The Ediots at The Jakarta Post Have Gone Too Far

Monday's Jakarta Post had an editorial espousing the tolerant qualities of Islam and went so far as to say that during Idul Fitri "muslims even pray for Christians and Jews and it's the only religion that encourages its followers to pray for people of those two faiths."

Ok. First of all, Buddhists and Hindus weren't mentioned at all. Does that mean those two religious groups are not deserving of respect from muslims?

Next, if muslims have such a high regard for christians and jews, why isn't Judaism acknowledged as a religion by the Republic of Indonesia?

Furthermore, if muslims truly respect christians and jews, why is there such undue bureaucracy in constructing a christian house of worship? More importantly, why are christian houses of worship constantly targeted by muslim extremists?

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International Religious Freedom Report (2002):
Saudi Arabia= The Spiritual Home of Islam
The Government prohibits public non-Muslim religious activities. Non-Muslim worshippers risk arrest, imprisonment, lashing, deportation, and sometimes torture for engaging in overt religious activity that attracts official attention.

Indonesia:
The Government continued to restrict the construction and expansion of houses of worship, and maintained an ostensible ban on the use of private homes for worship unless the community approved and a regional office of the Ministry of Religious Affairs provided a license. Some Protestants complained that community approval was difficult to obtain and alleged that in some areas, Muslim authorities were systematically trying to shut them out. A government decree has been used to prohibit the construction and expansion of churches and to justify the closure of churches in predominantly Muslim areas. Although the regulations implemented under the decree apply to all recognized religions, minority groups--especially Protestant--claim that the law is enforced only on religious minorities, and that minority faiths have difficulty obtaining the proper licenses and permits to build houses of worship. Christians claim that the law is not enforced on Muslim communities, which they assert often do not apply for the permits before constructing a mosque.


Religious intolerance increasingly was evident during the period covered by this report, and became a matter of growing concern to many Indonesians. Apart from the violence in the Moluccas and Central Sulawesi, religious intolerance occasionally manifested itself elsewhere in the country in the form of attacks on churches. During the second half of 2001, at least 30 churches were either forcibly closed or destroyed in Sulawesi, West Java, Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Semarang, Aceh and Buru Island. There were no reports of any mosques being destroyed during the period covered by this report.

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I find it unnecessarily pretentious for The Jakarta Post editors to insinuate that "muslims are the only ones who pray for members of other faiths". In my studies of Buddhism, there is no distinction between members of other faiths; a Buddhist prays for the benefit of "all sentient beings". Additionally, it seems arrogant to assume that christians NEVER pray for the well-being of other humans who might be members of another faith. As long as these grandiose and unsubstantiated boasts continue unchallenged, I don't see how true religious freedom can be actualized.