which remained under the control of autonomous native kings experience more religious conflict. Bifurcated colonial rule in India embedded master narratives of conflict in specific regions, reinforced them through local institutions, and ultimately engendered commonsensical understandings of how ethnic conflict is legitimately organized.

Colonialism in India became a model for later British expansion into parts of Africa and Southeast Asia, and this project therefore has major implications for understanding the historical roots of ethnic conflict in a number of multi-ethnic states around the world.

This is the first in a series of lectures by post-doctoral fellows at Shorenstein APARC presenting research on contemporary Asia.