In week 4, Dr Ahamad Faosiy Ogunbado explained about religious conflicts, irredentism and separatism, terrorism, and non-violent alternatives. As what our lecturer said, many people considered religion as an organized system of beliefs, ceremonies, practice, and worship than centre on one supreme God, or the deity. Religion conflict is incapability or disagreement arising from differences in faith and belief. In my opinion, religious conflict is very sensitive and complicated because it is related to our beliefs, faith, and thought.
Everyone has different perspective that is why it is tough to discuss about it. There are four types of religious conflict, such as inter-religious conflict, intra-religious conflict, ethno-religious conflict, and political-religious conflict. Regarding what Mr Hamid said, inter and intra-religious conflict is an ideology. The inter-religious conflict is conflict between two different religious, for example in Myanmar, there was conflict between Islam and Buddhism. Intra-religious conflict is conflict between the same or one religion, for example in Indonesia.
There are many conflicts among Muslims. Actually we have many organisations of Islam which have different views of Islam. However, the famous ones are Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah. As I know, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) follows the rules from Al Qur’an, government, and also the traditions. Besides that, for Muhammadiyah, Al Qur’an is the only their guidance. Sometimes, there are many conflicts between both of them. For example, they usually decide date of Idul Fitri prayer with different time. Therefore, sometimes we are confused to do the prayer.
In my family, we prefer to follow NU which is related to the government rules. Another example is when there is a member of our family passed away, we have to send du’a together with our neighbour and relative, we recite yasin and so on. After that, our family should give some food to the people who join it. The food is just for symbolize of our gratitude to them. We send du’a and give food since the day he/she passed away till the seventh day, and also the fortieth, hundredth, and a thousandth day. In the other hands, for Muhammadiyah, it is not a must for them. If they have ability to do that, they can do as well.
The three type of religious conflict is ethno-religious conflict. For example in Japan, the Muslim there is about 0.1 %. The fourth type is political-religious conflict, sometimes political also influences our religion. According to Dr Ahamad Faosiy’s slide, irredentism is any position advocating annexation of territories administered by another state on the grounds of common ethnicity or prior historical possession, actual or alleged (they want to join the majority one). Besides that, separatism is a social system that provides separate facilities for minority groups.
Terrorism is use of violence against civilians in order to obtain goals. The differences between terrorist and freedom fighter is the freedom fighters fight to liberate their country from a foreign occupation and they regret any of people in their country getting hurt. Terrorists want to scare everyone who doesn’t exactly think like they do and kill in order to create chaos indiscriminately. Terrorists are more nihilistic and anarchistic. A Freedom Fighter does not blow up a market on a busy shopping day, but a terrorist does. As boom Bali that happened in October 2002 and 2005 in Bali, Indonesia, it was kind of terrorism as well. There were more than 200 victims.
Non-violent alternative does not mean passivity or taking no action in the face of threat or attack. It can be divided into 3 main parts, such as nonviolent protest and persuasion, non-cooperation, and nonviolent intervention classification.
Reflective Diary in week 4