A Deconstruction of Religion Meaning for the Religious Right in the Indigenous Community of Mentawai Indonesia

Abstract This research describes the deconstruction of the meaning of religion to guarantee the right to freedom of religion. This study takes the Arat Sabulungan belief of Indonesia’s Mentawai tribe as its example. Until recently, this local belief was construed by the Indonesian state as a form of culture rather than religious belief. In fact, indigenous communities with local belief systems have their own distinct religious systems that are understood as religion. However, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) article 18 does insist that the state should guarantee the right to embrace and choose a religion and belief without restriction, although its implementation has been limited. Using qualitative methods with data collected through observation, interviews, and documentation, this study posits that the indigenous Mentawai tribe construct religious meaning in ways that are neither singular nor standardized. The findings also indicate that Arat Sabulungan constitutes a local religious or belief system that encompasses their social, cultural, and ecological life systems. The state and modern religion’s construction of the meaning of religion, that Arat Sabulungan is a culture rather than a religion, as well as the labelling of primitiveness that needs to be religionized and modernized, are both undermined by this definition of religion which is a critique and counter-discourse. Meanwhile, this study embodies the spirit of indigenous people’s fight against the state’s treatment and recognition of their human rights in practicing their local religion and beliefs, and it has an impact on state governance regarding other local religions in the archipelago.