Call for unity amid extremism
JAKARTA: Indonesia’s president said on Wednesday that the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country needed to pull together to meet the extremism threat and safeguard the constitution.
In an address to parliament ahead of yesterday’s independence day, President Joko Widodo peppered his speeches with references to the need to address inequality in Southeast Asia’s biggest economy and tackle the threat of radicalism.
Indonesian police tightened security ahead of the independence day holiday and on Tuesday arrested five suspected Islamist militants, seizing chemicals they said were used to make bombs for attacks on the presidential palace.
Religious tension in Indonesia soared since late last year after Islamist-led rallies saw Jakarta’s then governor, a member of a so-called double minority who is ethnic Chinese and Christian, put on trial during city elections over claims he insulted the Qur’an.
“We want to work together, not just creating an equitable economy but also in ideological, political, social and cultural development,” said Widodo.
“In the field of ideology, we have to strengthen our national consensus in safeguarding Pancasila, the 1945 Constitution, unity of the Republic of Indonesia and ‘Bhinneka Tunggal Ika’ (unity in diversity),” he said.
Pancasila is Indonesia’s state ideology, which includes belief in god, unity, social justice and democracy, and enshrines religious diversity in a secular system.
But there are worries about growing intolerance undermining a tradition of moderate Islam, in a country where Muslims form about 85% of the population, alongside substantial Buddhist, Christian, Hindu and other minorities.
In April, former Jakarta governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama lost city elections to a Muslim rival and was jailed for blasphemy, a sentence rights groups and international bodies condemned as unfair and politicised.