The State conduct and politics must be founded on modern notions of egalitarian democracy based on equal citizenry ensuring inclusive, caring society and communal peace and harmony. “Liberal democracy is the way forward to build the nation on democratic principles while ensuring freedom and basic human rights,” said the speakers at the lectures organized at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) and Foreman Christian College, Lahore (FC College) on June 2, 2014.

The lectures and exchanges between the scholars from the United States and Indonesia and students are a part of dialogue series “Governance, Community and Religion (GOCORE)” with Pakistani universities students, intelligentsia, academia and civil society jointly organized by Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) in collaboration with by Heinrich Bӧll Stiftung (HBS).

Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Coordinator of Global Studies at Millikin University, USA, Dr. Shabana Mir underscored that all government actions should be based on the public good, as determined by democratic means. “A pluralistic marketplace of religious law should exist in a separate legal realm parallel to that of government law”, she said while adding that “sharia check” should review the legitimacy of government actions based on the purposes of sharia.

In accordance with the reckoning of some American experts, there was a dire need to separate religion from politics keeping that the ecclesiasticism could corrupt the state and the state could possibly pollute the church, Dr. Mir added. “The overt pre-dominant purpose of the law should not be religious but it should rather be the public interest”, she said while clarifying that Americans did not believe in religion was more of a myth as there were a variety of perspectives with regard to religion. Dr. Mir further added that State was reasonably tolerant and accommodating towards the American diversity while quoting an example of Presidents’ Happy Holidays Wish instead of Merry Christmas. Dr. Mir also referred to various clauses prohibiting the government from establishing any religion as official while terming the US State-Religion relation as a ‘shifting porous wall of separation’.

A prominent journalist from Jakarta Post Mr. Endy Bayuni, whose writings focus on the evolving political cultures, Islam, democracy, foreign affairs, economic development, and the changing media landscape termed that liberal democracy was the way forward for Muslims majority nations. They should base their state politics on egalitarian democratic principles, including guarantees of freedom and basic rights. He said that Indonesia was facing a number of challenges in its ongoing democratization process that were similar to that of Pakistan.

Mr Bayuni said democracy and democratic values were taking roots in many Muslim countries, however, the challenges to become modern secular states still needed to be dealt with shared experiences and understanding about modern democracy based on the notion of equal citizenry. He added that despite hardliners efforts to change the discourse of Indonesian state, the people had shown a remarkable commitment to diversity and modern democratic values. Indonesian people made it clear that they deemed democracy as the only way forward to keep the integrity of one nation state.

Mr Bayuni said different groups in Indonesia were trying to manipulate the constitution in attempts to impose their version of religious dictates. However, people in general are aware of the consequence of such efforts and have thwarted such attempts while raising their voice for strong democratic discourse. “The existence of all religions is constitutionally guaranteed, and so is the right to practice and the right to build houses of worship”, he said while adding that Indonesian founding fathers recognized that nation’s diversity may be divisive in building the nation, but it may also be the one that will help unite and strengthen the nation. Mr. Bayuni in his presentations highlighted co-habitation and state level acceptance of Indonesian diversity which was a pre-dominantly Muslim majority country through various examples of minorities working in key government positions.