Ministry of Social Affairs Strictly Refuses All Forms of Radicalism and Terrorism

SERANG, BANTEN (December 11th 2019) - The Ministry of Social Affairs conveyed its seriousness towards all acts of radicalism and terrorism occurring in Indonesia.

The Minister of Social Affairs, Juliari P. Batubara, in his written remarks, said that diversity is a nation's reality that cannot be denied. To encourage national harmony, diversity must be interpreted by society through a multicultural understanding, so that there is no room for radicalism and terrorism.

This was conveyed by the Minister of Social Affairs at the National Workshop on Local Wisdom in Surabaya, last Wednesday (4/12), which raised a similar issue related to local wisdom and understandings that are contrary to state ideology. This is also a special concern of the Banten Provincial Government.

Present representing the Minister of Social Affairs, the Director General of Social Protection and Security, Harry Hikmat, in a talkshow session initiated by the Banten Province Social Service, in Serang City, Wednesday (11/12). Then, two other sources were also present, namely the Head of National Unity and Politics (Kesbangpol) of Banten Province, Ade Aryanto and the Head of the Supervision and Investigation Section (Kabagwassidik) of the Directorate of Special Criminal Research (Ditreskrimsus) of the Banten Regional Police, Dadang Herlis.

In dealing with social conflicts, the Ministry of Social Affairs has a reference, namely Law Number 7 of 2012 concerning Social Conflict and this has been followed up by Government Regulation Number 2 of 2015.

Both have the main substance in handling social conflicts, namely by increasing the social resilience of the community so that they are not easily influenced by events that can cause differences between individuals or groups so that the risk of social conflict occurs.

According to the Director General of Social Protection and Security, Harry Hikmat, social resilience is very important. This is because the context for building community resilience lies in the community itself, so that the role of society becomes so important.

"To ensure that the community has social resilience, one of the programs initiated by the Ministry of Social Affairs is to build social harmony villages. This applies to areas that have identified the potential or vulnerability of social conflict," said Harry.

In addition to the social harmony village program, the Ministry of Social Affairs also ensures the internalization of existing local wisdom. Local wisdom is a social institution that has been owned by the community in an area for a long time and has become the entity of the community concerned in that area.

"Through various studies conducted by independent research institutions and universities, local wisdom has proven successful in dealing with situations of social conflict in various regions. This (local wisdom) can be the main instrument to prevent social conflict, therefore the actualization of local wisdom is an important aspect." said Harry.

Two factors driving the development of a social resilience system in the community (village of social harmony and local wisdom), continued Harry, must also be ensured to be balanced with the quantity of social activists in it. These social drivers are those who are able to become agents for action to create peace and mediate between groups at risk of social conflict.

"Therefore, we encourage the birth of social volunteers who are then called Pioneers of Peace. Nationally, there are 1,466 of them, while specifically in the Banten region, these volunteers number 87. The social pillars of these community cadres have a full role in preventing social conflict," said Harry.

Banten Local Wisdom

On the same occasion, the Ministry of Social Affairs, represented by the Director General of Social Protection and Security, Harry Hikmat, opened the Workshop and Local Wisdom Cultural Title in Serang City, Banten, Tuesday (11/12). This (activity) is one of the efforts of the Banten Provincial Government in preventing social conflicts, radicalism and terrorism.

Banten Province is included in the category of regions with a fairly high level of vulnerability to social conflict incidents. Data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) states that based on village potential, there have been 25 incidents of mass fights between community groups and 20 incidents of inter-village fights in 2018. Meanwhile, there were 58 villages that experienced mass fights.

However, said Harry, Banten has the potential for extraordinary local wisdom through the Baduy community. "Baduy experienced fires twice, but they were able to quickly respond to the assistance provided by the government and overcome it at that time because of their mutual cooperation philosophy," he added.

In addition, Banten Province is quite famous for its martial arts sport. Banten is noted to have dozens of pencak silat (paguron) schools. Meanwhile, at the serasehan activity, eleven pagurons were presented to show their respective pencak silat actions which were full of the meaning of life in society.

This sport, which also touches the realm of the arts, is known to have a number of positive influences on people who follow it diligently. Several studies have shown that the value of local wisdom in pencak silat culture will lead to mental toughness.

Mental toughness in question is very influential on 1) Motivation to achieve; 2) Ability to control yourself from negative influences; 3) Generating positive energy from within; 4) Ability to control behavior; 5) Ability to control bad imagination, 6) Increase self-confidence; and 7) Ability to control yourself.

It is a collective obligation to continue to develop local culture such as pencak silat in the future. So, there is no other way if you want Banten to be away from social conflicts other than to strengthen the community's resilience to negative influences that are destructive to harmony and harmonization between people.

"For this reason, the Ministry of Social Affairs has concentrated in detail and technically with the Social Service that we support the pagurons to grow and be maintained," said Harry.

With the assistance from the government, Kasepuhan paguron can use it as a material for repairing equipment, sound systems, and other things that support the development of paguron in the future.

"This partnership is a good intention to jointly guard the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia (NKRI) in general, and Banten Province in particular, towards a safe, peaceful and prosperous country and province," he concluded.