Religion in the New Order

LEYAKET ALI MOHAMED OMAR

History of Religion Part 2- Prof Bernard Adeney- Risakotta and Prof Margana

Readings are from : Lorraine V. Aragon – Fields of the Lord: Animism, Christian Minorities and State Development in Indonesia and Robert W. Hefner- Civil Islam

Both throughout history and in recent times, religion has shown itself to be as able to unite people and to divide them, to inspire acts of love and acts of hatred. The introduction in Aragon’s work sent chill down my spine as she explores the event that the world saw as a long bloody battles of religion, race and ethnic violence in recent time. In a sense I think in every country there are bound to be conflicts of religion if it is not nurture with tolerance and respect no matter what circumstances that arises to spark it off.

Singapore began its journey to nationhood in 1965 with racial and religious conflict fresh in its historical memory. The cohesion enjoyed today has been attained neither by sheer accident nor by pretending that racial and religious problems do not exist. Instead, it is in facing the problem of cultural tensions squarely that ways to mitigate them have been attained. Forty-five years on, it may be detrimental to pretend that those who desire to divide Singapore’s multi-racial and multi-religious society only exist in history books. On 21st July 1964, around 1pm, over 20,000 Malays and Muslims had gathered at the Padang(a parade field) for a celebration. This celebration was held annually to commemorate the birthday of Prophet Muhammad. 212 Muslim organizations had also gathered to participate in this procession. This processions were normally grand affairs as many on-lookers would regard is as a Muslim’s “Chingay Parade.” Celebrations to mark the birthday of Prophet Mohammad were also held throughout Malaysia. It was a grand occasion in many towns. However, on that day as the procession, it was said that a group of Chinese man disturbed the marching by throwing a bottle at the participants. Shortly after that fights began to break out. Later, when a federal police officer requested for some marchers to stick to a particular route along the Kallang Gas Works, he was attacked. Disorder soon speeded like wildfire as this triggered the beginning of the worst riot in the history of Singapore. The disorder was so great that by the first day of the riots, 4 people were killed and 178 others injured. On 2 August 1964, the island-wide curfew was completely lifted, 11 days after the ordeal. In all, 23 people were dead and 460 injured.

These factors draw a clear line that the mutual respect, tolerance and the understanding of religions practices. Rituals cannot be taken for granted especially when it is misinterpreted. For the people of Tobaku respecting and believing the dead ancestors still play a big role in the society while at the same time they are Christians. In line to this understanding of faith one, again comes back to the original question of what is religion ? Defining the word "religion" is fraught with difficulty. Many attempts have been made. Most seem to focus on too narrowly only a few aspects of religion; they tend to exclude those religions that do not fit well.


It is understood that religion can be interpreted as a theological, philosophical, anthropological, sociological and even psychological. Quoted scholars from the seventeen, sixteenth till the nineteenth centuries, definition by Samuel Johnson, Dictionary of English language (1755), also Zwingli and Calvin(1696) and Clifford Geertz (1960). Most of them vary from each other’s. These are some of the basic definitions that I find its obvious in most, example; some exclude beliefs and practices that many people passionately defend as religious. This excludes such non-theistic religions as Buddhist, which has no such belief. Some definitions equate "religion" with "Christianity," and thus define two out of every three human in the world as non-religious. Some definitions are so broadly written that they include beliefs and areas of study that most people do not regard as religious. Some define "religion" in terms of "the sacred" and/or "the spiritual," and thus result in two definitions. Sometimes, definitions of "religion" contain more than one deficiency’

Generally, for me personally I think the definition given in Wikipedia defines religion as: "... a system of social coherence based on a common group of beliefs or attitudes concerning an object, person, unseen being, or system of thought considered to be supernatural, sacred, divine or highest truth, and the moral codes, practices, values, institutions, traditions, and rituals associated with such belief or system of thought." Which personally I think is comprehensive enough to make a person understand what I understood as religion.