A Journey Toward Diversity; a Reflective Note

‘Assalamu’alaikum’ This word commonly used bu Muslim to greet people, which means peace be upon you, but sometimes it’s hardly uneasy to comprehend this words into reality.

I am a lecturer of Community Development, obviously a devoted wife and a mother of three kids. I run a small department of Peace Promotion Centre in Institute Pesantren Mathaliul Falah Pati Central Java Indonesia,which mainly focusing on educating people, school level student about basic value of peace, through training which is expected in the long term, they will become our peace agent to teach peace value in their respected community.

For me, an ideal Muslim is those who has transcendental piety in his relation with God which is personified through good intention, sincerely and motivation to make his entire activities of his life only to God and at the same-times, a pious Muslim is those who had social piety, able to read the sign of times and able to manage the life on earth in accordance with the demand of time. 

I am not a perfect Muslim with all of those ideal qualities, but i keep trying with all my limitlessness to contribute my strength for the betterment of the people, no matter the different background they had. Because, I believed, as long as i have good intention and sincerity there are always a helping hand in many forms to help me out of the difficulties

Being KAICIID Fellow, is blessing as I am new in IRD, as my daily activities was much more related to community development planning and program.  I remember the last day Professor Abu Nimr raised a question about, a moment that through the experience with KAICIID change you and when did you find your accepting of the other being challenged.  I was given a chance to speak, as i said that changing moment was the day when I started my first day KAICIID training in Mindanao Peace-building Institute as I saw all of different people from different religious background, were sit together trying our best to stretch-out from our comfort zone, and I started to realised there are a lot of sincere people still care about building peace in their respective community. This moment was very emotional, I learn from other fellows how the process of stretching out from our comfort zone was not always easy, there are bumpy responses along the way, this was when my sincerity is being challenged by the present circumstances, sometimes I felt i like to give up and pretending that nothing happen in the society.  

Building a community of peace is one of my passion where inter-religious dialogue is one way to create a peace loving community.Throughout the implementation of my initiative it becomes a step forward to build larger network of community of peace. Because religious engagement can never happen unless we start building inter-religious understanding by incorporating religious symbol during the process of interaction. This become an important bookmark to open up the way toward mutual cooperation to bring harmony and peace in society.

And being a women as the same time a peace builder is really hard, particularly living in a traditional society where patriarchy is dominating  the existing structure of society, on some occasion, instead of opting harsh way,  I had to retreat and rerouting my planning to maintain harmony with what surrounding and keep going with the program.

Throughout the whole program I personally learn how inter-religious dialogue is needed to be introduced in the community, because religion is often used as a shield, to preserve the comfort zone, in the form of justification for an action, mobilising the masses to commit anarchy, or as a tool for stakeholders to gain mass popularity, obscuring the substance of religion from ‘a way of life’ into means to achieve something, rather than as a sacred principles of governing life.

The persistence challenge of transnational religious extremism could not be overcome only by containing its sphere of influence in term of territoriality, the increasing use of the internet, help the ideology to bypass traditional print and broadcast media via the internet, through low cost but professionally produced and edited videotaped, and even with their own dedicated non-stop television and radio stations broadcasting. The consequences of these developments are far-reaching, as they are able to communicate without censorship or other barrier and thereby able to attract new recruits, funding and support that government have found difficult to counter.  It influence could become more far-reaching, unless we safeguard our community by educating,building awareness and understanding,  raising the sentiment o fintra-religious solidarity and the value of tolerance among them.

KAICIID is an intergovernmental organisation whose mandate is to promote the use of dialogue globally to prevent and resolve conflict to enhance understanding and cooperation. Over a seven-year-long negotiation and development process, KAICIID’s mandate and structure were designed to foster dialogue among people of different faiths and cultures that bridges animosities, reduces fear and instils mutual respect. The Fellow program that started from 2015, 2016,2017 has connecting 89 fellows network from different religious affiliation from 27 countries across Asia, Africa, Europe, America.

Vienna, Austria 24-30 November 2016