Buya Syafii Lauds UGM's Proposing NU-Muhammadiyah for Nobel Peace
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25 January 2019 15:40 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Yogyakarta - Ahmad Syafii Maarif or commonly known Buya Syafii, a former chairman of Muhammadiyah, opined that the world would be thrilled should the country’s two largest Islamic organizations, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, were awarded with Nobel Peace Prize.
“The world will be pleasantly surprised if that happens,” said Buya Syafii in an international seminar regarding Islam Indonesia in the global eyes at the Senate Hall of the University of Gadjah Mada (UGM), Friday, January 25. An awardee of 1996 Nobel Peace Prize, Jose Ramos Horta, was present at the seminar as a keynote speaker.
NU and Muhammadiyah have been recently proposed as nominees for Nobel Peace Prize. A professor of Anthropology at Boston University, Robert W. Hefner, submitted the proposal prepared by UGM's Center for Security and Peace Studies. The closing date of the application is January 30, 2019.
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Buya Syafii thanked UGM for taking the initiative to propose both organization as nominees. Islam in Indonesia with all of its flaws, he added, is better than Islam in Saudi Arabia and North Africa that is teeming with conflict.
“Islam Indonesia will be an antithesis of Islam in the Middle East,” Buya Syafii underlined.
Meanwhile, the UGM rector Panut Mulyono expressed his support for NU and Muhammadiyah to be nominees for Nobel Peace Prize as both played vital roles in the country in spreading a peaceful, democratic, and civilized religion. “NU and Muhammadiyah promote peaceful democratic Islam to the international stage,” Panut added.
SHINTA MAHARANI (YOGYAKARTA)
