Understanding the Meaning of SARA, Offensive Actions, and Ways to Prevent Group Conflicts

Kapanlagi.com - Indonesia is a country that has a lot of diversity. Therefore, SARA becomes an important issue that is always mentioned when discussing the identity of Indonesian citizens. Unfortunately, the meaning of SARA has not been fully understood.

In fact, there is also a misconception about the meaning of SARA that is developing in society. This creates the impression that SARA is something full of negative sentiment.

Actually, the meaning of SARA refers to a neutral thing, namely ethnicity, religion, race, and inter-group relations. If you are interested in understanding the meaning of SARA more deeply, let's directly read the complete information below.

1. The Meaning of SARA

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The meaning of SARA can be understood as ethnicity, religion, race, and inter-group relations. This acronym has often been used in daily communication. You can easily find it on TV shows, print media news, books, schools, and conversations in hangouts. Actually, SARA is a neutral term. However, SARA is also often considered a sensitive issue that is often seen as the cause of a conflict.

Actually, ethnicity, religion, race, and inter-group relations are social realities that cannot be avoided in community life, both modern and traditional. Even so, SARA is still often viewed with sentiment about identity related to ancestry, religion, ethnicity, nationality, and group.

2. Misconceptions About Understanding SARA

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As previously explained, the meaning of SARA actually refers to something neutral. However, there has been a misunderstanding through the phrase "does not contain SARA". This phrase is usually found in rules or regulations, such as in competitions. Through this phrase, SARA feels like a very sensitive term.

Such rules can create an understanding that everything that contains ethnicity, religion, race, and inter-group relations is something negative and needs to be avoided. In fact, once again, various aspects mentioned are already inherent in community life.

Over time, SARA has become synonymous with conflict. The phrase "contains SARA" becomes a misconception if identified with division, disagreement, hostility, disputes, and so on. Rather than avoiding these things, everyone needs to cultivate an attitude of mutual respect in order to remain united amidst many differences.

This means that the use of the phrase "contains SARA" in everyday communication needs to be changed. Containing SARA neutrally and without sentimental views is allowed. What is not allowed is to "offend SARA" or "create conflict over SARA".

3. Actions that Offend SARA

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In addition to understanding the meaning of SARA, you also need to know actions that offend or create conflict over SARA. This is necessary so that you can avoid them when interacting in community life. Here are explanations of three categories of actions that offend SARA for you to consider.

Individual: Actions that attack, insult, discriminate against, or insult other groups. These actions are carried out by individuals or groups.

Institutional: Actions carried out by institutions or governments through discriminatory rules or policies against SARA.

Cultural: Actions of spreading traditions or ideas that are discriminatory between groups.

The above actions clearly need to be prevented because they can cause hatred and lead to conflict. There are examples of actions that offend SARA and lead to conflict in Indonesia. One of them is the May 1998 riots. This conflict led to racial violence against the Chinese ethnic group that occurred on May 13-15, 1998, especially in the capital city of Jakarta and also occurred in several other regions in Indonesia. Many targets of destruction were buildings owned by the Chinese ethnic group. In addition, there are also cases of sexual violence experienced by Chinese women.

Furthermore, there are also actions that offend SARA that occur through social media. News about the exposure of a hate speech syndicate named Saracen was quite shocking. This Saracen syndicate was uncovered in mid-2017. Led by Jasriadi, this network turned out to have been producing and spreading SARA hate content since November 2015. They produced content, such as memes, narratives, images, and even hoax news together through hundreds of thousands of accounts.

4. Preventing SARA Conflict

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Through an explanation of the meaning of SARA and the actions that can be offensive, it is reasonable for you to start thinking about ways to prevent possible conflicts. There are several efforts that you can do, including:

1. Understanding the Protection of Citizens' Rights

As a legal country, Indonesia also guarantees to provide protection for all rights owned by citizens. For example, you can see the 1945 State Constitution, Article 28E. Based on the law, Indonesia provides freedom for its people to embrace religion and worship according to their beliefs and convictions.

2. Respecting and Appreciating Diversity

Attitudes that you can apply include:

- Respecting and appreciating people who have different ethnicity, culture, origin, religion, or group from us.

- Socializing with anyone regardless of their ethnic background, culture, religion, and group.

- Willing to know and learn about the culture and customs of other regions.

3. Not Holding Negative Prejudices Against Others who are Different

As we know, Indonesia is a country with diverse population. Well, everyone should not have negative prejudices against people or groups who are different.

4. Practicing the Values of Unity and Harmony

Here are some examples of attitudes in practicing the values of unity and harmony that you can apply.

- Strengthening and developing the principle of Bhineka Tunggal Ika.

- Increasing the sense of family, togetherness, deliberation, mutual cooperation, and so on.

- Avoiding attitudes or views that can trigger conflicts, such as egoism, extremism, ethnocentrism, fanaticism, and so on.

Well, KLovers, that is an explanation of the meaning of SARA along with information about offensive actions that you need to avoid.

(kpl/gen/ans)