Religion
Related: About this forumFor Indonesian Atheists, a Community of Support Amid Constant Fear
By SARA SCHONHARDT
Published: April 26, 2013
JAKARTA — Karina is an atheist, but her friends jokingly call her “the prophet.” That is because she is helping nurture a community for unbelievers in predominantly Muslim Indonesia, where trumpeting one’s disbelief in God can lead to abuse, ostracism and even prison.
“It’s very normal for atheists to be paranoid because the environment does not support them,” said Ms. Karina, 26, who uses only one name. But, she said, “in this group people don’t need to be afraid.”
Indonesian Atheists was founded with a Facebook page in 2008 and now holds regular gatherings. The Internet has offered its members a safe space to air their opinions, and the feeling of community has made them braver about gathering in public. But recent prosecutions of people who made online comments deemed blasphemous by the country’s courts have stoked fears that they too could come under attack.
“Members’ growing outspokenness and courage does not indicate that other people increasingly accept us,” said Karl Karnadi, 29, the group’s founder. He lives in Germany and is candid about being a nonbeliever on Facebook and Twitter. Inside Indonesia, atheists are circumspect about their views, he said, and refrain from public criticism of Islam or any statements that could run afoul of the country’s blasphemy law. Still, he said, that is an advance from a time when people were fiercely secretive.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/27/world/asia/26iht-indonesia26.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
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msongs
(67,371 posts)
muxin
(98 posts)Atheism in Indonesia has an interesting yet dark history
10 years after the independence in 1945 we held the first election, surprisingly Indonesian Communism Party won a lot of votes and was on the third position in the election. This party was adopting marxism including marxist doctrine concerning religion, so there are lots of atheists in that party even though not 100% of its participants are atheists.
Our first president was kind of like Hugo Chavez, he continuously resist and criticized the west especially US and UK and the people were supporting him because the ally was supporting the Dutch colonialism in Indonesia that made us suffer for 3.5 centuries. In addition to that, president Soekarno also built a close relationship with the communism party since they shared the same view about the west.
In 1965 there was a conflict in the army that led to a plot to replace the government, the people behind this plot were utilizing the relationship between the president and the communist party to delegitimize his power. It was a very dark era in Indonesia's history, I remember my mom told me we were living in constant fear 24/7. One of the issues being used to make people turned against the Indonesian Communist Party is Atheism. In 1965 hundreds of people being butchered when praying in mosques and churches, and it happened many times, even though we never really know the truth, but the propaganda said it was the communist atheists who were responsible for the crime because they're godless and they hated religions. The climax was when they finally kidnapped and killed 7 top army generals and the rumor said the communists were building an army to take over the nation. Suharto (an army general who later became the 2nd president) were given mandate to deal with the issue, and the first thing he did to "restore peace" was to hunt down all communists/atheists and kill them like animals.
It was a blurry history and until now nobody can tell what really happened, some said the CIA was behind it, others said it was just an internal conflict within the army. But one thing for sure, since then communism is banned in Indonesia and for 32 years we were brainwashed by the Suharto regime. They created their own version of history that made Suharto looked like a hero and the communists are ruthless godless people, they put this in history books for schools, so we grew up with this kind of knowledge. Every year they also played a movie based on their version of history showing the ruthlessness of the communists / atheists, for 32 years!
Today many people still think this way: Communist=atheist=evil, this is not something that can go away in a year or two, to find acceptance the atheist community in Indonesia have to beat 32 years of brainwashing. Even though the people finally brought down that militaristic government in 1998 it's not an easy job to change a lot of people's mindset.
rug
(82,333 posts)The coup that removed Sukarno reminds me of the coup that removed Allende in Chile five years later. The West was not reluctant in the least to remove governments that it considered to be on the opposite side in the Cold War.
