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The development of religious life in the Reform Development Cabinet
has vision: to realize devout Indonesian people with high morality, harmonious
relationship in a religious society to maintain and defend national unity,
create a civil society, national solidarity and improve religious practice
of each individual according to his/her religious belief.
In accordance with above mentioned vision, the mission of the development
of religious life are: a. to maintain and improve a religious environment
for a religious nation; b. to maintain, guide and improve the harmony of
the religious community to maintain national unity; c. to encourage the
religious community to participate in all aspects of the developments;
and d. to protect the right of the Indonesian citizen to perform his/her
religious duties as is guaranteed by Article 29 of the 1945 Constitution.
The aims and targets of the religious development in the Reform Development
Cabinet are among others, to protect and guarantee the right of the Indonesian
citizen to perform his/her religious duties according to his/her religion
to create harmonious relations among members of the various religious communities.
Religious development also aims to Increase people's welfare through
the arrangement of marriage, divorce and reconciliation. tithe, wakaf (property
donated for religious use) in the moslem society and other social religious
activities and religious endeavors and the rules on spreading of a religious
teaching, to Improve service to the society.
In addition, it also aims to increase the people's knowledge on religion
matters through education which in turn will Increase the role of the religious
members community to participate In the development through education in
the family, schools and society.
It is also Important to improve the Islamic Haj pilgrimage management
to guarantee good service, guidance and protection for the pilgrims.
In the framework of national, and social life, it is important to create
harmonious relationship among the religious communities; and between the
government and the religious communities. The reformation demands that a priority
program be implemented to create a healthy condition which is free from corruption,
collusion and nepotism.
In support to reformation, the government' strategy and policy of the
religious development are formulated in four pillars: democratization,
social potential empowerment, professionalism and efficiency.
The fact of the existence of religious, social, cultural, intellectual,
and political pluralities, the Government should be open to possible criticism,
suggestion and complains from the people. It should create clean and responsible
apparatus and avoid the practice corruption, collusion and nepotism. This
principle is important to avoid the "upper-lower" approach that ignores
social aspirations. Efforts to enforce social potentials are done by way of cooperating
with religious education institutions to create a faithful religious society.
For professionalism, the spirit should be reflected in a transformative
attitude to reformation efforts done by the government by improving work
performance to reflect the image of clean and responsible apparatus. Among
the first steps of good performance are services; develop programs in accordance
with the challenges and opportunities; develop better social, cultural,
political, economic and religious condition, and improve the human resources
through education and trainings at home and abroad.
Improvements in the education programs, in accordance with social
demand; a scholarship program, is made available for all education levels
to intensify good relationship among the leader of religious groups and
the community as well as with the government officials. Another achievement
is improve the efficiency of islamic education institutions by establishing
model Islamic Elementary, public and private schools, and to improve the
quality of the human resources.
There are obvious achievements such as the enactment of Law No 17/1999
concerning the Implementation of the Haj-pilgrimage. The moslem community
have been waiting for this law for 40 years. Law No 17 allows the private
sector to organize and manage the hajpilgrimage.
Another product is Presidential Decision No 2/1999 concerning the Establishment
of the Public Higher Learning Institution for the Hindu religion and Presidential
Decision No 199/1999 concerning the Establishment of the Public Higher
Learning Institution for the Protestant denomination.
Another obvious achievement is the realization of the program for improving
facilities for religious activities by way of providing assistance for
construction of 1,971 worship houses of the various religions and certification
fee for 9,400 units of wakafland (property donated for Islamic religious
activities).
The improvement of the means and infrastructure for worship is carried
out through financial aid for the construction and rehabilitation of houses
of worship in order to support the active participation of the community
to meet their needs to worship.
In 1998/99, the government gave financial aid to construct and rehabilitate
houses of worship for 6,190 mosques, 3,490 Protestantchurches, 1,490
katholic-churches. 22.300 temples and 3.300 viharas.
The improvement of haj-pilgrimage services is aimed at smoothening the
haj-pilgrimage for Moslems. The improvement of hajpilgrimage services covering
procedures, preparations, departure from Indonesia, services in Saudi Arabia
and their return to Indonesia.
In 1998/99, the government built transit dormitories for hajpilgrimage
at six locations namely Jakarta. Solo. Surabaya, Medan. Ujung Pandang and
Balikpapan.
The government has also provided guidance on religious education at
the basic level through the rehabilitation and expansion of 1,600 classrooms
to Public Islamic Tsanawiyah (MTsN) School buildings in the areas affected
by the riots. In the framework of improving the potentials of the religious community's
a permit has been issued to draft a law concerning tithe, Infaq and alms.
Meeting sessions have been facilitated for the Religious Community Deliberation
Board which consists of MUI (Islam). PGI (Protestant), KWI (Catholic).
PARISADA (Hindu), and WALUBI (Buddhist) leaders: an integrated team was
established to find ways to clear the Ketapang case caused by misunderstanding
between group of different belief and to other case related to SARA (ethnic,
religion and race) produce a joint Statement on General Elections and discussions
between leaders of religious groups and media.
The government organized a dialogue with leaders of Islamic Schools
find ways to create peaceful and harmonious condition and together construct
places of worship and other religious facilities such as Islamic Schools
in the Province of Aceh and in Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara.
A number of 85 Islamic Schools in Aceh have been upgraded to public
schools consisting of 43 madrasah lbtidaiyah, 21 madrasah Tsanawiyah and
21 madrasah Aliyah. Improvement were made in the Haj-pilgrimage services
by reconsidering the policy and operational directives for protection.
By Presidential Decision No 145/1998, twelve Courts were added.
For implementation of research and development in the religious field,
a Restra (strategic plan) has been formulated for the development of Research
and Development Board (BLA) in the religious field in the year of 2000-2005.
Through this activity, the structure of the Research and Development Board
was repositioned to focus more on the function development of research
models, the human resources, an academic culture, improve welfare of employees,
and organize better inventory of the assets.
The guidelines of mushaf Quran in the form of Rasm Utsmani writing have
been composed and published, for the Lajnah Pentashih Mushafof the Quran
to keep its purity and continuance.
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