Gus Dur: one of a moderate and good muslim

Submitted by Lady (Indonesia), Dec 30, 2009 at 22:57

Mr Barry, thank you for the comment. You are right we can't change islam, but we can change the behavior of muslim PEOPLE toward others, thats what I meant by to change islam, which means change people behavior as what we see in our country Indonesia.

We can compare Indonesia to Somalia or other places where religion is the key factor of their country instability. In Indonesia we still have much more better condition, just because our central government still keep the pilar of our state, to recognize other religions who have similar right to the majority of Indonesian muslim.

Yesterday we mourn for Abdul Rachman Wahid (Gus Dur) our past president. I admire him so much and consider him as one of Indonesia's father. We knew he is a prominent cleric in Indonesia who has very broad minded visions in term of islam condition in Indonesia and the world. He is a very tolerant muslim, struggling very hard to put himself as "a good muslim" who during his presidentcy always try to umbrella all of his people. We also knew, there are many people who are Indonesian muslims have similar vision as Gus Dur, which keep Indonesia still relatively safe place for all people no matter what is their religion.

Gus Dur attacked fanatic islamists who only think about their group. He gave many words which I considered as universal words which can be accepted by all people. But you see, islamists fanatics attacked him to be a spy of Israel or even in youtube he was accused to be a christian!!! It just because he was so tolerant to others. We knew, he studied islam in Egypt (Al Azhar university) and Iraq (Baghdad university) , so he knew exactly what he talking about islam, plus he knew what the meaning of being a good muslim. This kind of people we all expect to rise from the islam problem which currently represented by few numbers of fanatic islamist who only consider that they are the only people will be accepted in heaven by God.

Thanks God, the majority of Indonesia muslim is not following such radicalism islam, but a more moderate islam way of thinking. Only very small population of Indonesian began to rise to represent the bad image of islam to wage a war to non muslims. I guess we all knew who supporting that group?

You said there is 1.5 billions muslims in earth. Yes, it is a big number, but remember, those numbers have diverse type of islam. Probably considering from fanatic, moderate, even a half pagan. It does not matter right? As long as we do not harm each others and live in harmony so it does not matter what is the religion is? The problem is, when one group (unfortunately some from Islam), they everywhere try to blown up others on behalf of islam religion (which totally wrong), then this is the big problem we all must face, including must face by moderate islam. I consider the Indonesian moderate islam is the people who can not tolerate their own people who wants to distract our peacefull of Indonesia unity to use islam religion as their weapon. One of those people I consider a good muslim, is Gus Dur. Gus Dur passed away yesterday... Now, I am wondering where are those people like him now?

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