Egg attack mars Indonesia Christmas celebration

[Extremist]

BEKASI, Indonesia: More than 200 Indonesian Muslims threw rotten eggs at Christians wanting to hold a Christmas mass near land outside Jakarta where they plan to build a church, police and a witness said.

Some 100 Christian worshippers intended to hold a mass near empty land where they hope to build a church, about 30 kilometres east of the capital, in a project barred by district government and community members in 2009.

Since then, worshippers from the Filadelfia Batak Christian Protestant have held Sunday services under scorching sun outside the property.

On Tuesday, however, local community members blocked the road near the land, Andri Ananta, a local police chief on Jakarta's outskirts, told AFP.

An AFP photographer witnessed furious locals - men and women wearing Muslim headscarf, with small children in tow - physically blocking the road and throwing rotten eggs at the gathering worshippers.

Ananta said police managed to convince the Christians to drop their plan and return home.

"We tried our best to avoid any clash and the Christians agreed to leave," he said, adding 380 police and military personnel including an anti-riot squad were deployed to the area.

Church leader Reverend Palti Panjaitan said the incident came after a Christmas Eve attack Monday evening when "intolerant people" threw not only rotten eggs but plastic bags filled with urine and cow dung at them.

"Everything had happened while police were there. They were just watching without doing anything to stop them from harming us," he told AFP.

The country's high court last year overruled the district government's 2009 decision, but constant intimidation from Muslims in the area has delayed the church's construction, church officials said.

Indonesia's constitution guarantees freedom of religion but rights groups say violence against minorities including Christians and the Ahmadiyah Islamic sect has escalated since 2008.

Ninety percent of Indonesia's population of 240 million identify themselves as Muslim but the vast majority practise a moderate form of Islam.

 

[GOD IS MY DOG]

LKY and son will be hoping for this thing to escalate............so more rich Indons will relocate their money here.........

 

[syed putra]

Seems like it is routine nowadays for Muslim Malay types to bully their brethren of different religion.

 

[Kohliantye]

Seems like it is routine nowadays for Muslim Malay types to bully their brethren of different religion.

Hopefully this is just another isolated incident in a generally tolerant Indonesia that made it to the headlines, albeit wrongly.

Generally, in most provinces of Indonesia, the Muslims and Christians live to-gather in the same kampongs. They don the "Indonesian songkok" with pride and are very patriotic and loyal to their country. Their kids sing patriotic songs related to the "Merah-Putih" (national flag of Indonesia with the red and white colour) and play along-side kids of different faiths. They join in Ramadhan and Xmas celebrations by firing "patasans" (firecrackers).

I have personally experienced this sort social cohesion very closely on my many visits and stays in remote kampongs in vast and scenic Indonesia as the guest of a Bugis Muslim (with a Catholic wife). My afternoons is spent lazing on the bamboo benches in-front of these kampong homes, where housewives will descend upon after preparing lunches for their menfolk out in the fields or in the sea. Some of them carry their new-borns with them and when the baby is hungry, they just lift their tee-shirt and start feeding their babies with their milk, as if oblivious of my presence among them.

I am a grand-dad and view this as a sign that I have already been accepted as an integral part of the kampong. The little kids will also be playing around these areas with what little they possess. Macdonals and KFC to these poor hungry kids with runny noses is only a dream.........Hahaha.

When I am in mid slumber, while among these simple straightforward people, I can still hear (as if in a dream), the voices of their mothers telling them to lower down their voices so that my sleep won't be disturbed. If this is not Utopia, what else can it be as compared to Singapore today?

During lunch-time many of these housewives or their aged parents will invite me over to their house where they will serve me whatever little they have prepared. Very often it is ikan selar-kuning and kang-kong or some boiled ubi-kayu. What else can a senior citizen like me ask for in such distant places?

Many of them are poverty-stricken but they truly care and share what little they have. This could be due to their appreciation with what little my other friends and I do for them. Honestly, I truly enjoy their hospitality.

It is also very common to see the housewives feeding their little children at the congregation site. What touched me the most was the sight of Norma, a young Muslim housewife, who used the same food and spoon meant for her child to feed another child who happened to be a Christian. The same is the other way round. For them it is a motherly function and they view the kids as helpless beings needing attention, care and concern. To these simple poor people caring for one another is a sacred, divine and worthy cause. Isn't that truly religious as compared to the multitudes here who have been conned by pastors.............

During my stays in the kampongs, I have also seen skilled Muslim brick-layers and masons helping their fellow Christian kampong-folks build churches on an off and when basis (when donations are received and the materials like sand and cement is purchased). The same apply in the building and painting of village mosques. A Punjabi friend of mine, a fellow helper among the poor and sick in Indonesia, also told me that the situation was the same in pre-partitioned Punjab where the Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims stayed as neighbours until the day the British, with the complicity of local politicians, divided the sub-continent into Pakistan and India.

Many of these skilled Muslims or Christians have Christian or Muslim wives, or children that are either married to each other faiths.

Another touching scene was that when the lunch time neared, kampong ladies - both Muslims and Christians, filtered into the half-built church with containers of food and other dishes which they prepared in their kitchens and meant for the volunteer workers at the church. Initially, such a gesture on the part of the ladies put me into shame and I quickly went to the nearby kampong toko (shop) and bought them (volunteers) a box comprising 48 plastic glasses of mineral water. The best part of it all was that I enjoyed their delicious makan within the church so much, amidst Christian songs in Indonesian blaring from the CD players with the free use of the word ALLAH.

Religious tolerance has always been the hallmark of the majority of Indonesians for a long time. The followers of the faith are NOT fanatics and practises it in a very tolerant manner - be they Christians or Muslims. This does not mean that they are less religious.. On the contrary, these people are much more religious then certain practicioners of similar faiths in Malaysia and Singapore, who feel that being of the faith they are "an exclusive lot" when compared to other religions. The Indonesians laugh at these people and say that they are "lost sheep".

I find it so normal to greet a fellow Indonesian Muslim, or even their imans with phrases like, "Assalamualikum" or "Shalom". These good folks know that I am neither a Christian nor Muslim, but they return my greetings with Islamic and Christian words like, "Walikumsalaam", "Syalom" and even "Warahmatulahi Wahbarakatu". In Singapore, I used these term on a good friend and earned his wrath. He said that as a non-Muslim I ought not use such a phrase. ??????

These kampong folks and the many others from other kampongs visited by us have always made us feel comfortable and at home. What we bring along with us to these simple and kind folks are just old clothings, dry food and medicine like panadol tablets, cough syrup and other medicines (donated by some kind Singaporeans), noting else. What little meagre sum that we pool togather is converted into rupiahs and used to pay for cheap milk-powder, rice, sugar, writing materials and other stationaries for the poorer kids. We spend some time in each village and at the end of the trip return home. We always look out for the cheapest flights or ships from Batam, etc....

Sorry, we cannot afford to travel on 380's in first class.

These poor folks are aware that we too are struggling in life, for I do tell them that the notion that all Singaporeans are well-off is wrong. I do explain to them that there are extremely poor people in Singapore surviving on a hand-to-mouth existence. They were shocked......

Now back on the subject of religious intolerance mentioned above.

It is very sad that such a thing is happening in a tolerant society like Indonesia. No one in Indonesia objects to the use of the word, Allah
Everyone is equal in their eyes.

If people need churches allow them to have it. The worse thing is to alienate people just in trying to please the intolerant ones. Look at what is happening in Poso, or has happened in Palu and other parts of that province. It is truly sad.

Those bent on destroying the social fabric that holds and bind this proud people togather up to now, will eventually realise that they will be defeated, for I have personally heard from the mouth of little children that they despise such fanatical and demonish zealots.

Hidup Indonesia. Hidup Merah Putih.

 

[drifter]

Just let them kill each other to see whose god is the god

 

[shctaw]

Just let them kill each other to see whose god is the god

Somehow this words sound wise......strange world.