"Quiet Saturday" and Easter

My blog would not be complete without finishing the journey through Flores, including what is called "Quiet Saturday," the day between Good Friday and Easter.  On that morning, we left the cathedral grounds in Larentuka, but paid a visit to a shrine dedicated to a Monsignor Mannick, a bishop from Indonesia who ended up serving the Native Americans in Colorado and whose body has been miraculously preserved.  This preservation thing is such a Catholic phenomenon, and in many ways my contact with the Catholic community here has taken me back to the American Catholic Church of about fifty years ago.  Outside the shrine, the sisters who tend it told me that he left Indonesia because of a conflict within his order, and that is the kind of sanctity, a difficult and  messy one, that I can relate to.  We paused for photos with the sisters and their pumpkin produce, and then packed into the bus for the journey westward, pausing at an incredibly beautiful beach, Wayterang Beach, along the way.

As on the other days of riding the bus, we laughed and prayed our way along the steep and narrow highway taking us westward to a Carmelite retreat house at Mauloo.  We arrived in time for a quick "shower," (meaning hand dips with cold water), and went to the church for the Easter Vigil Mass.  What made it poignantly beautiful for me were the young girls dressed in long skirts and sashes, swaying to gentle rhythms of a music not unlike Hawaiian.
  On Sunday after Mass (which I missed having "slept in" till 6:40 AM), we piled into the bus for one last ride to Ende, our starting point for the flight home.  That night we had what seemed luxurious accommodations in a hotel after such primitive, insect-ridden rooms.  The next morning four of us rented a car and drove along another beautiful beach outside Ende, and then up into a "kampung," village, where people of Flores live their lives as they have for hundreds of years, and where everything revolves around the church life.  At the very end of our journey, after the flight home, we arrived back at our retreat house in Bali.  To our surprise, there was a feast waiting for us, complete with whole roast pig.  Then came the Balinese dancers, beautifully attired in off-shoulder (no head-scarves in Bali) flowing dresses with wide capes at the sides.  The Bali dancers finished their dance, and then before I knew what happened, I was invited to go up and dance with them.  I see that invitation and dance as a good metaphor for the end of my time here in Bali and in Indonesia generally.  The hand of the Bali dancer beckons: "Come join the dance."  And I will.  I am ending my time here in a much better place than when I started.  I am ready for the dance.  

The Parish Councils At Carmel Retreat House, Bali

I am once again enjoying the beauty and peace of the mountains of Bali; I could almost feel guilty at being offered such a paradise this close to my return to the States.  But I am soaking it in, including the feeling of being family here, of belonging.  This morning, I had been asked by Fr. Joseph to give a talk to the leaders of parish councils, all men (!) who had come for the weekend.  I had been hearing their laughter wafting periodically from the conference room next to my room.  I knew my talk on “Christianity and Human Rights” and the situation in Indonesia, far short of upholding the rights of the minorities, would not be laughable.  But they were great good listeners, despite our language barrier (I still have not mastered the language enough to speak and even understand questions in Indonesian).  I had a very good translator, two in fact!  The most interesting part came in the questions period when one man described having been a leader of his Muhammadiyah Muslim youth group while in school, then going into a church and seeing a statue of Jesus holding a lamb (the Good Shepherd) and wanting to study Catholic teachings.  When he signed up for the Catholic classes, he said everybody, including the headmaster, hated him.  He went on to study to be a catechist, and even considered the priesthood.  Another man told of being part of an interreligious dialogue begun in Bali after the Bali bombings, and how the top-down approach, beginning with religious leaders, was having an effect.  Finally, a man who described himself as a policeman spoke, telling a gripping tale of violence when a Catholic policeman was defamed by someone in East Timor (no longer part of Indonesia, but a country that won independence through a bloody rebellion against the government of Indonesia).  He described a Catholic mob that was out of control, attacking and burning Muslim homes and markets.  He told them at one point they would have to kill him first if they wanted to keep on burning down homes.  Then he put the Muslim people in the police barracks to keep them safe.  The men asked me at one point for a solution to all this, and my only response could be to have the religious leaders, now so powerful in the political sphere, speak out forcefully of the forgiveness and mercy and justice at the heart of each religious tradition.  I told them my personal story of having my research proposal turned down by the Ministry of Research last summer, and that my director at the American-Indonesian Exchange Foundation, Nellie Paliama, had confided in me finally a couple weeks ago it was because they feared “Christianization.”  These are some of the realities of the complexity and intractability that is Indonesia.  I can only hope that pointing to the problems rather than covering them up will help make a difference.

A Month of Conferences

Two Conferences, Two Concepts

In the last two weeks, I have spoken to the Peace Corps, have given a paper at a conference on human rights in the Law School of the University of Jember, have gone to Jakarta for a Fulbright conference, and have given a presentation on character-building at an education conference here at the University of Muhammadiyah Malang.  Two of these conferences, one on human rights from the Christian and Muslim Perspectives, responded to the actual problems of violations of human rights between majority-minority religions in Indonesia, and the other was a Fulbright conference where all the 200 or so Indonesians granted a scholarship to study somewhere in America were invited. 

I feel strung between two very different Indonesias, the one in trouble from radical forces within Islam, and the other wonderfully hopeful.  One speaker at the Fulbright conference was one of forty people selected by Sukarno, the first president of the independent republic of Indonesia, to study in the United States.  This first group of Indonesians from an independent republic came back and started programs that shaped the whole future of education in this country, even adopting the American system of education (though they have a long way to go to meet American standards, sorry, Indonesia).  He said, wisely, that “this is the era of the battle of concepts, of knowledge,” and nothing could be more true of Indonesia right now, as it teeters on the brink of further radicalism fostered by certain Islamist groups even recruiting in the universities, and most recently at the university where I am teaching, taking students away to radicalize them and make them “ministers” in the new Islamic country of Indonesia.  The hope for an Islamic state under Shari’a law is still very much alive among some small but influential groups.  This same ambassador has been around a long time, and so he remembered taking Gus Dur (the familiar name of the much loved but impeached president of Indonesia, Abdurahman Wahid) to America, where they met with President Clinton.  Clinton said in an aside to Gus Dur, “A successful Indonesia will help to characterize the twenty-first century.  If Indonesia can show that Islam and democracy are compatible, we will have a successful century.”

That hope was actually the substance of the conference I participated in at the University of Jember in East Java. These speakers (and I) were really very serious about seeing the enforcement of Indonesia’s constitution guaranteeing freedom of religion.  Having me on the panel representing (ha!) the Christian perspective on human rights made a strong statement of openness to a more pluralist ideal in Indonesia.  Yet, there were hints that this too was an ideal that still exists on the horizon of people’s consciousness.  A kind of apologetics for the dominance of Islamic mosques and the difficulty of getting permits to have churches built was a sub-text of one speaker’s presentation, no matter how he tried to make it sound open and fair.  He pointed out the one instance of difficulty in mosque-building in a generally Christian area of West Timur without mentioning the numerous instances of denial of permission for building churches all over Java, not to mention . the 240  church burnings and attacks on churches in the last six years.   I hurriedly cut out some of the more stringent comments I had in my paper about the Muslim majority’s fear of Christianization being the reason for most of the denials. 

But I really felt the audience’s sympathy in the question and answer period.  One participant described her “sadness” for her country at hearing what I had to say; and much concern was expressed over the ongoing conflicts between religions.  I guess I am always on the side of the underdogs, since I systematically took the side of Muslims when I was in Bosnia-Herzegovina, seeing their persecution and outright genocide at the hands of so-called “Christians” like the Serbs and Croats.  Here, my sympathies go to the Christians, many of whom just want to co-exist here without bothering the majority.  It is such a complex question!  Unfortunately, I am feeling more difficulty accepting the predominance of one religion, especially when it invades the air space over loudspeakers at four in the morning.  But this Fulbright conference gives me much hope for the future, and even inspires me, seeing these young scholars and students willing to venture forth to our country to learn and bring back knowledge that will surely bring Indonesia closer to its democratic ideals.