Law and Religion in Indonesia: Conflict and the Courts in West JavaBy Melissa Crouch

Abstract

Inter-religious relationship is a crucial issue in a country whose citizens adhere to various religions with one group being the majority. Indonesia is a particularly interesting example to study, when looked at from the perspective of the state’s legal interaction with religion. In fact, in order to manage the issue, the state has enacted a number of regulations in the hope that the conflicts arising between the majority Muslims and the non-Muslim minorities could be legally resolved. In this book based on her PhD thesis, Crouch examines the challenges the government faces to accommodate minorities and manage religious pluralism. It is an ambitious but very valuable study. It observes the conflict occurring in the (civil) courts in the context of how religion becomes the source of the state law in Indonesia. The author raises the issues in which religion has become entangled with state policies, resulting in inevitable dispute between the state and civil society. Some of these issues are thoroughly discussed in the book. Deploying a socio-legal approach the author has adeptly picked out the appropriate issues to show the strong relationship between law and religion in Indonesia, how this relationship has been debated, articulated and negotiated in democratic Indonesia, and how conflict on religious observance and symbols has been evident in the courts.