29 November 2019
Interreligious Relations (IRR) Issue 10 – Religious Peacebuilding in Post-War Maluku: Tiwery’s Theology of the Mother (Teologi Ina) and Nunusaku-based Cosmology by Lailatul Fitriyah
Abstract:
The Christian and Muslim communities in Maluku, Ambon, Indonesia have shared a long history of co-existence. This paper seeks to explain the breakdown in relations between the two communities which resulted in a sectarian conflict between 1999 and 2002. Specifically, in line with previous scholarship on the topic, the paper argues that the relegation of local traditional kinships (Pela-Gandong) and the cosmological worldview (Nunusaku cosmology) which undergirds these relations to the rear of the socio-cultural and religious dynamics of the Moluccan society was a main factor which led to the conflict. Briefly tracing the development of ChristianMuslim relations in Ambon through colonisation period, and through the lens of interstitial theology, the paper then proposes an emphasis on an indigeneous theology, Teologi Ina, as a crucial resource for post-war reconciliation efforts in Maluku.
Abstract:
The Christian and Muslim communities in Maluku, Ambon, Indonesia have shared a long history of co-existence. This paper seeks to explain the breakdown in relations between the two communities which resulted in a sectarian conflict between 1999 and 2002. Specifically, in line with previous scholarship on the topic, the paper argues that the relegation of local traditional kinships (Pela-Gandong) and the cosmological worldview (Nunusaku cosmology) which undergirds these relations to the rear of the socio-cultural and religious dynamics of the Moluccan society was a main factor which led to the conflict. Briefly tracing the development of ChristianMuslim relations in Ambon through colonisation period, and through the lens of interstitial theology, the paper then proposes an emphasis on an indigeneous theology, Teologi Ina, as a crucial resource for post-war reconciliation efforts in Maluku.
