The three-day World Peace Forum that ended in Jakarta today has, thank God, confirmed my belief that religions are not the source of global violence.
You see, since the September 11 attack, it seems like everyone starts to think that religion is a source of violence, and that is indeed hurting me as a believer.
The accusation went firstly to Islam, with Osama bin Laden allegedly mastering the 9/11 terrorism attack. Then, perhaps in an attempt not to 'discriminate' certain faith, the accusation spreads to other religions, especially the mainstream ones.
And the results, as these violence and conflict issues have brought religions and believes to God(s) to the lowest level of unpopularity, where people deem the followers as "old-fashioned", "narrow minded", "dogmatic", "conservative" and all other negative labels; more and more people are shifting to agnoticism or atheism, which are claimed to be more "modern", "neutral", "rational" and "timely", although as far as I've observed, people with these stances don't always use rational ground when deciding to be so (anyone can please argue me here).
I don't deny that religious people also accuse one another, either secretly or publicly, of committing violence. And I don't deny that some of them did commit the violence (not only in the form of terrorism, thou').
What I'm denying is the accusation that religion is the source of violence and, hence, the more religious the persons are, the more violent they'll become.
The derivative impact of such ill theory when coming to my own religion, i.e. Islam (I can't speak in the name of other religions because I don't know much about them; not as the followers must do), is that Muslims wanting to adhere stickly to their religion are often abruptly labelled as "fundamentalists", which are then easily and irresponsibly linked to "hard-liners", and then "violence perpetrators", and, lastly, could be "terrorists", too.
I'm strongly objected to such ill accusation, and I dare say it is completely a false one.
Why? Because I myself is a kind of Muslims that wishes to adhere stickly to my religion. And by having such intention to be a pious believer, I've become an enemy of those reckless, stupid, irresponsible and groundless acts of violence said to be committed by Muslim hard-liners.
It is very unfair how wrongdoings of a few of us can legitimize the rest of the world's condemnation to all of us.
That's why it is so relieving to hear that multi-cultural and religious speakers addressing the second World Peace Forum here say that "political violence and violence committed under the guise of religion are rooted in the urge for power, the deprival of political-economic advantages and some religious self-distortion".
In fact, the forum was told, "Conflicts in the Middle East and Iraq are clearly a manifestation of double-standards as major powers are not serious in finding solutions to these problems. These conflicts are sources of many other conflicts and violence in other parts of the world".
By the way, you can find those quotations on The Jakarta Post's June 26, 2008, edition.
