By: Dodik Prasetyo) *
Soon, the Chinese ethnic community will celebrate the Chinese New Year. In Indonesia, during the years 1969 – 1999, the celebration was prohibited from being celebrated in a public place. With the President’s instruction No. 14 of 1967, the New Order regime under President Soeharto’s administration, banned all things that smelled Chinese, including Chinese New Year.
The spirit of religious tolerance arose thanks to President Abdurrahman Wahid who revoked Presidential Instruction No. 14/1967. Then Gus Dur followed up by issuing Presidential Decree No. 19/2001 dated April 9, 2001 which officially opened the Chinese New Year as a facultative holiday (only applies to those who celebrate it). It was only in 2002. Imlek was officially declared one of the national holidays by President Megawati in 2003.
The spirit of tolerance was also upheld by the Gusdurian community of Pasuruan who also joined in the tradition of cleaning the holy altar in Tjoe Tiek Kiong Temple. This tradition is routinely carried out every week before the celebration.
Looks at 4 people from the “Gitu Aja Community”, Gusdurian Pasuruan familiarly mingled with the Trid Tiek Kiong Pasuruan tridharma followers. While cleaning the statue of one of the Goddesses in the main prayer room.
The spirit of establishing unity in diversity like this is certainly very important to be woven in to better know and learn from each other to understand each other.
As the sentence Gus Dur once said, “If we are familiar with it, then we can learn to understand and help it if it is needed, and even take care of each other. The higher a person’s knowledge, the greater his sense of tolerance.
Yudhi Darma Santoso, Teacher of Confucianism in the Temple which is located in the Trajeng Village of Panggungrejo Sub-District, Pasuruan City, also has harmony in upholding tolerance.
It is not surprising that the Tjo Tiek Kiong temple administrator looks very familiar with the members of Gus Durian Pasuruan, said that they had taken the same steps – they idolized one of the same figures namely KH Abdurrahman Wahid or who was familiarly called Gus Dur, 4th Indonesian President.
The temple also informed that sacred celebrations during the Chinese New Year are held at night before the Chinese New Year. While festive celebrations with artistic entertainment such as the lion dance, were held at Cap Go Meh, which is 15 days after the Chinese New Year.
While the Chinese New Year celebrations by people of Chinese descent in East Nusa Tenggara are a valuable moment or opportunity to strengthen the spirit of tolerance and harmony of life between and among religious people.
The bishop’s secretary Father Gerardus said that the Muslim, Christian, Catholic, Hindu and Buddhist communities in NTT Province need to respect, support and even contribute to success and strengthen the spirit of tolerance for others who will celebrate their respective holidays.
This is reasonable because NTT Province is a heterogeneous area with different populations, both ethnic and religious. So that it needs to be maintained and maintained in ways that have long been carried out when religious holidays themselves or fellow believers of other religions.
Meanwhile the Chairman of the NTT Ulema Council H Abdul Kadir Makarim said that the celebration of the religious holidays of both Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism had been included in the annual agenda involving the community without discriminating between religion and ethnicity.
The purpose of the involvement of the community from various components is that the harmony between religious communities that have been well established in the regions is increasing and harmoniously reminiscent as it was inflated by the Ministry of Religion of the Regional Office of Religion of NTT with the motto, “NTT Pillars of Humor”.
Whereas according to the chairman of the Synod Assembly of the Christian Evangelical Church of East Timor Rev. Robert Litelnoni. S.Th said. Chinese New Year needs to be interpreted as one of the momentum to continue to renew the spirit of harmony among religious believers and to create a society that is religiously harmonious.
In Chinese New Year Chinese people are not only celebrated in the Confucian tradition alone, but are part of a communal tradition that brings together a variety of cultures. From there, we can also witness the long narration of the historiography of the archipelago.
In its development, Chinese New Year celebrations not only echoed among the Chinese but the echo was also felt in the midst of Indonesian society. A harmonious atmosphere when people from various ethnicities can mingle enjoying the nuances of Chinese New Year is a portrait that shows that Indonesia can become a melting pot where various ethnicities and cultures can live in harmony, tolerance and mutual respect.
Evidence of real tolerance can also be found in the Semarang Chinatown in the semawis market, which will look much more crowded on the eve of Chinese New Year celebrations. Apart from being more lively and luxurious with red lanterns and lights, the area also presents lion dance performances, gambang semarang, wayang, jipin, to wushu.
Semawis market also offers hundreds of typical street food choices such as porridge, babong gongso fried rice, es puter, basket cake, pindang rice, of course for Muslims there is no need to worry because in this market there are also many halal menus. This is intended so that Chinese festivity can also be felt by all people.
The spirit of tolerance is also felt in Lombok which is centered in the Cakranegara region, Mataram. On the Chinese New Year, the event was titled Chinese New Year Cultural Gathering.
In the event, the Chinese community gathered with a collection of 5,000 more basket baskets and 1000 free Cap Go Meh servings. The number of free treats can also be enjoyed by non-Chinese people.
This certainly shows that the spirit of diversity must be upheld, differences are not obstacles to unity, and diversity is not an obstacle to living in harmony in togetherness. Skin color may be different, beliefs are also different but apart from that, we are all brothers.
) * The author is a Contributor to the Indonesian Strategic Information Study Institute (LSISI)