Page 2, 23rd September 1988

23rd September 1988

Page 2

Page 2, 23rd September 1988 — Indonesia bans liberation theology
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Indonesia bans liberation theology

A Jesuit's Bachelor of Divinity thesis has been banned by the Indonesian government. Mary Durran reports from Jakarta.
FEW young priests working in rural parishes incite a public government rebuke by publishing their Bachelor of Divinity theses. Fr Wahono Nitiprawiro has. But then Fr Wahono is an Indonesian Jesuit who has published a book entitled Liberation Theology. A provocative title in a country where the very mention of human rights is taboo.
Fr Wahono, 33, is an academic working in the rural parish of Wonosari, on Java, Indonesia's largest and most densely populated island. Brought up in a poor farming community, he has worked with peasants whose land is threatened by greedy rubber companies, and with slum dwellers who scrape together a living in the filthy, cramped conditions of Tanjung Priok, Jakarta's harbour area. He chose the controversial topic of liberation theology as the subject of his thesis and two years later in 1987 published his account and analysis of the radical Third World theology that proposes the "preferential option for the poor". The book has row been banned in Indonesia.
Liberation Theology reviews the writings of some of the theology's best known exponents, such as Boff, Gutierrez, Segundo and Sobrino. The stories of some of the Latin American "martyrs of liberation" are brought for the first time to the Indonesian reader: Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero, gunned down in 1980 as he said Mass; Colombian guerrilla priest Fr Camilo Torres who was killed in combat; Central American peasant catechists killed by the death squads. Also considered is the role of the Church in the 1979 Nicaraguan Revolution and in the country's political life today.
Yet the book is about liberation theology. Wahono emphasises that he is not attempting to import Latin American thought and methodology — Indonesia has to develop its own theology according to the country's very particular situation.
Why then, should "Liberation Theology" have prompted a report in the August 10 edition of the Indonesian daily Kompas announcing the ban and quoting Minister for Political Affairs and National Security Sudomo's declaration that the book "contains communist ideology". After all, a Christian theology that takes "blessed are you poor" as its starting point and arrives at a restructuring of the social and economic orders initiated by the poor and not for the poor is less threatening to the status quo in a country where 90 per cent of the population is Moslem.
Even so, the Indonesian government is extremely wary of a theological movement that is demanding radical change in many Third World countries. And not only in Latin America. Just across the Pacific Ocean are the Philippines, where the Church was one of the principal protagonists in the overthrow of the corrupt Marcos dynasty — to which the ruling Indonesian Suharto family has been compared in recent foreign newspaper articles. The South Korean Church is also becoming increasingly involved in the people's struggle to lead fully human lives.
Secondly, liberation theology has been described by some of its detractors as "Marxism in clerical garb". In Indonesia, there is a particularly deeprooted hatred and fear of communism,which is outlawed by one of the five principles of the state ideology, Panca Sila. Wahono argues that although marxism and liberation theology share a common vision of social justice for all, the latter cannot be compared to the Former because of its radically different starting point which is spirituality and not materialism. The censor chose to ignore this point.
In spite of the fact that one of the principles o f Panca Sila professes a commitment to social justice for all, the government is quick to stick a communist label on anyone who questions an economic structure where 20 per cent of the population own over 50 per cent of the wealth of the country.
There is a mess age to be read between the lines of Liberation Theology that the government does not like. That is, quite simply, that chris-tians have not only a right but a duty to question the values of a society where grinding poverty is a daily reality for millions.
The ban is a war 'ling to church people not to go too far. It is an authoritarian government's attempt to stamp out the sparks of dissent that may ignite into a flame. It is also the quickest way to ensure that a rapid circulation of underground co pies will reach a far wider cross-section of people than W'ahono ever imagined!




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