The Beauty of Pluralism in the Name of Love

"Why did God create us differently if He only wants to be worshipped in one way?" Annisa asked. "That's why God creates love, so all the differences can be united," replies Cina.

            That is a piece of dialog from the movie Cin(t)a, an independent Indonesian movie that pictures an inter-faith relationship. Cina is an 18-year-old Catholic, who was born in Tapanuli, North Sumatra while Annisa is a 24-year-old Javanese Muslim. They are both studying architecture at a university in Bandung. Cina and Annisa love each other, but their age, different ethnicity and, most of all, religion, create borders between them. The director was bold enough to put the interfaith marriage as the ending of the story. Cin(t)a was launched by Industri Film Independen Indonesia Sembilan Matahari Film in National Film Theater, South Bank, Belvedere Rd, Greater London, on May 29th, 2009.

            Adi Panuntun, the director, finished this movie in 2008. He presented a new paradigm about interfaith relationship in Indonesia which is still considered taboo in Indonesian culture. A new phenomena is arising when the Public Relation of Cin(t)a, Ardanti Andiarti stated that the audience was quite enthusiastic on the launching this movie on Facebook, including discussing the religious issue. It was obvious that the interfaith marriage phenomena started to be commonly accepted in our society.

            Getting married is one of the important stages of living that happens everywhere. Regarding the importance of marriage, views from religious, traditional, and normative aspects should be taken into accounts. Marriage is believed as a strong bound connecting a man and a woman to build a family or household system. In order to make a strong bound, a deep commitment is needed between the couple. Regarding the importance of marriage institution, Undang-undang Perkawinan No.1 tahun 1974 pada pasal 2 ayat 1 states that the union between a man and a woman is considered legal if it is done based on the couple’s religion. Basically saying, if it is official seen from religious views, then it is also considered official in the civil marriage.

Interfaith marriage has been a never ending topic discussion in Indonesian culture. According to the positive law in Indonesia, it is clearly declared that the interfaith marriage is undesirable. Yet, as a nation-state with a pluralistic society, Indonesia is rich in race, ethnicity, and religion. A survey on the spread of religion in 2010 shows as follows: 85,1% from 240.271.522 Indonesian citizen are Islam, 9,2% Christian, 3,5% Catholic, 1,8% Hindu, and 0,4% Buddhist. Based on the facts given, interfaith marriages, sometimes, are inevitable since people interact each other in certain kind of society. Unluckily, reality tells us that marriage policy in Indonesia is still biased due to the contextual interpretations. Many debates about the legality of the interfaith marriages but up until now, this sensitive issue is said to be in the middle of nowhere.  

Speaking of legality seen from the religion perspective, almost all of the religions are in opposition to mixed marriages, especially interfaith marriage. However, it is still debatable in among religions that interfaith marriage is legal since the changing society from a conservative to a modern era. It is widely believed in almost all religions that interfaith marriage is forbidden, based on a belief that this kind of marriage would only generate problems in marriage life than good things especially when it comes to overcoming intern problems and raising the children.

Historically, people from India, China, Arab, and Portugal came to Indonesia as traders but at the same time, they brought their culture and spread their origin taste in this country, including language and religions. Some people apparently valued the origin taste as religions where they lay on their principles of life. Interfaith marriage is one of the product of assimilation in Indonesia at the past time. As the time goes by, the growing and developing information as well as technology of communication in globalisation era sooner or later change the worldview yet many conservative people still hold their believes as something that cannot be compromised.

            Indonesian society is now swifting its way of life from conservative to modern era. As a result, different perspectives and paradigms are commonly found in setting the rules, including marriage policy. According to Alex Inkeles, a modern society has characteristics as follow: (1) accept new things and open to change. (2) speak up the opinions about themselves or other things outside their environment dan behave democratically. (3) value times and future oriented, rather than past oriented. (4) have plan and organization. (5) confident. (6) count every single thing. (7) value other people’s lives. (8) believe more in science and technology. (9) believe that achievements follow the acceptance in a society.

            The citeria above may be the reasons why this society started to change its way of thinking from conservative to modern. Bakdi Soemanto, who lectures at Pusat Penelitian Kebudayaan dan Perubahan Sosial Universitas Gajah Mada, explains about how the society is changing. People is now living in a multidiciplinary era where everything is connected to each other. The community cannot live by merely relying themselves on a single principle. Soemanto said, we are entering a new era of pragmaticism where everything is valued by its utility or value. We should not be narrow minded if we want to understand how this universe works because sooner or later the ultimate science will be supported  by the other science.

CP Snow, a sucessful physicist and also a novelist argued that every aspect of life contains several aspects at the same time. Even Einstein conducted research both romantically and passionately. The most important thing is, there is a huge difference between religion and religiousity. Religions trap people in law and rules but religiousity embodies the nature of the religion itself. When we are in the nature of religions, we can be more open minded and befriend everything or even everybody including people and their own believes.

            Above all, the practice of thinking lead us to an understanding now that interfaith marriage is in a big consideration. A survey conducted in 2007 at Mahkamah Agung Republik Indonesia Direktorat Jendral Badan Peradilan Agama showed the top three reasons in getting divorce are inharmoniousness, inresponsibility, and financial problems. It is not clearly stated the reason of different arguments are caused by interfaith marriage. So then, back to the couple itself. Marriage is just one of the stages in life. Our life now is basically the accumation of our decision we made in our past time. A well known quote in the movie Forest Gump, "Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get." The choice is all yours.