Having love, prejudice
will not exist right? Or prejudice comes because there is no love? Both are possible
and part of my reflection. I am Siti Muliana born and grew in Konawe, Southeast
Sulawesi. Currently, I am pursuing a bachelor program in the study program of
Al-Qur'an and interpretation at STAI Sunan Pandanaran Yogyakarta. When talking
about tolerance including interfaith relations, I came to know this topic when
I went to school in Yogyakarta since 2014. During my growth period until teenager
in Southeast Sulawesi, I had never even interacted with different ethnic or religious
community groups. So that, in my observations up to now, some people in my
hometown are still exclusive to other religions.
I found a new perspective
when I lived and went to school in Yogyakarta at Sunan Pandanaran Islamic
boarding school, although our daily life interacts with Muslims, but it did not
make me to be exclusive to other religions, even from the beginning until now,
the boarding school where I live is open and often welcomes guests both domestic
and abroad with a variety of beliefs. KH. Mu'tashim Billah as the leader of the
Islamic boarding school always reminds us as his students, "Anyone who
visits here, must be served well until they feel at home." That was his
message, even during the funeral commemoration of Abdurrahman Wahid on February
27, 2020, which was attended by interfaith leaders, Kyai Tashim himself welcomed
the guests and made sure they got good service. This is an example that Kyai
shows with his pluralist attitude and must be adopted by his students.
Slowly I became more
interested in issues of tolerance and humanity and its relationship with nationalities,
so I joined Gusdurian community in 2018. This is a form of my admiration for
Abdurrahman Wahid for promoting dialogue and avoiding violence as an approach
to find meeting point for peace of Papua and Aceh, bloody conflicts related
with ethnic and religious occurred between 1998-2000. However, not all promotions
succeeded because of various political interests that still existed. From
Gusdurian community information, I first came to know Stube-HEMAT Yogyakarta to
participate in Multicultural and Inter-religion Dialogue training with the
headline ‘Together, Compiling Indonesia’ on March 6-8, 2020 at Wisma Pojok
Indah.
In this training I found
that Stube-HEMAT Yogyakarta contributed to peace efforts through training that
promoted dialogue and complemented with exposures to religious places of
worship, as a response to the current phenomenon of diversity that resounded on
social media without face-to-face interaction that led to prejudice. It cannot
be denied, through sharing experiences from new friends who participated in
this training, it was revealed prejudices that existed before the training and
dialogue, even there were still grudges and trauma, because politics of
identity was rife a few years ago. Exclusive attitudes, generalizing and truth
claims in conservative societies show their existence increasingly on social media.
The exclusive group is a group that claim the truth belongs only to themselves
and reject other beliefs. This reality can certainly be eliminated through meetings
and dialogues as Stube-HEMAT Yogyakarta has in order to be open to know one
another. In addition, let's cultivate love through meetings and dialogue. I
really appreciate the Stube-HEMAT Yogyakarta.
At the end of the
training, both individual and group participants have follow-up plan. I joined
a group that designed to make short movie about diversity. Whereas
individually, I plan to provide material that can be discussed among students
under my supervision in Islamic boarding schools, especially related to diversity.
Hopefully, this Covid-19 pandemy which forces us to stay at home and to do
social distancing can subside soon and we can continue our follow-up plans to
sow tolerant attitudes and respect for diversity. (Siti Muliana).
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