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social researcher friend, Amin Mudzakkir, observes that Indonesians are unlikely to protest because they are poor, but they will certainly express strong objections at any perceived threats to their right to practice their religion.

This might invite uninterested responses like, “So what?”, and I would be happy to leave it at that if not for the fact that this observable cultural trait represents a button that when pressed, can set in motion a series of irrational behavior patterns and reactions.

The perceived threats can come from various complementary situations. The most common are, when you are prevented from worshipping according to your faith because your existing place of worship is damaged or destroyed and, related to that, you suspect your fellow religious adherents are being poached by another religion.

In normal circumstances, the fact that Indonesians take religion seriously means that they make a point of not joking about one another’s faiths; they give one another space to observe their religious rites; and they show respect for one another’s holy days.

That sounds perfect. But there is a flip side to everything. Place an overlay of religion on any conflict or potential conflict and you will immediately blow it up into a serious clash.

Worse still, the religion button can even generate conflict where there was initially none. Understandably, many irresponsible groups and individuals, aware of this characteristic, have been manipulating it to serve their own particular purposes.

One of the regions where occurrences of communal clashes, which have been referred to publicly as religious conflicts, have occurred is North and Central Maluku. In 1999, various reports indicated that clashes began in Ambon on Jan. 19, the second day of Idul Fitri, with an argument between a minibus driver, who happened to be Christian, and an “informal toll collector” who happened to be Muslim, which escalated into a larger brawl involving their respective friends and colleagues.

Then, when some fled the increasingly inflamed altercations to an area where the majority of residents were Muslim, they shouted out that some Christians were threatening to kill them. That quickly brought many enraged residents rushing out to help them. And large-scale physical clashes promptly developed.

The religion card has been used from then on. That same evening, Rudi, a Catholic, now a senior journalist and editor, was just leaving to celebrate the festivities at his Muslim friend Zairin’s home on the border of Mardika-Batumerah areas, as he had always done year after year. Several phone calls delayed him. Some agitated friends asked him whether it was true a church had been burned.

That was when he discovered that there had been physical clashes between gangs of Muslims on one side and Christians on the other, which were becoming increasingly violent by the minute, and that Muslims had reportedly started burning churches. Just then his friend Zairin rang asking Rudi to find an unmarked taxicab to rescue him and his family, as an angry mob was reportedly approaching his residential area.

How the local government, law enforcers and security agencies allowed a seemingly insignificant brawl between two men escalate into such extensive and extended communal violence, is still a source of incredulity.

Their slowness to act was proved detrimental to the communal capacity to live peacefully together.

After that, casting religious overtones on the violence spreading across the rest of Maluku, mostly caused by decades of ethnic and family rivalry, and thwarted personal power ambitions, was child’s play. Mutual suspicion by both Muslims and Christians (Catholics and Protestants) grew to acute levels in some areas, rendering them dangerously vulnerable to political manipulation.

In metropolitan Jakarta, closer to the central government’s monitoring eye and more sophisticated security agencies — theoretically at least — communal problems stemming from religion-labeled conflicts have become a fact of life. The city continues to grow and experience demographic shifts and changes. Migrants continue to arrive from other regions, driven by business opportunities, employment necessities and other social and personal imperatives.

Understandably, sooner or later some migrants of a particular faith would be seeking a place of worship. In some areas, their nominated places of worship encountered problems accommodating the influx of newcomers, which left them having to obtain extensions or find other locations for new buildings. For adherents of religious minorities, this is not always plain sailing.

Available land may be right in the middle of a long-established residential area where the residents have had very little contact with the religion of the intended place of worship.

A research team from the Center for Religious and Cross-Cultural Studies at Gadjah Mada University published a report that has just been translated into English by the Asian Law Center within the University of Melbourne, titled Disputed Churches in Jakarta. This report reveals a number of possible sources of the problems. Research was conducted in areas where Muslim residents disputed extensions, or the building, of new churches.

There were many factors and actors at play. The fear of “Christianization” among local residents was understandably always present, at least at the initial stages. However, this was successfully resolved in some cases where the heads of neighborhoods (RT) and communities (RW) played supportive roles, and the respective church committees were able to build positive rapport with local residents.

There were also cases where the churches in question had obtained the necessary endorsement from local residents (at least 60 signatures) along with proof of an intended congregation (at least 90 signatures), but the local Inter-Religious Harmony Forum (FKUB) refused to issue a recommendation. There were also cases where the FKUB had done so, but the local government refused to issue the necessary building permit.

The researchers found that in cases that developed into protracted disputes, power politics, potentially unclear legal status caused by overlapping rules and legislation, as well as inert government agents, or any combination of the above, were responsible. In this way, the disputes became fertile ground to inflame religious enmity.

It is worth noting that in at least one disputed church researched, while there was hostility from a radical Muslim organization, there was also firm support from local Muslim residents who were saying that all citizens, regardless of their faith, had a constitutional right to have a place of worship.

There are two sides of the religion card, and it is up to everyone to make sure that the flipside does not dominate the game.

The writer is a journalist and adjunct research associate at the school of political and social inquiry, Faculty of Arts, Monash University, Melbourne.