MUI's Din Syamsuddin Joins UN Quest for Sustainable Development
Jakarta. Din Syamsuddin, chairman of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), has been selected to become a member of the Sustainable Development Solution Network (SDSN), to represent the Islamic world in the United Nations initiative that has been supporting work on the 17 newly agreed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The former longtime chairman of Muhammadiyah, the nation's second-largest socio-religious organization, was chosen in his capacity as a leader of the Religions for Peace organization, according to a press release by the Center for Dialogue and Cooperation Among Civilizations (CDCC), which he also chairs.
The SDSN was launched by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in 2012, with the stated aim of "mobilizing scientific and technical expertise from academia, civil society, and the private sector in support of sustainable development problem-solving at local, national, and global scales," the organization says on its website.
Din was elected at the UN headquarters in New York on Friday, in a meeting attended by Indonesia's Vice President Jusuf Kalla and several ministers from President Joko Widodo's cabinet, the CDCC statement said.
The Indonesian religious leader explained that the SDSN had working groups based on the themes of the 17 SDGs, which were formally adopted by the UN General Assembly on Friday as a follow-up to the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set for 2015.
Din said the new SDGs concern all countries and "need the support of all sectors of society," while adding that the role of religious groups would be "to provide an ethical perspective."
Challenges for Indonesia
There are quite a few obstacles Indonesia will have to overcome to achieve any of the new SDGs, but Din could hit the ground running as his own MUI issued a controversial fatwa in 2008 condoning female genital mutilation (FGM), which is a direct challenge to development goal No. 5.
Goal No. 5, "Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls," specifically calls for the end of "all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere" and the elimination of "all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilations."
FGM, mainly carried out for religious reasons, remains widespread in Indonesia despite a ban issued by the Health Ministry in 2006.
Another immediate challenge for Indonesia would be goal No. 3, "Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages," under which all countries are urged to "Strengthen the implementation of the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control."
Indonesia, a smoker's paradise where two in three men and many youngsters light up, is among a small group of nations that have not even signed the FCTC.
The MUI declared smoking haram, or forbidden for Muslims, in a 2009 fatwa, but Nahdlatul Ulama, the nation's largest socio-religious group, officially maintains a neutral stance on smoking.
NU has labeled the practice as mubah, which means it believes smoking is neither forbidden nor recommended according to Islamic jurisprudence.
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