24 research outputs found
‘NOT A RELIGIOUS STATE’ A study of three Indonesian religious leaders on the relation of state and religion
This article explores the concept of a ‘secular state’ offered by three
Indonesian religious leaders: a Catholic priest, Nicolaus Driyarkara
(1913–1967), and two Muslim intellectuals who were also state
officials, Mukti Ali (1923–2004) and Munawir Sjadzali (1925–2004).
All three, who represented the immediate generation after the
revolution for Indonesian independence from the Dutch (1945),
defended the legitimacy of a secular state for Indonesia based on
the state ideology Pancasila (Five Principles of Indonesia). In doing
so, they argued that a religious state, for example an Islamic state,
is incompatible with a plural nation that has diverse cultures,
faiths, and ethnicities. The three also argued that the state should
remain neutral about its citizens’ faith and should not be
dominated by a single religion, i.e. Islam. Instead, the state is
obliged to protect all religions embraced by Indonesians. This
argument becomes a vital foundation in the establishment of
Indonesia’s trajectory of unique ‘secularisation’. Whilst these three
intellectuals opposed the idea of establishing a religious or Islamic
state in Indonesia, it was not because they envisioned the decline
of the role of religion in politics and the public domain but rather
that they regarded religiosity in Indonesia as vital in nation
building within a multi-religious society. In particular, the two
Muslim leaders used religious legitimacy to sustain the New
Order’s political stability, and harnessed state authority to
modernise the Indonesian Islamic community
Unexpected Fine-Scale Population Structure in a Broadcast-Spawning Antarctic Marine Mollusc
Several recent empirical studies have challenged the prevailing dogma that broadcast-spawning species exhibit little or no population genetic structure by documenting genetic discontinuities associated with large-scale oceanographic features. However, relatively few studies have explored patterns of genetic differentiation over fine spatial scales. Consequently, we used a hierarchical sampling design to investigate the basis of a weak but significant genetic difference previously reported between Antarctic limpets (Nacella concinna) sampled from Adelaide and Galindez Islands near the base of the Antarctic Peninsula. Three sites within Ryder Bay, Adelaide Island (Rothera Point, Leonie and Anchorage Islands) were each sub-sampled three times, yielding a total of 405 samples that were genotyped at 155 informative Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphisms (AFLPs). Contrary to our initial expectations, limpets from Anchorage Island were found to be subtly, but significantly distinct from those sampled from the other sites. This suggests that local processes may play an important role in generating fine-scale population structure even in species with excellent dispersal capabilities, and highlights the importance of sampling at multiple spatial scales in population genetic surveys