Nadlatul Ulama converts kafir to muwathinun or 'fellow citizens'

The Jakarta Post had last Sunday a nice item on the big meeting of the fatwa-experts of the bahtsul-masail. Non-Muslims should no longer be mentioned as unbelievers of kafir, but given a name a fellow citizens who enjoy same rights as Muslims in the Indonesian nation. Reason for this was the easy condemnation of Ahok in 2016-7 with the slogan the Muslims tolak pemimpin kafir  (Muslims should not be ruled by pagans/unbelievers). In this case it was not a religious, but a political debate and in that situation. Muwathinun or for women muwathinat should be used, in the meaning of fellow citizens. Also in the debate about Shi'a or Ahmadiyyah people not too easy the denigrating qualification of kafir is a proper label.

In Utrecht we have now a small exhibition of black/coloured people on family portraits. Between 1600-1800 many rich families had black or coloured people as housemaids, servants for cleaning, driving horses and other purposes. They originated from Indonesia, South Africa and South or Central America. In the description of the big museums they were given names as 'slaves, kaffers'. But now this has changed to 'servants'. Here we must know that kaffer was the name for coloured people given by Dutch citizens in Southern Africa!

Researcher Joyce Vlaming made a small exhibitions of 12 paintings, where she also put enlarged photographs of the coloured servants, who usually only are seen on the background. Now they are presnted in their own value as full images, although usually much more is known about their 'owners' or patrons than about themselves.

One may say: 'What is in a name?' In fact proper qualification can be nice, not only for those who were given the name of kafir in modern Indonesian, but also in present-day Europe.