Interreligious Harmony and Peacebuilding in Indonesian Islamic Education

Abstract

This article presents a contextualized psychology of peace in Asia that considers features of direct and structural violence in the region. In Asia, direct violence takes the form of intrastate intermediate-sized armed conflicts. Structural violence, on the other hand, is associated with foreign invasions and authoritarian regimes, chronic poverty, and cultural heterogeneity of nonmigrant groups marked by asymmetric power relations. Because of the nature of social conflict in Asia, peace psychologists working in this region should focus on active nonviolent political transformation, healing protracted-war traumas, beliefs supporting economic democratization, social voice and identity, culture-sensitive political peacemaking, and psychopolitical aspects of federalizing to address a territorial conflict. The article ends with suggestions for a future research agenda in Asian peace psychology.