Indonesian Muslims Have Become More Intolerant Of Non-Muslims

While the Muslim world cries out about alleged Islamophobia and an increased intolerance of all things Muslim by the Western world, they themselves are guilty of the exact same thing, and oftentimes much worse. While the West might be critical of some of the religious ideology within Islam, Sharia Law comes to mind, Muslims are allowed to build mosques pretty much anywhere they choose. The mosque at Ground Zero is more an issue of an overt, blatant lack of sensitivity rather than their right to build it there. On the other hand, try building a church in any Muslim-majority country and either it's not allowed or officials make it impossible for one to be built.

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And Muslim intolerance of all things non-Muslim seems to be on an upswing. According to a recent survey conducted by the Centre for the Study of Islam and Society, Indonesia although considered a moderate Muslim-majority country, has had an increase in religious intolerance since 2001, and the government is not doing a thing about it.

Indonesia's Muslim majority has become less tolerant over the past decade and the government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is turning a blind eye to the problem, researchers said on Wednesday.

A new survey by the Centre for the Study of Islam and Society found "a worrying increase" in religious intolerance among Muslims in 2010 compared to 2001.

Centre chief Jajat Burhanudin said certain ministers in Yudhoyono's cabinet actively encouraged intolerance, while the police too often failed to protect minority groups.

"If this continues, the process of democracy in this country will be disrupted as people will justify their acts in the name of Islam," he said.

Although, most in the West have no problems with a mosque being built in their neighbourhood, a whopping 57.8% of Indonesian men and women (of 1200 surveyed) do not feel the same way. They said they did not want any churches or other non-Muslim religious buildings to be built in the country. And 27.6% were against non-Muslims teaching their kids. In 2008 it was 21.4%

Burhanudin found the statistics very troubling.

"Religious intolerance can encourage people to become radicals, join terrorist networks or at least support the agenda of fundamentalists who commit violence in the name of religion," he said. Indonesia's constitution guarantees freedom of religion and the country of some 240 million people, 80% of whom are Muslim, has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

But it has a festering problem with local, al-Qaeda-inspired terror groups, as well as vigilantes that constantly promote, often violently, Islamic law.

And it's not just Christians who are persecuted there, in spite of their constitutional rights, it's minority Muslims, as well, including the Ahmadis.

In the latest serious incident, extremists allegedly stabbed a church elder and bashed a female priest outside Jakarta earlier this month.

Thousands of members of the minority Islamic Ahmadiya sect have lived in constant fear of attack since a 2008 ministerial decree limited their religious freedoms.

Burhanudin said Yudhoyono, who invited Islamic parties into his governing coalition, "doesn't dare" to crack down on Muslim extremists.

"There is no systematic or serious effort to reduce the strength of Islamism and intolerance," he said.

The problem is that no-one, including fellow Muslims, dare criticize the extremists in their midst, and it's those extremists that are demanding more and more, and unfortunately taking over as the rise in fundamentalism increases. And it seems that the more intolerant they become the less tolerant the West becomes and they in turn respond negatively to that intolerance. It's vicious cycle that needs to be resolved, before it becomes unresolvable.