[HN Gopher] Indonesia bans forced religious attire in schools
___________________________________________________________________
Indonesia bans forced religious attire in schools
Author : hassanahmad
Score : 167 points
Date : 2021-02-06 15:19 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| sradman wrote:
| > Indonesia has banned public schools from making religious
| attire compulsory, after the story of a Christian student being
| pressured to wear a headscarf in class went viral.
|
| A small victory for liberty to offset the setback in Myanmar. The
| other ASEAN [1] countries have an opportunity to improve liberty
| as the rest of the world backslides into protectionism and
| authoritarianism.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASEAN
| Triv888 wrote:
| Then, this is not about forcing religious attire... it is about
| forcing a religion since that person was not even from that
| religion.
| derefr wrote:
| Freedom from the demands of religion tends to only really
| evolve in the context of freedom _of_ religion, at the edges
| that form where people are practicing different religions
| that have conflicting access needs.
|
| It's similar to how accessibility measures get implemented:
| you need a vocal group that's disparately affected, and who
| needs the change in order to function properly, before anyone
| will bother to change how they do things. You need a "lobby."
|
| Religious freedom is an accessibility need where "functioning
| properly" means "being able to adhere to the tenets of their
| _own_ religious beliefs." So the friction responsible for
| change only comes up where you have a "lobby" of people of
| another religion, where that other religion has a conflicting
| requirement.
| dfee wrote:
| The situation where an individual or group of individuals
| need to petition another group of individuals, to change
| the status quo so the first group can function - is broken.
|
| Just a reminder that utilitarianism wrongs the minority
| group by definition, and is barbaric.
| S53Vflnr4n wrote:
| Meanwhile Quebec banned religious attire for government servants
| which disproportionately affects Muslim women.
| jedimind wrote:
| Wait for the mental gymnastics to justify that oppression with
| the loftiest of rhetoric.
| [deleted]
| jedimind wrote:
| The framing is odd though describing it as "forced" instead of
| simply the school's dress code. Especially when comparing it to a
| case in Britain a few weeks ago where a girl was threatened [1]
| with legal action because her skirt was 'too long'. Or how france
| forces girls to remove their hijabs [2]. One can always find
| rhetoric to justify one's decision, what I find odd tho is how a
| group of people will use words like "forced" in one case but will
| bend over backwards to justify the same forced rulings with more
| euphemistic language when it's in favor of their own worldview.
| You'll hear "it's just the law" kind of excuses, while not
| realizing that their own arguments could easily be used to
| justify the opposing case as well.
|
| [1] https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jan/12/school-
| thr...
|
| [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_scarf_controversy_in_F...
| underseacables wrote:
| I don't think you're putting enough thought into what it means
| to be forced to do something. Girls in France are forced by
| their elders to wear the hijab. People around the planet are
| forced to do things according to a religious code that
| violently oppresses free will and freedom of expression. France
| has done the right thing, it has allowed girls to choose,
| unfortunately this has led to their parents and others who make
| choices for them to choose instead to force them to adhere to a
| strict religious code and keep them out of School, and the
| public. Anything that forces you to adhere to a code by means
| of force means a lack of free will. Now, you have free will to
| violate that code, but the consequences of a young woman
| choosing not to wear the hijab could be life-threatening. That
| is not free will. That is inhumane terrorism
| knolax wrote:
| > France has done the right thing, it has allowed girls to
| choose
|
| France bans face veils in public. How is banning one of the
| two choices allowing them to choose? You don't respond to
| people being forced to do one thing by forcing them to do the
| opposite thing. It's also completely patronizing to just
| assume that women only wear the hijab just because "their
| elders force them to". I know plenty of people who choose to
| wear it of their own volition.
| jedimind wrote:
| People upvote comments like that which contain outright
| misinformation & bigotry, but downvote comments with the
| actual facts. Hackernews is really a hub of the
| intellectual and enlightened. /s
| zakki wrote:
| The different with current action from the Indonesian
| minister of education is the school is not allowed to 'force'
| the students to wear religion dressing but also the schools
| are not allowed to ban the students who want to use it. In
| France it is still not allowed even though it is the student
| decision.
| jedimind wrote:
| > Girls in France are forced by their elders to wear the
| hijab.
|
| That's a vile and bigoted generalization. While that can be
| sometimes the case, it certainly isn't mostly so. A huge
| number of girls who are forced to remove their hijab feel
| oppressed and alienated.
|
| > France has done the right thing, it has allowed girls to
| choose
|
| No, this is nonfactual. France forces girl to remove their
| hijabs that's a fact. Your rhetoric is exactly what I was
| referring to, not only nonfactual but grossly misleading and
| outright deceptive.
| sheepdestroyer wrote:
| Religion should be reserved for 16yo and more. Forcing it
| on susceptible children minds should be considered child
| abuse.
|
| There is no freedom of religion if indoctrination starts
| from the earliest and most vulnerable age. This is what's
| really vile and bigoted here.
|
| At least France's public school system aims to be a neutral
| ground free from this kind of influences
| jedimind wrote:
| Atheism should be reserved for 16yo and more. Forcing it
| on susceptible children minds should be considered child
| abuse. There is no freedom of religion if indoctrination
| starts from the earliest and most vulnerable age. This is
| what's really vile and bigoted here. At least Indonesia's
| public school system aims to be a neutral ground free
| from these kind of influences
| bsagdiyev wrote:
| Turning it around like that doesn't really work in this
| case. Is atheism not a religious choice (or lack of)
| anyways? So his point stands.
| zakki wrote:
| I don't think atheism is a religion choice. Religion is
| about believing the existence of God, the Creator.
| Atheism is about not believing the existence of God. You
| choose a religion after you choose you believe in the
| existence of God. The flipping is acceptable.
| sheepdestroyer wrote:
| Flipping with atheism is totally missing the point
| though.
| jedimind wrote:
| Flipping with religion is totally missing the point
| though.
|
| - See? Anyone can make unsubstantiated assertions.
| Ironically it's you who clearly misses the point by not
| understanding how the flipping exposes your flimsy and
| biased narrative. Anyone who visited a french school
| knows for a fact that it's anything but "neutral", rather
| actively hostile towards religion. Anything you asserted
| without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.
| aptidude187 wrote:
| It works perfectly well. The only thing that stands is
| your bias.
| sheepdestroyer wrote:
| Exactly, but I did _not_ advocate for inculcating atheism
| either.
|
| Developped minds should make their own choices once in
| age to do so, that's the whole point.
|
| Teaching kids agnosticism plus a good dose of Occam's
| Razor should be good until 16yo.
| jedimind wrote:
| Well anyway it's nothing but your opinion and not rooted
| in any objective truth. Society imposes all sorts of
| teachings or value judgments upon kids, way before
| "developed minds can make their own choices" - We say
| that lying is "wrong" even if it's beneficial for you
| sometimes to lie and not "well let's let the kids decide
| if they think lying/stealing/cheating is wrong".
|
| Everybody who doesn't live in a cave and learns about
| religion also quickly learns about critics of religion
| and thus becomes familiar with the position of atheists
| and agnostics.
|
| Your take is in no way more special than the usual anti-
| theistic edgy rhetoric trying to pretend and maintain a
| false sense of "neutrality". Everyone who thinks that
| they are right on something will try to influence people
| towards their own worldview, implicitly or explicitly,
| hidden or obvious, anyone who claims otherwise is just
| lying to themselves and to others.
|
| Some people claim that France and its school system are
| "neutral", but anyone who has visited a french school
| knows this to be untrue, it's clearly hostile towards,
| not only religion, but religious people.
| sheepdestroyer wrote:
| > Most people claim that France and its school system are
| "neutral", but anyone who has visited a french school
| knows this to be untrue, it's clearly hostile towards,
| not only religion, but religious people.
|
| As a French who went to french public schools, I take
| exception to that, as it is totally false and offensive.
|
| France's egalitarian principles, on which public schools
| operate, respect people of all beliefs,
|
| and history of religions is taught in schools from junior
| high.
| aptidude187 wrote:
| >As a French who went to french public schools, I take
| exception to that, as it is totally false and offensive.
|
| Last time I checked the french people couldn't care less
| about something being 'offensive' or not, since it's
| covered by freedom of speech, that's why they constantly
| harass minorities by mocking them, their religion and
| prophets, all in the name of freedom of speech. Forcing
| girls to remove their hijab is evidence that it's your
| narrative that is biased and false. Justifying that
| discrimination is just further evidence of the
| internalized islamophobia, which has grown to such a
| degree that you don't even register blatant
| discrimination as such.
|
| >France's egalitarian principles
|
| Yea those 'egalitarian principles' that somehow only
| protect the secular elite, while minorities, using their
| religion against them, are constantly mocked and bullied
| in the media and discriminated against in targeted unfair
| laws - banning the hijab. Those 'egalitarian principles'
| have to manifest themselves in reality, but they didn't,
| up till now, they have only proven to be a charade.
| LiberatedLlama wrote:
| There is nothing 'vile or bigoted' about pointing out that
| parents frequently force religions on their children. My
| christian parents sure as shit did, and it was common in
| other families in my community too. I see no reason to
| think it would be any less prevalent in Muslim families
| than in Christian ones.
| ibn_khaldun wrote:
| I imagine this is because we are dealing with a people who feel
| that they are morally superior than the rest of the world due
| to worldly advantage and dominance.
|
| Whether or not this school was correct in their dress code [1]
| is shadowed by the immediate conclusion for many that "Islam =
| Bad, oppressive, unfair, archaic" the moment that it ceases to
| be just an "internal, private belief for some" and becomes an
| external way of life that sovereign countries implement in
| their own territories. This is so even if what a country is
| implementing is not congruent to the tenants of Islam (see, the
| flogging of the Homosexuals for example).
|
| Let them (viz. The West) tell it, the sociocultural climate of
| their localities are in exemplary order.
|
| [1]: I see no issue with private institutions enforcing a dress
| code that makes the hijab mandatory. Non-muslim students need
| not attend and even to force them to wear it would obfuscate
| the intent of the hijab. It is far more than just a cloth that
| is draped over the head of any woman and its virtue is
| neglected so long as its wearer is void of virtue herself.
| [deleted]
| prigadita wrote:
| "Non-muslim students need not attend and even to force them
| to wear it would obfuscate the intent of the hijab."
|
| hear hear. now imagine the uproar if christians would have
| said "non christians need not attend" [insert anything].
| ibn_khaldun wrote:
| By what logic would a person enroll their child into a
| _private_ institute that enforces a non-arbitrary code that
| they disagree with?
|
| I see no problem with a private Catholic school saying "If
| you're not Catholic and have an issue with what we enforce
| here (e.g. dress codes), then you should enroll your
| children here." I imagine that's what they _all_ would say.
|
| If I didn't make it clear, this applies appropriately to
| _private_ institutions, meaning "you are enrolling here on
| your own conscious accord."
|
| If a person has any issues with how a _private_ academic
| institute operates, then they are not mandated to attend
| it. Furthermore there is a difference between blatant
| discrimination ("No non-Christians allowed") vs. "there is
| a particular culture that is being observed here; we aren't
| going to bar anyone from attending this establishment, but
| it's illogical to expect us to bend to your will because
| you are in opposition to what we practice upon you
| joining."
| aerodog wrote:
| Are we allowed to force kids to a curriculum? If you say "yes",
| then what is wrong with forcing kids to a dress code? Why is
| force ok in one sense and not in another?
| elisaado wrote:
| Why is it ok to force your kid to eat breakfast in the morning
| but not ok to force them to do <insert horrible thing>.
| aptidude187 wrote:
| Why is it ok to force kids to remove their hijabs but not ok
| to force them to do <insert horrible thing>.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_scarf_controversy_in_F.
| ..
| bpodgursky wrote:
| It's a good ruling, but framing it as good news masks the fact
| that the law is only necessary because intolerance and religious
| coercion is growing at the social and local level. It was passed
| in direct response to a videotaped incident.
| jamesrcole wrote:
| "Good news" doesn't have to mean "the overall trends are good".
| Something good can happen among a trend of bad things, and
| acknowledging the good thing doesn't mean denying the bad
| things.
| FriedrichN wrote:
| This is good news. Indonesia has been on a road to become quite
| intolerant of other religions over the past years with some very
| tragic outcomes like lynchings. I have little hope that this is a
| sign of that process slowing down or halting or even reversing,
| but a win is a win I guess.
| gogopuppygogo wrote:
| They just whipped two gay men in the streets after a burglar
| broke into their home and caught them in bed together.
|
| A win is a win but this isn't a huge milestone IMHO.
| renewiltord wrote:
| It is _because_ of all that stuff that this is a huge
| milestone! Like, that means that the faction there that wants
| to preserve people 's rights has won a pretty significant
| victory against the faction that wants to whip gay people.
|
| These two groups are _highly_ unlikely to have any overlap.
|
| There is some degree of group attribution error in your
| comment that is making it hard for you to tease signal out of
| events. But I suppose whether something is a milestone or not
| is sort of subjective when you're temporally proximate to the
| event. So I'll leave off.
| sradman wrote:
| _Indonesia 's Aceh flogs two men for having sex_ [1]:
|
| > They were reported by neighbours back in November.
|
| > The two men, aged 27 and 29, winced in pain as they were
| whipped by robed and masked enforcers who lashed the men on
| their backs with a rattan stick.
|
| Perhaps "robed" was conflated with "robbed". Appalling
| nonetheless:
|
| > This is believed to be the third time gay men have been
| caned in Aceh since Islamic laws outlawing homosexuality were
| introduced in 2015.
|
| [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55846699
| meibo wrote:
| Say what you will, this isn't too different to what ex-
| gay/re-education that is happening in a lot of western
| countries is doing to children on the behalf of
| evangelism/religion, they just don't bother hiding it.
|
| I wonder about the amount of unrecorded cases though, that
| "3 since 2015" number seems a bit weird, but I'm not 100%
| knowledged about the social dynamics in Indonesia.
| drno123 wrote:
| You seriously compare severe physical punishment with
| voluntary courses and meetings?
| meibo wrote:
| If you think that conversion therapy is voluntary in most
| cases, you're delusional.
|
| There's a lot of outside pressure involved and often, you
| don't really have a chance but to give into that until
| you can leave your whole family and existing social
| infrastructure behind.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| I think it's pointless to view it as some sort of
| competition of awfulness, but you should know that the
| worst of the conversion therapy places were way more evil
| than this jaunty characterization. Some of them were
| using their own invented version of "electro shock
| therapy" that functionally was just torturing kids.
|
| Even the more mild places do things to kids that leads to
| life long mental health challenges. It shouldn't be
| trivialized away as all just being a friendly chat among
| consenting adults.
| sradman wrote:
| Shunning [1] can be devastating and is used as a powerful
| alternative to physical punishment in pacifist
| communities like Anabaptists (e.g. Mennonites and Amish).
| Shunning is like a chronic disease while caning is acute.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shunning
| betwixthewires wrote:
| People have the right to decide who they associate with.
| Communities and organizations have a right to decide who
| they allow into them.
|
| Shunning is very effective in enforcing community
| standards and behavior. It is one of the fundamental
| mechanisms inherent to any and all communities. At your
| job you can get fired. If you contribute to a dev project
| you must abide the CoC, and if you're a member of some
| cult or some community like Amish you have to live by
| community standards or you can go live by whatever
| standards you want with people that want to live that way
| with you. It can be devastating, but it is not wrong.
| renewiltord wrote:
| I think he's seriously downplaying how awful the public
| canings are, but _you 're_ seriously downplaying how
| awful conversion therapy is.
|
| It's like bad|-----caning------
| conversion_therapy-----|good
|
| and you're making it sound like
| bad|-----caning----------conversion_therapy-|good
|
| Which is total bullshit. Voluntary courses and meetings,
| my ass.
| sradman wrote:
| > this isn't too different to what ex-gay/re-education
| that is happening in a lot of western countries
|
| Both are illiberal as they punish behavior between
| consenting adults but extreme corporal punishment is a
| different level in the spectrum, in my opinion. Singapore
| is an advanced nation state that canes criminals [1]. One
| does not have to be for illegal drug trafficking, for
| instance, to be against caning.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_in_Singapore
| betwixthewires wrote:
| I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I do believe
| that imprisonment is less humane than corporal
| punishment, so long as the corporal punishment does not
| maim, is in line with the crime, and there are no
| victimless crimes punished with corporal punishment. So
| for example, I'd be opposed to the death penalty for drug
| trafficking as it is in Singapore, or the removal of
| limbs for theft as it is in SA, or any punishment
| whatsoever for homosexuality, but putting someone in a
| cage for 10 years for selling crack, or even for armed
| robbery, separating them from their children who have to
| grow up without a parent, putting them into a dangerous
| environment made entirely up of criminals and having to
| adapt a perpetually criminal and defensive mindset, to me
| that is more barbaric than beating someone. It is a
| difficult thing to reason on but it is important to do
| so.
| LiberatedLlama wrote:
| I think it should be a choice given to the convict.
| Imprisonment, maybe for months or years, or intense pain
| and life long scaring, but you get to go home at the end
| of the day and don't spend a significant fraction of your
| only life in a cell. Depending on the length of the
| prison sentence, I would opt for the caning.
| lottin wrote:
| > this isn't too different to what ex-gay/re-education
| that is happening in a lot of western countries is doing
| to children
|
| It's significantly worse, and, besides, conversion
| "therapy" is not happening in a lot of western countries.
| Here in western Europe it's unheard of.
| DanBC wrote:
| > Here in western Europe it's unheard of.
|
| Completely untrue.
|
| https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/11/09/conversion-therapy-
| ban...
|
| https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/graham-linehan-
| trans-ge...
| underseacables wrote:
| Any society that feels it needs to publicly torture its
| citizens as punishment is simply barbarism.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| I wonder which country hasn't had public executions in
| the last 250 years...
| sheepdestroyer wrote:
| Why 250? It seems arbitrarily far in the past.
|
| As a way to compare societies and their values, it seems
| to me best to exclude the distant past when everyone was
| basically unaware of their neighbors, and use something
| like "since tv in most homes", or better yet, "since
| internet available to most".
|
| There's far less excuses in today's globalized world to
| justify cultural relativism.
| telotortium wrote:
| > There's far less excuses in today's globalized world to
| justify cultural relativism.
|
| I look forward to a rigorous justification from first
| principles for the moral values of Western secular
| humanism.
| sheepdestroyer wrote:
| I will not entertain that
|
| "no public execution > public executions", or
|
| "no street gay flogging > street gay floggings",
|
| _need_ to be rigorously justified from first principle.
| danans wrote:
| I think that could be even further generalized to:
|
| > Any society that feels it needs to torture is simply
| barbarism.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| Do you believe that locking people in a cage for years of
| their life, separating them from their families, and
| putting them in an environment where they must be afraid
| perpetually or hone criminal skills to protect themselves
| to be humane? Not being hyperbolic, just detailed.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Not being hyperbolic
|
| Perhaps not, but this is a classic display of
| 'whataboutism.' It is entirely possible to have an
| opinion about the public torture of citizens as
| punishment without having to weigh in on the morality of
| incarceration.
| im3w1l wrote:
| Well crimes must have consequences, so we should compare
| different possibilities and see which has more benefits
| and less drawbacks.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| I didn't frame my question as in opposition to your
| statement. Basically it boils down to "what else do you
| feel is barbaric?"
| hntrader wrote:
| Some form of prison is necessary, and it serves three
| purposes:
|
| - rehabilitation
|
| - deterrence
|
| - protecting society from the criminally inclined
|
| Every society, including the most liberal, have found
| some type of prison to be necessary. It is not inherently
| barbaric, and it's the minimally barbaric option when
| dealing with a murdered for example. Public torture
| doesn't fulfill all three objectives, especially not the
| third, and is therefore a non-starter.
|
| Note that this is distinct from claiming support for a
| specific instance of a prison in a specific country,
| which may well be barbaric.
| andi999 wrote:
| Aceh is different. They were fighting for independence from
| 1975 onwards. When the Tsunami end of 2004 it aceh the
| strongest (pretty bad), both sides compromised, allowing
| aceh to be the only region of Indonesia under sharia law.
| Lev1a wrote:
| > sharia law
|
| Intolerant-and-backwards-savagery law
|
| FTFY.
|
| Seriously, what's so hard about not being actively
| intolerant or even violent towards other people based on
| their sexuality (which shouldn't even affect you anyway)?
|
| Some men are sexually attracted to women, some to other
| men, some to both and some to neither.
|
| Some women are sexually attracted to men, some to other
| women, some to both and some to neither.
|
| As long as someone doesn't (sexually) harass you why
| would any of that matter?
|
| Seriously... some places even have a death penalty for
| being gay/lesbian/bi. How screwed in the head would
| someone have to be to believe that was even remotely OK?
| I'm actually waiting for the day when enough people have
| had enough of this and other kinds of religious
| repression and rise up to purge these fanatic theocracies
| everywhere.
| andi999 wrote:
| Giving you the benefit of doubt, but what do you mean by
| 'FY'? I do not think slightly outlining the political
| situation in a part of the world warrents an insult, or
| does it?
| LocalH wrote:
| FTFY means "fixed that for you"
| flqn wrote:
| Yes, but "for" the OP is what was being questioned.
| andi999 wrote:
| I am good. Just thought it meant something else.
| LocalH wrote:
| I got the impression OP might have thought it meant "fuck
| that, fuck you" or something like that
| [deleted]
| sradman wrote:
| What about Kalimantan? I've been to Kota Kinabalu (many
| years ago) and the social difference compared to Kuala
| Lumpur was striking. I assumed Kalimantan was socially
| more similar to its island neighbors. Official laws and
| social norms do not always align.
| andi999 wrote:
| Actually I do not know. Kalimantan is the Indonesian part
| of Borneo, while Kota Kinabalu is on the Malaysian part
| of Borneo. Generally Malaysia is more conservative than
| indonesia. Even in KL Muslims are banned from buying
| alcohol, while in Indonesia that's not generally the
| case.
| sprash wrote:
| Freedom of religion is all fun and games until you move into
| a Muslim neighborhood.
| sheepdestroyer wrote:
| - into a _religious_ neighborhood. There, fixed it for you.
| bsagdiyev wrote:
| I'm not sure, the Catholics up the street haven't whipped
| any gay people lately as far as I know, so the comparison
| you make isn't the same.
| fakedang wrote:
| That was in Aceh. Aceh is crazytown, even for someone like me
| who was raised in a heavily orthodox Muslim family.
|
| Aceh is maybe Saudi Arabia x2.
| lainga wrote:
| Are you and GP thinking of all Indonesia or just Aceh?
| FriedrichN wrote:
| Aceh is especially bad, but it's happening outside of Aceh
| as well. There's mob violence against Christians and non-
| Sunni muslims, they imprisoned a Christian governor of
| Jakarta over "blasphemy", the state pretty much does not
| hire non-muslims anymore.
| zakki wrote:
| You should update/add your information source. There has
| been many non moslems, including Christian, become
| minister or governor or head of city/town all over
| Indonesia. Since its independence until now. In the
| beginning of current presidential period (2019-2024)
| there were 5 ministers as a Christian. However last year
| 1 is replaced due to unpopular take on COVID-19 handling
| and another 1 is sacked due to corruption on social
| programs during Jakarta's lockdown last year. Even the
| governor you talked about is now becoming a commissioner
| for a state owned oil company. Imagine. someone out of
| jail, a Christian but hold a prestigious position in a
| state owned oil company.
| FriedrichN wrote:
| Points taken. It's not all bad, it's nowhere near the
| intolerance we see in some other countries. I'm just
| extra concerned about Indonesia because it used to be a
| very tolerant country. And it's not just through news
| about how the government wants to ban 'gay emojis', I
| have friends who live(d) there and/or have family there
| and they also tell me about how there are preachers from
| Saudi Arabia walking around in the kampungs teaching a
| far stricter version of Islam.
|
| https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/indonesia-
| bans...
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| afaik Aceh and Jakarta are worlds apart in terms of
| diversity/tolerance.
| knolax wrote:
| This has absolutely nothing to do with hacking and Indonesian
| school uniform regulations hardly count as "intellectually
| gratifying".
|
| Even if I wanted to learn more about school uniforms in a country
| I've never been to, whose language and culture I know nothing
| about, why the hell would I read about it coming from the state
| media of a another country I've never been to, whose journalists
| also know nothing about the language, culture, and political
| situation there?
| itisit wrote:
| Relax. It's good news. Women deserve way more respect than they
| get. This is a welcome change in just one pocket of the world.
| aptidude187 wrote:
| Exactly, now we need schools in Britain to respect women
| more, instead of persecuting them for wearing skirts that are
| 'too long'.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jan/12/school-
| thr...
| knolax wrote:
| It's not "news" at all. Have you ever been to Indonesia? Do
| you speak Indonesian? Have you even interacted with any
| Indonesians? Have ever read a book in Indonesian? Neither you
| or I have any contextual information to qualify this as good
| or bad news. We sure as hell shouldn't trust the BBC of all
| people to give us that contextual information either.
|
| The only reason people on HN care is because it's framed as a
| part of some weird culture/religious war. This constant
| projection of values on people you know nothing about is a
| waste time at best.
| GordonS wrote:
| I remember the first time I went to Indonesia, back around 2005
| or so, a work trip to the small island of Batam, a ferry ride
| from Singapore.
|
| When Indonesian colleagues there met me for the first time, they
| would almost always ask what religion I practiced, in the same
| sort of casual way as people in the Western world might ask where
| you lived. I thought it was a bit weird!
|
| Anyway, I'd always say "no religion", since I don't practice or
| believe in any gods, afterlife etc - but this was totally
| incomprehensible! Heads would tilt, and I'd get baffled looks
| like I was mad - "uh... no, but what god you you follow?". No
| matter how many times or ways I said it, they just didn't seem to
| believe me.
|
| Someone later explained that in Indonesia you legally had to tell
| the government what religion you followed, and "none" was not an
| option.
| kwere wrote:
| i would like to say i believe in milton Friedman
| Kye wrote:
| It's an interesting contrast to here in the US where you're
| assumed Christian, and certain sects actively try to force
| everyone (including other Christians) to live by their specific
| beliefs. I'd take confusion at not following any god over anger
| at not following a specific version of one.
| Retric wrote:
| That's really not been my experience. I don't think I have
| had a religious conversation or even a question outside my
| immediate family in the last decade. The US is a huge country
| and you will experience vastly different things in different
| areas.
| jedimond wrote:
| When "none" is not an option, you can go for:
|
| > What religion? Pastafarian
|
| > What God do you follow? FSM
| eunos wrote:
| >Someone later explained that in Indonesia you legally had to
| tell the government what religion you followed, and "none" was
| not an option.
|
| That is correct, furthermore, the government only acknowledges
| 6 religions, although I heard that they started acknowledging
| some folks religion recently.
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