- jihad survivors struggle
with forced conversionsBy Elizabeth Kendal
World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission
ANS News Service
AUSTRALIA (ANS) -- The Reverend John Barr is the Executive Secretary of the Uniting International Mission of the Uniting Church in Australia, which has a long history of involvement in mission in eastern Indonesia in partnership with the Church there. He has recently returned from visiting Ambon in eastern Indonesia.
He reports that The situation there has improved, "however I still sense some great tensions. Around 30,000 IDP's [Internally Displaced Persons] remain in, and around, Ambon because it is still not safe for them to return home, or because Muslims now occupy their land."
The Reverend Barr travelled by boat to neighbouring islands and on one occasion met up with two teenagers who had fled their village only the night before. “This village is one of many that has been forced to convert to Islam,” says Mr. Barr. “People have been living this forced existence for a long time.”
The Reverend John Barr has sent us this short account of the testimony of these two girls. “Unfortunately,” he explains, “I am unable to give the precise location of my meeting with the women or the actual location of their village because Christians fear retaliation. They fear they will be seen as ‘creating trouble’.”
This short report gives a very moving and personal insight into the tragic existence of many survivors of the jihad in Eastern Indonesia. Sometimes the enduring suffering is forgotten as we move from crisis to crisis. Sometimes the human face is lost in the statistics – lost to us, but never to God.
- EK
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A SHORT STORY FROM AMBON
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They were two lovely young women but their story is horrifying. I met them in a small Eastern Indonesian community not far from Ambon in late February this year. These teenagers had just fled their homes where the entire Christian community had been forced, at gunpoint, to become Muslims.
Violence and coercion in “the name of God” is rife in Indonesia. These two teenagers talked about forced circumcisions followed by forced marriages. Tragically, armed militants continue to use religion and the name of Islam as a means of terrorising local communities. Christians in remote parts of eastern Indonesia are victims of some terrible abuse.
Today these two young girls live in fear. They cannot go home and their future is bleak. Back in the village their family and friends have been given different names and they attend prayers in the mosque under the threat of death.
Yet, in their hearts, these people hold on to their true identity as Christians. Violence, coercion and intimidation cannot take this away from them. The young women shared how people in their home village quietly recite the Lord’s Prayer under their breath. Every day they “sing” praises to the Lord in their hearts and in some cases, Christian villagers have secretly exhumed the bodies of their family members and reburied them with Christian rites.
The situation in Indonesia’s Maluku Islands remains difficult for many Christians. Hope for a just and peaceful outcome is a priority and the Protestant Christian Church in Maluku is working with local Maluku Muslim leaders to find a way of living together. There are many people whose lives depend on this.
Rev John Barr
Executive Secretary
Uniting International Mission
Uniting Church in Australia
