Pesantren-Based Peace Education: Madura

"Since the peace education programme began last year, all my sermons have been about the elements of peace and tolerance in Islam. Of course, these values and ethics are not new to us, but they needed renewed emphasis."
- KH Hasan Basri, Madura, 2003

Common Ground Indonesia began to develop a Pesantren-based Peace Education programme in Madura in 2002, for three main reasons:·

• Madurese had been involved in a number of serious violent conflicts in recent years, and Madurese community leaders with whom Common Ground worked on reconciliation programmes were asking themselves if the education system had some responsibility to bear for this, and could play a more positive role.
• Pesantrens (Islamic boarding schools) and their infrastructure play an extremely important role in community leadership, ethical guidance, and education in Madura, as in many other places in Indonesia. They are therefore highly strategic as potential agents of social transformation.
• A number of important Islamic teachers and kiai were keen to develop peace education programmes.

Common Ground Indonesia's peace education programme in pesantrens in Madura is an important model, as it is bottom-up, developed by the pesantrens themselves, and uses relevant and accessible material to develop conflict transformation awareness and skills amongst pesantren students, teachers, and management. There are 15 large pesantrens in Madura, with up to 5,000 students each, and numerous smaller ones, with an estimated three pesantrens on average per kecamatan.

Pesantren do not only function as formal education institutions but also are keepers and educators of social values in the broader context. Kyais in particular are major figures in pesantren as well as 'patrons' of the surrounding community. Meanwhile, a majority of the community partipates in pesantren-led activities such as reading the Quran (pengajian), and mass religious forums (majelis taklim).

The major targets of the Common Ground peace education programme are:

• Ustad (teacher)
• Santri (students)
• Jamaah pengajian/majelis taklim (participants in Quran readings)
• Alumni pesantren (graduated pesantren students)

The Pesantren Peace Education programme has been carried out in several stages, in cooperation with the Consortium for Peace and Justice, a Malang-based NGO. The first stage was an assessment to map the existence and characteristics of Madura's pesantren, the content of their educational programmes, and their level of interest in peace education, and to form realistic targets and indicators for the programme. This was carried out through document study, and production of an analysis to be used by santri as a reference to be contructively critical of their study material.

Training and workshops were held in pesantren-based peace education for pesantren community leaders, teachers and mass religious organizations such as Nahdatul Ulama and Muhammidiyah. From this, draft Pesantren Peace Education modules were developed by the programme team with an advisory committee of kiai, and tested in two pesantren. The modules were then evaluated by the participating pesantren and project team, and improved. We hope that these modules will become an important launching ground for expansion of the programme to other sites and pesantren.

The strengths of the pesantren-based peace education materials and methodologies developed include:

• Reinterpreting religious sources and references which define the dominant social values.
• Peace can be a mainstream idea in pesantren interaction processes and this can easily and naturally extend to the broader community.
• The programme empowers (but does not force) pesantren teachers to adopt and reinterpret messages in pengajian contextually, stressing not only the religious elements but also social transformation.

The main outputs of the programme so far include:

• Pesantren-based peace education modules developed in a participatory way as guidance in pesantren education process.
• Two pesantren which have mainstreamed peace education in their curriculum, utilizing the modules.
• Capacity-building in peace education for a broader base of Muslim educators and organizations.
• Ongoing small discussion groups in pesantren as a medium to search and reinventing peace education source and references in pesantren.
• Alternative media as another forum of peace education in the community.

Please click here if you would like to make a donation to support our projects.