Suffering as Ground for Religious Tolerance

Exchange ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emanuel Gerrit Singgih

Religions often offered themselves as answers to suffering. Not infrequently the adherents of a certain religion consider the answer of their own religion to suffering to be the best, as it is based on one’s truth-claim. Recently in South-East Asia, this kind of truth-claim can be detected also in the phenomena of ‘commodification of religions’ done by various groups within Christianity, Buddhism and Islam, thus causing rivalry and intolerance. It was Paul Knitter who first describes global suffering, or ‘the pain of the world’ as religious challenge for all religions. In Indonesia, the recent social and natural disasters can be interpreted as a challenge to the established tolerance nurtured by the state ideology Pancasila, which does not question truth-claims. Panikkar’s view on religious pluralism is accepted, but only after broadening its horizon of rationality to include the people’s experience of disasters, to enable a new vision of religious tolerance.

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-167
Author(s):  
Deb Cleland

Charting the course: The world of alternative livelihood research brings a heavy history of paternalistic colonial intervention and moralising. In particular, subsistence fishers in South East Asia are cyclical attractors of project funding to help them exit poverty and not ‘further degrade the marine ecosystem’ (Cinner et al. 2011), through leaving their boats behind and embarking on non-oceanic careers. What happens, then, when we turn an autoethnographic eye on the livelihood of the alternative livelihood researcher? What lexicons of lack and luck may we borrow from the fishers in order to ‘render articulate and more systematic those feelings of dissatisfaction’ (Young 2002) of an academic’s life’s work and our work-life? What might we learn from comparing small-scale fishers to small-scale scholars about how to successfully ‘navigate’ the casualised waters of the modern university? Does this unlikely course bring any ideas of ‘possibilities glimmering’ (Young 2002) for ‘exiting’ poverty in Academia?


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 42-54
Author(s):  
Ignatius Hubert Tantra

Singapore has one of the fastest economic development pace throughout South East Asia. Despite the fact that by land mass, it is not the biggest or the most fertile country. By demographic factor, it is not the most populated nor the most culturally diverse country. It also didn’t have the natural resources that its neighboring countries boasted as their main commodity. Yet, Singapore is a country with one of the most efficient implementation of living space, land usage, and education programme in the world. Because of its greatness, Singapore can be put in the same class with the others developed countries in the world. This is despite all the handicap that this country has, through the thick and thin of its history. The author believes that these successes can be atributted mostly to the efficient leadership of Singapore as a nation state in the international system, and that these successes can be adapted throughout Asia, and the world as a whole. This essay was made exactly to achieve this successful impact on ASEAN’s countries economics. In this writing, the author will examine what makes Singapore such a great economic titan, and how it can turn its unlikely position into a flourishing market economy and becoming a model for other developing countries to replicate, with institutional leadership. All of these, for the purpose of learning, and in the bid of rejuvenating economic vigor that most Asian countries and developing countries needed to keep up and even compete with more prominent countries in the international political system of the world.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 305-312
Author(s):  
Scott Sommers

John Saboe is one of the leading travel YouTubers on the internet, with dozens of podcasts dealing with a wide range of issues on travel throughout East Asia. His current work, The Far East Travels Podcast (https://fareasttravels.com/), receives thousands or even tens of thousands of views. He has been involved in broadcasting for most of his working life. Beginning in high school, John developed an interest spanning audio podcasts, digital podcasts and publishing a digital magazine, in addition to a background working in traditional radio and TV. He has taught at the Columbia Academy in Vancouver and currently runs training seminars in different aspects of internet broadcasting for customers all around the world.


1968 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 263
Author(s):  
John Davidson ◽  
George Alexander Jensen ◽  
Charles W. Forman ◽  
John J. Saunders ◽  
Joseph R. Levenson

Author(s):  
Gerhard Berz

Windstorm disasters (including storm surges) account for about one-third of all natural disasters throughout the world (by number, fatalities and economic losses), but for more than two-thirds of the corresponding insured losses. Trend analyses reveal that major windstorm disasters and the losses generated by them have increased drastically in recent decades. Risk partnership between the state, the affected population and the insurance industry assumes a key role with regard to the windstorm hazard. Scientists, engineers and insurers must work together in formulating their requirements and shaping them in such a way that politicians can derive clearly recognizable policy options (e.g. land-use, restrictions, design-code adjustments) from them. Another important aspect is stepping up the efforts being made towards curbing climate change, which will, otherwise, exacerbate the risk in the future.


1977 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 306-310
Author(s):  
Torao Mozai

The first reference to western techniques of navigation in Japan is in the Genna-Kohkaisho or The Navigation Arts in the Age of Genna by Koh-un-Ikeda, written in 1618 just sixty-three years after the first Portuguese visit to Japan. During these sixty-three years the Japanese had built some western-style sailing vessels and actually used western techniques for navigation to south-east Asia. The author shows a good grasp of western navigation. For instance Ikeda had asked his teacher, the Portuguese captain Gonsaro (Japanese pronunciation) ‘Is there any method of obtaining the latitude when the sky is clouded for a short time just as the Sun or the star transits the meridian?’ Captain Gonsaro answers ‘It is of course impossible, no one in the world can ever do it.’ Ikeda suggests the possibility of estimating the altitude of the Sun or star on the meridian and one can see now that this foreshadows the famous ex-meridian method that was developed much later.


2002 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Harding

The relationship between the global and the local is one of critical importance to all regions of the world. In the resolution of the tension between the irresistible surge of globalisation and the undeniable facts of society as it actually exists in the various localities which together comprise the very world which is presumably the object or the subject-matter of globalisation, law lies at the forefront. It is, one might say, the very intellectual battlefield which we have selected for the resolution of the major problem facing human society at the turn of the century. The purpose of this article is therefore to investigate, in a somewhat narrative fashion the relationship between the global and the local in the context of law in South East Asia. The topic is clearly too large to be dealt with in a short space with the rigour and articulation it really deserves, but it is hoped that the approach adopted will provide some kind of a frame of reference for regarding, studying, and hopefully improving, the law in the South East Asian region; and will perhaps focus a pencil of light on the problems of the global and the local in this particular regional context.


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