Religion as a Tool for Human Rights Advocacy

Religion as a Tool For Human Rights Advocacy: The Case of Southern Kebumen Conflict of Civil-Military over Land 20111 Laila Kholid Alfirdaus Indonesia Consortium for Religious Studies Gadjah Mada University

BACKGROUND Despite their usefulness in protecting human beings, theoretically there are some crucial debates in relations to the concepts of human rights. This devides human rights perspectives into religious and secular, as well as Western and non-Western. The divide is not to assert that human rights are not useful. Both agree that human rights are important to regulate and be reference for human behaviours in social context. However, regarding how they are going to be structured and implemented, are still including contradicting point of views amongst scholars.

The most fundamental debate that still exists and has not reached consensus first and foremost is related to the foundations of human rights. On the one hand, Michael Perry and his proponents argue that human rights are ineliminably, inescapably, and inseparably religious. Perry (1998) argues that Christian teaching, for example, that has strong emphasis on the need to love each other as the way God loves the human beings, is a clear token of religious foundation of human rights principles. On the other hand, Lerner (2006) and Kohen (2007) argue that to consider human beings as sacred and human rights as inescapably religious is awkward. Such an argument for Perry and Kohen ignores the political side of human beings including of the contruction of human rights concepts. There would many difficulties as religion is not a single organisation. Which religion Perry means to be?

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Paper presented at “International Conference on Islam and Human Rights: Theories and Practices in Contemporary Indonesia“, jointly organized by Centre for Islamic Studies, Universitas Islam Indonesia and Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, University of Oslo, Yogyakarta, 6-8 March 2012.

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I agree with Lerner and Kohen that human rights do not need to be ineliminably religious. Human rights are the product of human beings, that are constructed as a response to human dynamics, including conflict, warfare, and violence. In addition, if two things have similar quality of ingredients, it never means that the two are the same. Therefore, if both human rights and religion equally assert peace, welfare, and hospitality, it does not mean that human rights are then inescapably religious. They are still different as they have their own history and paradigms in viewing human beings and their problems.

However, although there is no need to assert that human rights are ineliminably religious, it never means that human rights and religion are totally independent from each other. Kohen, who argues that human rights need to be independent of religion sounds to ignore the fact that the social context of which human beings that is mostly inseparable from religion.2 As a matter of fact, religion has great potential to support the enactment of human rights. Its energy rested on the emotional bindings built from the collectiveness of its community, as well as its strength that lies on the sacredness it entails, are important capital for pursuing human rights principles.3 Moreover, what is more important for human rights is their implementation, not the debated discourse.4 Utilising religion, apart from the debate of whether human rights are religious or secular, is thus worth-considering.

What I found from research I conducted recently in Kebumen clearly showed me that religion can be an energizer for the actions of human right protection.5 Southern Kebumen people are now facing a problem of land acclaimed by the military as their own. In the

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Kohen (2007) proposes a question of as the following, “Indeed, the most provocative question is not whether the concept exists in each of the world’s religions, but whether it can exist independently of religion.”

3 As Durkheim argue, cited in Bellah (1973), “Emile Durkheim: Durkheim on morality and society”, University of Chicago, Chicago, pp. 134-223, religion can create social solidarity and morality through the rituals it entails that include collective participation.

4 This is offcourse not to undermine the importance of theoretical debate and discussions. However, as human rights need to be implemented, discussing their applicability amidst the very complex nature of society as well as the multiple religious organizations is much worth-considering.

5 The research I conducted is actually on “the political economy of state-society conflict on land, in Urutsewu, Kebumen Selatan”, from May-August 2011. However, there is another interesting side of the research findings that reveals the role of religion in society in terms of social consolidation and social movement.

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contrary, these people feel that they inherit this land from their predecessors, and have been cultivating it for years. However, Southern Kebumen people are not blindly religious. They realize the very political characteristics of the problems they are facing as well as the social movement they are undergoing. Nonetheless, for them, religion is an important tool to maintain people to be integrated and consolidated. The use of religion as a tool for human rights advocacy involve the active participation of religious scholars (kyai), religious organization leaders (GP Anshor, Nahdlatul Ulama), religious youth organization (Pergerakan Mahasiswa Islam Indonesia), and female religous community (Fatayat, Nahdlatul Ulama).

The findings on this research show me that in relations to human rights, in practice, religion and secularism is not always conflicting, as often found amongst many theorists.

Religion often plays crucial role to be an effective tool for human rights advocacy. Leiby (1985) argues that people generally understand that they have individual rights, and social agencies should secure and enhance those rights. This identifies the political consciousness of individual rights including social, economic, and cultural that needs for protection in the context of state-citizen relationships. Leiby however strengthens the sense that human beings in empirical life do not always care of whether to have rights are ineliminably religious or not. What they always take into account is how to enhance those rights instead. Once their rights were violated, they would and should find a way to challenge this.

In order to be effective, the strategy to promote the protection of human rights should however be very contextual. This is mainly due to the fact that there is strong persistence and consistence needed, as well as the enormous energy to be provided. Moreover, what the people usually have to deal with in the struggle of human rights protection is such a powerful status quo, can it be corporations, state, or religious organizations that is sometime equipped with weapons. Strengthening social consolidation is therefore a must. In relations to this,

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what I mean contextual is, to create the strategy that is suitable with the social circumstances and characteristics. In religious community, such as I found in Kebumen, religious framing on the problems the community is facing, as well as on the social movement the community needs to be undergoing, is worth-noting. The strategy could work effectively to be a response to the military oppression. Reflecting on this, I suggest that religion, human rights and political economy are not separated, although they are different in terms of definition. Further implication of these findings is to highlight the fluid relationships of the secular ideas of human rights and the religious ones in empirical experience, that it is impossible to strictly separate one another. Religion in fact provides resources for the advocacy of those—secular typology of—human rights, and therefore the debate over the human rights foundation somehow needs to be revisited. The research question of this paper I try to answer is as the following: “in practice, how is the relationship of religious and secular views on the issues of human rights? Why. The purpose of this paper is to identify how influential is theoretical debates of human rights foundation in empirical experience through stidying the daily practices of human rights promotion in (religious) society.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Theoretical debate of religious and secular foundations of human rights The divide of human rights foundation that contructs the discourses into two opposing views of human rights as firstly ineliminably religious versus secondly the secular one, is one of the most crucial issues in human rights discussions. The first version, represented by Perry (1998), argues there are many religious values that contain human rights principles that become important foundations for human rights. The basic teachings of religion that regulate human interrelation Perry cites in the sacred-text as “love one another as I have loved you”, for Perry clearly contains God’s message on how people should live side by side. By arguing

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this, Perry clarifies the sense that religion is fundamental organization that provides normative principles that should be made as referring values for human beings to behave in their social context. On the other hand, as secularism does not have strong foundation of principles of human interrelations as religion, for Perry it is not sensible to say that human rights are not religious. Human rights are sacred, as human beings are also sacred.

However, for those against Perry’s arguments see that by arguing this Perry seems to disregard the sociological history of the human rights. Perry does not notice that human rights resurgence is inseparable from the history of people, kingdom, and church dispute over power in regulating human life. If we look at Wignjosoebroto (2005), for instance, it is clear that from historical perspective the rise of the ideas of human rights was inseparable from the dissatisfaction of people towards the absolute power and authority of the king and church.

“The rule of law” concepts that replaced “the rule of man” as a core principle in human rights had in fact involved a long historical and a bit political contestation of the Pope and the King, involving the dispute between Pope Gregorious VII and King Heinrich IV from Sachsen that was just over in 1112. Therefore, there is no necessity for human rights to be religious as naturally human beings would automatically get involved in interactive life that includes negotiations, transaction, and interdependence.

In addition, human beings by nature would learn through the process they get through, such as conflict and violence, to erect some regulatory institutions to protect human rights.

Human declarations that revive in many forms are evident to highlight human concerns on regulating social interrelation in wider scopes. Human Rights Declaration and the like that is never free from debate illuminates the unstoppable learning process of human beings to accommodate universal human rights (Lerner, pp. 1-119), Runzo, pp. 129-196). Secular perspective therefore bases its argument on the notion that human being is human socius (Berger and Luckmann, 1967). This clarifies the sense that human being that is naturally

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attached to one another, needs one another, and interacts with others, would naturally train themselves to be able to adjust with their social environment. Therefore, the sacredness of human rights as Perry emphasizes is not final and the only. Human rights are social construction and humanly product, it is therefore, for Lerner, not sensible to say that human rights are ineliminably religious. Agreeing Lerner, Kohen (2007) argues that, “...to say that religious texts are inclusive of human rights is very different from saying, as Michael Perry does, that a religious worldview provides the only intelligible grounding for those rights�, highlights the questions to the claim of religious foundations of human rights.

Some criticism on religious and secular view of human rights foundation I agree with Lerner and Kohen’s criticism to the claim of human rights as inescapably religious. This perspective seems to assuming religion as the final and only source of reference for human beings to behave. This argument clearly neglects the dark side of religion that is sometime contradictory with human rights principles. Gender inequality entails in religious teachings set for the purpose of the so called women protection is an instance in which religion is gender biased. Religious teachings that prohibit women to get active in public sphere, to place women as a source of sinful behaviours and therefore they are mandated to cover their body completely, and not to allow them to be a leader in social organisation, are very much political. Religion is thus not merely about the divine teachings of principles or sacredness, it is also about power relations.

Secondly, insisting human rights as ineliminably religious would bear some difficulties in application. First of all, which definition of religion is used in this case? Is it the one related to believing in God; the transcendence? Is it another one, that revealing religion as social construction of transcendence concept? Considering the definition of religion as not single, therefore arguing human rights as ineliminably religious needs some

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further and complicated scrutiny on what does the author mean by this religious assertion.

Secondly, by organization religion is not single, consisting of either major (such as Islam, Christianity, Hindu, Buddha, and the like) or minor one (such as Baha’i, Sikh, Jews, and so forth). Meanwhile, each religion has its own teachings that are sometime contradictory to each other. Universalism the human rights mean to be would face difficulty of particularism that arises for the diverse versions of principles, due to the existence of various religious organisations. It is likely that Christian principles of men-women relationships would contradict with Moslem’s, as they are constructed through different historical and contextual backgrounds. In relation to this, if human rights are ineliminably religious, which religion does Perry and his supporter mean to refer? How religion can support unversalistic nature of human rights amidst the very strong dispute and primordialism amongst religious scholars? I agree that amongst religious institutions, there are common principles to be found such as about love and peace. However, human rights are multi-aspects. They do not only include the general principles, such as to love and respect each other. They rather mainly include some detailed issues, such as abortion, sexual orientations, capital sentence refusal, and gender equality that are sometime not recognized by religion. Therefore, there are still some consensus needed between religion and human rights.

However, despite its convincing argument, secular perspective of human rights is actually not free from criticism. Human Rights as promoted by secular institution is seen as in itself highly motivated by political economic interests. Some religious scholars in Eastern countries suspect human rights as the project of Westernisation by the Western developed countries. In addition, human rights, as asserted in Washington Consensus, are deemed as for supporting market liberalisation. Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs), for instance, which clearly puts strong assertion on human rights as a condition for developing countries to gain development assistance, is a clear instance how the discourse of human rights has been

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politicized for the sake of the developed countries’ interest that govern international governance institutions, such as the UN, The World Bank, IMF, and the like. Considering this, it becomes clear that human rights are not neutral. For Jean, such a problem creates a question of sovereignity (2008).

Some alternatives: to reconcile religious and secular perspectives of human rights foundations in human rights advocacy?

Responding to such complexities, Ghanea, Stephens, and Walden (2007) argue that whatever far the debate of religious and secular views of human rights foundation, the discourse should be directed into social welfare, emancipation and respect for the poor, irrespective of faith-led institutions. In relation to this, there is a need for better discussion of religious and secular scholars in viewing human rights. Harries (in Ghanea, Stephens, and Walden, 2008, p. 24) argues that it is very important to resolve the contradiction. Otherwise, both parties would remain to be stucked in an abstract and theoretical sphere, and forget to focus on weighing the search of human rights enactment strategy.The discussion should therefore be directed into the notion that religion and human rights are equally the catalists for the improvement of social well-beings. Strengthening this, Sen (in ODI Briefing Paper, 2001) even argues that human rights should go beyond welfarism. Sen proposing new approaches of human rights, directing them to be empowering, that can lead human beings into having stronger capabilities and opportunities.

In relations to this Black (2009) strongly assert that, “...Human rights is a call to action—to prescription and advocacy, organization, mobilization, and coalition building, to rule making, implementation, and adjudication. But for any of that to have utility—to make sense—it must also be underpinned by reliable explanation and prediction. Action without understanding is at best futile, at worst dangerous to those it is meant tohelp.” Black therefore underlines the notion that practice is more important than theories in human rights.

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Applicability, acceptability, coherence, and contextuality are amongst those needed in organizing actions for human rights. Black adds, “...Human rights is not a discipline, based on a generally accepted body of theory with a finite number of recognized bibles and priests.

But it draws upon and feeds back into the humanities and each of the social sciences. Unlike some disciplines, human rights does not have the luxury of seeking theoretical validation in abstract worlds from which threats to real people have been assumed away. On the contrary, human rights activists are committed to attending to the real people hit by real bombs dropped from that abstract world.�

In responding to this, Plowden and Kerrigan (2002) argue that there should be mechanism that is able to make sure that advocacy for human rights would give stronger effect on human dignity and welfare. Plowden and Kerrigan have indeed highlighted crucial points for human rights enforcement. However, perceiving advocacy as merely law-related actions as Plowden and Kerrigen argue is too narrow. There is a need to widening the scope of advocacy, so that it could involve the area of public policy, societal sphere, and cultural atmosphere. Human rights perspective in public policy,6 rights-based approach development,7 and human rights culture8 are a set of important strategies for embedding human rights in both formal and informal institutions, including not only in formal decision making process in government and tribunal courts, but also in a daily life of civil society. Cornwall and Nyamu-Musembi (2004) argue, all these are approaches are important as they transform power relations, strengthening those who are excluded to be empowered in public space.

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As asserted by Andrea Cornwall and Nyamu-Musembi, 2004.

As asserted in ODI Briefing Paper, 1993.

8 As Naylor and Wahiu, 2011.

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A BRIEF DISCUSSION OF THE CASE: STATE OPPRESSION AND THE USE OF RELIGION FOR HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCACY FOR LAND OWNERSHIP There are two main cases of conflict related to land in Southern Kebumen. The first one is in Setrojenar, and the second one is in Mirit. Conflict relating to land ownership in Setrojenar village, Bulus Pesantren sub-district, has happened since the establishment of Dislitbang (Dinas Pelatihan dan Pengembangan) TNI AD in the New Order Era in the 1980s.

Dislitbang is an organisation within Indonesian Army that is responsible to carry out the military troops training. Formerly, the relations of the Southern Kebumen residents and the military was not problematic. The use of the farmers’ land for military training was previously acceptable by the society. It even happened since pre independence.

However, since Soeharto instructed military to establish Dislitbang, fraction between the military and society arises. It is mainly because, unlike its predecessors, the military since the New Order Era has appeared to acclaim the land ownership. Land acclaimed by the military has expanded from the original size they bought from the village government.

Currently, the land the military acclaims as their own includes almost all Southern part of Kebumen along the Southern coastal areas, called Urutsewu, although some people insist that some parts of the land is formally named as their own. Not only related to land, conflict gets sharpened when there was an un-anticipated killing of five elementary students in the mid 1990s because of incomplete cleaning of missiles in farming areas after military trainings.

Rather than pulling out the troops from the areas, the military shows its force through the continuation of trainings in the name of for state’s safety, until now. Resistance of the society, equally, never stops, until the chaos breaks on Saturday, 16 April 2011, when the military shooted and bit some farmers and activits. Since then, protests have got more intense, although at the same time, the state’s effort to weaken social movement through social organization division was also strong. People consider the politicisation of the case as very apparent. In the case of 16 April 2011, the military that committed to bite the farmers

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are never brought into trials. There is also no compensation for property destruction caused by that military attacks. Meanwhile, lay people who involves in the protest were caught and imprisoned.

In the neighbouring villages, Mirit, protest on government policy also rises up. The protest get heightened for the issue of government planning to use the land for iron mining.

For Mirit people, such a planning sounds insensitive as Mirit people, who used to live in poverty, just taste the fruit of their hard working in farming within the lates years, and becoming the main supplier of cassava, chili, garlic, and papaya in Kebumen. As people in Setrojenar, Mirit people also face some threats from the government through the blockage of decision making access. The government never serious accomodating Mirit people’s request for public hearing with executive and legislature. Mirit people lack space of representation in decision making.

Facing the emergency of the issue, while at the same time another internal problem arises since some people start to get feared for the military threats, and some even finally withdraw themselves from being involved in active protests, some central figures of social activists feel that they need to find a way to maintain social consolidation, solidarity, and actions. One of them is by using religion.

The intensive use of religious institution as vehicles for promoting the social struggle for land ownership is mainly driven by the political obstacles exposed by the government since the 16 April 2011 chaos to hinder people to conduct social meetings. Political obstacles include military intelligence, military intimidations, and government blockage of public hearing. When people undergo training on particular issue of human rights and public policies, there often are some unidentified people in the forum participating in; not to succeed the training but to mess it up for the purpose of getting it ended before the training is even started. The base camp of Southern Kebumen Farmers and Fishermen Association (FPPKS)

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is often spied. People almost do not have space to be in touch with each other, especially for consolidating the movement.

However, what is unique about Southern Kebumen is a strong culture of taboo that exists within society. The taboo they strongly embrace is a prohibition to mess up activities within mosques or other religious activities conducted in other buildings, such mosholla and local residence buildings. This is relatively understandable as Southern Kebumen populace is well-known as strong santri, in which Islam is not only as religious and transcendental beliefs, but also as cultural tradition they practice in daily life. Therefore, tactics used by the local activists in order to disseminate information related to government policies or other collective activities and social consolidation are by using using mosque, or forum in tahlilan and yasinan, that are regularly conducted in society. Not only this, local activists also try to be hand in hand with kyai to maintain the integration within society in dealing with the problem of human rights violation.

Seniman, an informant in this research asserts that, “conducting activities in mosques or regular religious activities are relatively safe. The military or preman avoids to spy us when we conduct our activities in mosque. It is because, such activities are regular in its nature, conducted far long before the military attack 16 April 2011, and already becomes societal tradition”. Seniman one day told me a story about preman intimidation when he attended training on “property rights”. The preman stopped him and interogated him as such, “who allows you to attend this training, who is the organizer? Is it you? If you dare to continue it I will bite wyou”. Seniman said, “I am only invited, I did not ornagise this. Yeah, you may bite me. But, please, wait for a while, as it is already maghrib, and I need to pray first. Wait me until I finish praying, and then you may hit me”. Seniman went to the mosque to pray, and once he finished his praying, he found the preman has gone. He knows that preman would hesitate to hurt him when he is in charge with God.

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Bagus, agreeing Seniman, also says that, “we usually disseminate information, such as what the latest policy related to our land just issued by the government, during regular tahlilan and yasinan”. For Bagus, yasinan and tahlilan forum is an important media to build social consolidation, as it emcompasses both men and women equally. People in the village, as Bagus describes, are active participant in the forum, and they give high attention for any issue related to land problem.

Ubaidillah, another local activist asserts that, “we just had pengajian, and the kyai’s preach is very provocative, I mean very encouraging in underpinning people’s spirit of social struggle over their land. Interesting!”. According to Ubaidillah, the way the Kyai frames his speech in pengajian is very influential to people’s understandings of human rights. The Kyai does not always use the term “human rights”, but the dictions he chooses are very much entailing human rights principles, such freedom of speech, property rights, freedom of life, economic welfare, children protection, state-citizen responsibilities, the oppressed struggles, social movement as tarbiyah and da’wah, and so forth. Military, as Ubaidillah, never prohibits pengajian, as it would be very sensitive, which may provoke other communities in other parts of Kebumen and its surroundings to react. Religion is sacred and has been significant for strengthening social solidarity and movement, even for non-religious issues.

ANALYSIS AND IMPLICATION Considering the above mentioned-case, it seems to be clear that the boundaries between the paradigm of religion and secularism in human rights for society in practice is not always deemed important. The local activists in the case of Southern Kebumen deeply realize that religion is the strongest thing to tie sociaty into solidarity and collectiveness. On the other hand, people understand that the case they are facing is strongly political and involving

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a high contestation of interest, between the military, local government, and corporation9 versus the local people. In the midst of strong military oppression, while there is very limited space available for the people to consolidate for the intensive intelligence activities, people find religion can be an alternative tool to support human rights advocacy. People find it is useful to consolidate the society through collective religious activities. It is also helpful to strengthen social consciousness of civil rights through religious preaches that frame the ideas of struggle for the rights of land ownership—as jihad (to fight against the bathil—wrong doings), than through the formal meeting ones. This does not mean that people do not understand that the problem is very much related to political economy. They realise it very well. However, they also realise that they need resources—space and strategy—that enable them to keep attached to each other, and religious is those that providing such resources needed to tackle the issue. The strict separation of religious and secular perspectives on human rights foundation in practice therefore becomes less relevant to address. Some implications that might arise from this are as the following.

First of all, the case becomes evident that Eastern; Moslem community basically recognizes the importance of human rights. The active involvement of Moslem scholars and community in Southern Kebumen leads us to assume that Moslems do not refuse the concept of human rights. This case clarifies the sense that what people basically problematise is the use of the term “human rights” that sounds very much Western, but not the principles entailed within “human rights”, namely human dignity. Human rights principles that underline justice is in fact in line Islamic concept of ‘adalah; ‘adil. Thus, what we understand as Western and Eastern dispute in human rights is merely related to the idea of naming and labelling, not of the substances. However, there are still some contradictions between Eastern/Islamic ideas of

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Corporation becomes important part in conflict as some areas in conflicting villages are supposed to be used for iron mining, in the name of local government income (PAD-Pendapatan Asli Daerah) improvement. For the local people, it seems to be not coincidence if the incerase of military oppression occurs in the midst of strong government campaign on the establishment of iron mining corporation.

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human rights and the Western ones, especially in relations to some sensitive issues, such as freedom of sexual orientation, capital punishment, and so forth. As argued in the beginning, it becomes clear that to have the same ingredient it never means that the two things are supposed to be the same. They may be interlinked, but they remain different. In the short words, religion is not the same as human rights, and thus it is not necessary to become ineliminable and inescapable foundations of human rights.

Secondly, one might argue that society such as those in Kebumen do not always be in full consciousness if the issue they are dealing with is religious or non-religious.

Consequently, we could not convincingly say if they perceive human as ineliminably religious or not. I agree with this argument and there should be deeper scrutiny, such as through further interview, on people’s perception of human rights, human rights violation, and human rights promotions, whether being coined as ineliminably religious or, in the case of land ownership problem, non-religious. However, apart from the debate of how people perceive the ideas of and actions for human rights, it is clear that the issue is perceived mainly as political economy; which is understood as a political contestation of economic resources.

Bagus, for instance, realizes very well that the problem he is now facing is a matter of competition for life survival between those using state as vehicles and the citizen who do not have power in politics. He also understands that the government policy is actually manipulative as it actually benefits small number of people in group, in the name of national interest. State, for Bagus, is only vehicle for that group to achieve their own goal, excluding the local people as the legitimate owners of the land. He sees that the government knows very well who own the land in the areas, how the land is used, and how it contributes to the improvement of farming production in Kebumen, but they ignore for merely the interest of small number of elites. Bagus recognises, the complexities of the problem involve a

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collaboration between the corrupt government and the greedy corporation. This clearly means that people understand the roots of problem: political economy. Therefore, it is a fault to assume people as not realizing what they are doing and what the implication entailing it.

They need to better off their well-beings, to retain their rights for those who suppose to steal them through the military land ownership claiming and rent-seeking, and make sure that they will not lose their occupations as farmers. Therefore, although using religion as vehicle to mobilise social movement in order to stop the state-initiated rights violation, it does not automatically mean that they perceive religion as inescapably and ineliminably becoming the foundations of human rights.

However, the above-underlined arguments do not intend to ignore some disputes that arise between religion and human rights. First of all, despite the sacredness it entails, religion also has some dark sides in which religion can trigger some human rights violation. Referring to Juergensmeyer (2000), it is instead religion that often boosts up conflict into high escalation. Religion can be so powerful to drive people to get involved in religious conflict as they deem it as a divine call. As a matter of fact, violence whatever it is, is kind of human rights violation. In addition, religion is seen asto potentially legitimizing gender inequality.

Religious teaching are mostly deemed as gender-biased, for placing women as seemingly the second ummah (community) after men and an object of male authority. Meanwhile, discrimination is never acceptable in human rights concept. In relation to this, I agree with some people that religion is a matter of interpretation. However, I do not agree that there is an absolutely true interpretationof religion, as interpretation is mainly about context, power relations, and political interests. Therefore, it becomes difficult to coin religion as inescapably and ineliminably the foundation of human rights. Religion and human rights, as I asserted in the beginning, are different set of constructed ideas, that might be complementaryon the one hand, but also contradictory on the other hand. Similarly, simply

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since human rights include the rights of religion—to embrace and practice religious beliefs and not—or get inspired from religious teachings in the construction of their principles—it does mean that human rights is therefore religious; or sacred.

CONCLUSION The strong debate of human rights foundation whether it is religious or not is sometime less relevant in practical field. Human rights are different in terms of a set of ideas they entail from that of religion, and have different point of views of looking at many issues.

There are indeed some similarities between human rights and religion in viewing some social problems, such as social welfare, neighbourhood, and peace. However, this does not mean that human rights are ineliminably religious. Such argument, for me, sounds too simplistic. In addition, the relations of human rights and religion is not certain; or fluid. Sometime, human rights and religion can complement each other, but sometime they can also be contradicting.

The case of Southern Kebumen populace in using religion as a tool for human rights advocacy, shows us that religion can be complementary to human rights promotion. Religion that stimulates social cohesion and collectiveness is a good tool for accumulating social energy to combat human rights violation. In the context of society, in which religion is seen as important in their life, collaborating religion and human rights to promote human dignity is helpful.

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