| dc.description.abstract | The Indonesian democratic era has provided hope for the growth of mutual
social practices established upon diversity of ethnicity, religions, race, and inter-group
relations. Yet, in the last decade, various forms of violence were often
carried out on behalf of religion instead. These acts of violence were not only
physical but also psychological (cultural), in the forms of discrimination, abuse,
expulsion, insult, and threat. The Ahmadiyya and Shia cases, for instance, provide
an outlook regarding the prevalence of violence within social practices in the
community in response to differences. Why does such violence remain to occur in
Indonesia? The work finds that, aside from a ‘failed understanding of religious
texts’, excessive truth claim also triggers acts of religious violence in the current
era of Indonesian democracy. It is of utmost importance that people’s understanding
and interpretation of differences be set straight so that any response to
differences can be considered as an embryo of national power that serves as an
instrument employed for uniting the people of this nation instead of disuniting
them. It is also strongly indicated by the work that religious violence may be
avoided by changing the understanding of the meaning of differences. | en_US |
