Newsgroups: alt.culture.indonesia
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 22:35:30 -0500 
From: Irianto Sukaton <is08+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: What is the problem?

Excerpts from netnews.alt.culture.indonesia: 20-Jan-93 Re: What is the
problem? by William Alves@calvin.usc 
>  
> >newsgroup.) But we can do this the democratic way. Would you care to see a
> >vote on how many percentage of ACI would like see your topic posted? 
> >I would vote NO. How about the rest of you guys?
>  
> Well, I wasn't going to get drawn into this, but since you asked, I vote
> a very emphatic YES. I am neither Muslim nor Christian, but I found the
> posts very interesting. I most certainly did not find them insulting nor
> offensive. It is true that I am not Indonesian, but I am a subscriber
> to this newsgroup. I believe my perspective is just as valid.
>

        Count my vote as an EMPHATIC NO.  If I wanted to read about 
        this I would have subscribed to a religous newsgroup.

> In my opinion, religious tension is not created by talking about religious
> issues. Quite the opposite. Silence and censorship create the kind of
> ignorance and lack of communication that promotes stereotypes and intol-
> erance. Religious prejudice and other forms of bias are overcome by knowing
> members of other religions as people, by trying to understand (if not agree
> with) their belief systems and customs, and by openly communicating.
>  
> You may disagree, and that's fine, but this isn't Indonesia - this is
> the usenet: an open forum for people all around the world. I subscribe to
> this newsgroup, among many others, because I want to read and discuss
> ideas that I would never otherwise be exposed to.
>  

        Face it, the educated elite is mostly a secular community.
        Applying secular logic and reason to ones beliefs will never
        work. Your interest in being exposed to other 'things' is
        good, but I can tell you this much: In all my dealings with
        people of other religions in Indonesia, I have NEVER heard
        any rhetoric coming close to the initial post in debate.

> >From the header of the posting, your posts are done 
> >to many newsgroup at the same time. Thus we conclude that it is quite
> >likely that you never read our newsgroup and replies by posting are wasting
> >bandwidth.
>  
> I believe that cross-posting does not waste bandwidth on most newsreaders.
> Only a single copy of the article is transmitted to an Internet site.
>  

        Technically an internet site could only be subscribed to one
        of the newsgroups the post was sent to like a.c.i. and the site
        may have not subscribed to a religous newgroup to avoid
        receiving exactly such type of a post.  Then not only bandwidth
        is wasted, but disk space also.

> >I think you are
> >not familiar with the situation in Indonesia regarding religion aside from 
> >the fact that 80% of Indonesia is technically Muslim.
>  
> I think the poster was familiar with this fact, which is why he thought that
> this would be an appropriate newsgroup.
>  
> >while most
> >educated people does not care what religion their friends are in, as long as
> >they are nice people, the topic of religion is a very sensitive matter.
>  
> Then, to me, the answer is more education and the teaching of religious
> tolerance.
>  

        Education and tolerance? This coming from someone who lives in the
        city that may be hailed as the flash point of the next (violent)
        social revolution encompassing the world?  Education and tolerance
        only works if RESTRAINT is exercised by ALL. The original poster
        is from Ireland (from his net address), it would seem that he
        of all people should understand this.

> Bill Alves

        From my experience, restraint is a virtue that the net lacks.
        I myself was tempted to succumb to this vice myself. I hope
        it doesn't show too much.


Rouli
is08@andrew.cmu.edu

Standard Discalimer: The views and opinions stated above are mine only
		     and do not reflect the views of CMU.


Newsgroups: alt.culture.indonesia