20+ years DIAN/Interfidei: various definitions of interreligious ...

In 1991 the Institute DIAN/Interfidei for Dialogue between believing people was opened with Th. Sumartana as its first director. After his death in October 2002 Elga Sarapung became the director. In 2011 there was a great celebration of 20 years Interfidei, with many visitors, may papers too. Only in December 2019 the book was published and Josien Folbert brought it to Utrecht for me.

It has the title of "Learning from differences, 20 years DIAN Interfidei" (not: Fighting those who are or think different!") The eleven great founders are put on its cover: Sumartana, Djohan Effendi, Eka Darmaputera, Abdurrahman Wahid, Ibu Gedong Bagoes Oka, Romo Mangunwijaya, Ruedi Hoffman, Ustad Arifin Assegaf, Zulkifly Lubis, Jaspert Slob, Haksu Thjie Tjai Ing (for Confucianism).
As an institution Interfidei had a clear goal: promote harmony, understanding and cooperation for the sake of democracy and social justice. It never sought to found a new institutional body, something like a national council of/for religions. Instead it gave training, possibilities for meeting between people who promoted the ideals, wanted to talk about strategies. It never had great demonstrations, but many publications, a good network. Notwithstanding the difficult market of books, the speeches of 2011 are now published. I had written myself some reflections on the heritage of Sumartana, especially his dissertation. I summarized it in the rather strong exclusivism of Hendrik Kraemer versus the openness of Kartini, the ideal for Sumartana (pp 11-15).

October 2019 Karel and Paule Steenbrink at DIAN, meeting with Elga Sarapung, also here with some of the ancestors of DIAN
I will not go into all 44 authors here. Only two remarks: 1) Sultan HB X had a speech in 1992 at the official opening of the institute. He again and again stated that religion is important in the country of Indonesia and must be followed, up to the obligation to obey the rules of shari'a  for Muslims (an echo of the Piagam Jakarta!). DIAN is there to guarantee/promote peace and harmony between the existing religions. (333-337). His wife Ibu Hemas was more open. She defended (in 2008: pp. 338-343) its function as the political ideal and spiritual inspiration for religions. Majority or minority should not be an issue and people of traditional religions and customs are right in their complaint that they cannot include their tradition as a religion on identity cards (something that has finally found support in a decision of the Constitution Court, in 2016).
2) Zulkifly Lubis (1944-2011; here pp. 29-38), initially opposed DIAN, because he wanted to fight poverty and religions should just learn to cooperate als for this goal. Religions in Indonesia too often seek political power. Jaringan Islam Liberal also was an aspect of this power game and it lost so its role and function. The whole debate about marriage law was a power game, while the law should have been used only for the defence of women rights....
Nearly on all pages of this book there is some suspicion of (too much)  religion rather than giving it a great role in the country. Only HB X maybe was an exception, but his contribution is the only one from the Soeharto period!