Conflict and Peacebuilding in Maluku

Abstract

Both Moluccan conflict and peacebuilding were multi-sited, developed different dynamics in different areas and localities, and involved a multitude of actors at various levels. Nonetheless, both also had major themes in common: the conflict being mainly interreligious and the revival of tradition figuring prominently in peacebuilding. This chapter first provides insight into ongoing tensions in Maluku and an overview of the conflict dynamics. In trying to find an explanation for why religion could be successfully used to mobilize people to kill each other and why adat became such a prominent means to restore social relations, the chapter tracks the long and often turbulent relational history between Islam, Christianity, and adat. It then follows reconciliation in Maluku in space and over time, and traces and delineates the unfolding dynamics of the Moluccan peace scape. Chapter 4 then expounds how and why culture and tradition became such important ‘actors’ in Moluccan peacebuilding initiatives. Such an overview has, to my knowledge, not been produced yet and is direly needed in order to reflect the complexity of the peace and reconciliation process in Maluku. Due to the long duration of the process (in fact, it is still ongoing), its multidimensionality, its taking place in so many different localities, and the fact that people from so many different social strata, from inside and outside Maluku, were involved, it cannot and does not claim to be exhaustive. It prepares the ground for the ethnographic in-depth studies on the ‘revival for peace’ in chapters 5 and 6 and various other related publications of mine.