US, France unjust towards Muslims

Although Megawati did not specifically name the two countries, it was clearly understood that the leader of the world's most populous Muslim country was unhappy with the US invasion of Iraq, which she described as an "act of violence undertaken unilaterally," and France's move to prohibit the wearing of religious symbols in public school, as well as the wearing of the jilbab, the traditional Islamic women's headscarf.

"It may be due to either coincidence or intention, but an exceptional injustice is apparent in the attitude and actions of big countries towards countries whose major population are Muslims," Megawati said in her inauguration speech at the opening of the International Conference of Islamic Scholars here yesterday.

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Megawati called on Islamic scholars to "prove wrong the observation that the future world will be characterised by considerable shock of cultures, rooted in the adherence to different religions."

She urged them to formulate a socioreligious conception that could accommodate the pluralism of today's world. "The history of the Islamic Ummah (the classical definition of Muslim community) has proven that this (pluralism) was once achieved, so there is no reason to believe why this could not be repeated again in this century, with the assistance and support of the other religious communities," Megawati said.

Megawati also touched on the civil wars in Indonesia, saying the burden for ending the violent disputes lay with the current generation.

She said that the diversity of Indonesia has always been a source of strength for the country and pointed out that Indonesia's constitution and state philosophy guaranteed religious freedom.

The three-day event, which brought together hundreds of scholars on Islamic studies and Muslim leaders world wide, was coorganised by the Indonesian Foreign Ministry and the Indonesiabased Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the world's largest Muslim civic organisation with a membership of more then 40 million.

Indonesia's Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda told a press conference that the government and the NU shared the idea that all sectors of Indonesian society needed to work together to respond to new challenges imposed upon them by modernity and events in today's world.