activities focus on deepening understanding of the Bible, and also on learning technical organizational skills. The young people have already learned how to chair a meeting, debate in a forum, and other skills […] Every Thursday we have youth worship.”
In general, our qualitative data support the findings of the quantitative data. More specifically, it becomes clear that religious identification is stronger than ethnic identification both in Ambon and Yogyakarta. The interview data reveal that religious identification is now relatively important, especially with regard to participation in religious practices. Most respondents also affirm that their participation in traditional ceremonies and religious rituals is mainly for religious reasons. Compared to Christians, Muslim respondents have more friends from the same religion, and are also more engaged in religious political organizations. Meanwhile, Christians have more friends of different religions, even though their interaction with out-group friends is limited. A few are involved in religious organizations that are less politically active than some of the Muslim equivalents.
4.2.3. Analysis of ethno-religious identification
Several variables for ethno-religious identification show a significant relationship to support for intergroup violence. In this ANOVA test, the results indicate that religious identification has a stronger link to support for harm to persons and property, as well as to support for public criticism and demonstration, than ethnic identification. The relationship is also different for Muslims and Christians. For Muslims, the significant relation appears in several variables such as membership of ethnic organizations, participation in collective rituals and friends by religion. Meanwhile, the significant relation for Christians is present only in the use of ethnic language. The overall result of the test is presented in appendix 2, Table 1 - Table 14.
The relationship between ethnic language use and support for harm is significant. Only Christians express a low level of support (M = 1.75; N = 602; p = .01; r = -.14). The relation is also linear in a negative direction. It suggests that Christians who speak their ethnic language in more than one situation are less inclined to support harm to persons and properties. On the other hand, the results do not find any significant relationship between ethnic language use and support for public criticism and demonstrations (see appendix 2, Table 2)
30 Tunas is the name of pre-school and kindergarten in Maranatha Church in Ambon. Sekolah
Minggu is the religious teaching session for the Christian children, that is hold every Sunday.
The children are usually gathered in a specific place while their parents participate in the weekly religious service in the Church.
In terms of participation in ethnic ceremonies, Muslims who are more active show more support for demonstrations (M= 3.25, N=734). The relation is significant and linear (r=.07, p=.05) as presented in appendix 2, Table 4.
Muslims who are members of ethnic organizations tend to disagree with support for harm (M=1.70, N=811). The relation is significant with an eta of .08. There is no difference in support for harm between Christians who are and who are not members.
This trend is slightly different from that for participation in activities of ethnic organizations. Both Muslims (M=3.31, N= 152) and Christians (M=3.17, N=89) who participate only on special days show relatively more support for demonstrations. The relation is significant both for Muslims and Christians, but the relation deviates from linearity for Christians (eta=.30, p=.05). For Muslims, r is .24. This indicates that higher participation in ethnic organization activities is related to more support for demonstrations.
4
Table 4.7 Analysis of variance between ethno-religious identification and support
for intergroup violence Ethno-religious
identification
Harm Demonstrations
Muslims Christians Muslims Christians
M N R/E M N R/E M N R/E M N R/E
Ethnic self- definition Ethnic languages 1.75 602 -.14* Ethnic in-group friends Participation in ethnic ceremonies 3.25 734 .07* Membership of ethnic organizations 1.70 811 .08** Participation in ethnic organization activities 3.31 152 .24* 3.17 89 .30* Religious self- definition 3.26 844 .14* 3.03 602 .14* Participation in collective rituals 1.70 813 -.07* 3.26 818 .11* Participation in religious practices Participation in rites of passage 3.26 816 .11** Friends by religion (in- group) 1.70 830 .17** 3.26 835 .07* Friends by religion (out- group) 1.70 753 .10* 3.24 756 -.10** Membership of religious organizations 3.27 822 0.7* Participation in religious organizations 3.31 345 .15*
** Significance at .01 level * Significance at .05 level
Correlation: Pearson’s r for ordinal variables (R), eta for nominal variables (E)
For various indicators of religious identification, Muslims also show more significant relations. For Christians significant relations are only apparent for self-definition of religion and support for demonstrations. Participation in collective rituals has a significant relationship to support for harm (r = -.07, p = .05). The result shows a negative relationship – that is, those who participate more often in collective rituals are less likely to support harm to persons and property. On the other hand, the
relationship between participation in collective rituals and support for public criticism and demonstrations was also found to be significant, linear and in a positive direction (r=.10, p= .00). It indicates that the higher the participation in collective rituals, the greater the support for public criticism and demonstrations. As for participation in religious practices, the results of the analysis do not find any significant relationship to either support for harm or support for demonstrations. This is true for both Christians and Muslims. Furthermore, the relationship between their participation in rites of passage and support for harm is not significant, but the relationship to support for demonstrations is significant only among Muslims. The relationship is linear (r=.11, p= .00), that is, the more frequent their participation in rites of passage, the more likely they are to support public criticism and demonstrations. The details of the variance analysis results are presented in appendix 2, Table 7 - Table 10.
A significant relationship is also found between in-group friends and support for harm among Muslims. The relationship is deviant from linearity with eta = .17, p= .00. On the other hand, the relationship between in-group friends and support for public criticism and demonstrations is significant, but linear (r =. 10, p=.04). So, the more same-religion friends that Muslims have, the more they support violence. For Christians, there is no significant relationship (see appendix 2, Table 11).
The trend for religious in-group friends is the same as for religious out-group friends. The relationship to support for harm is significant and deviant from linearity (eta=.10, p=.04). Muslims who have none or some Christian friends show more support for harm to persons than those who have relatively more Christian friends. However, Muslims whose friends are mostly Christian also show more support for harm to persons and property. The relationship to support for demonstrations is significant and linear (r= -.10, p=.00). Furthermore, Muslims who have more Christian friends show less support for demonstrations. Among Christians, the results are non- significant, as presented in appendix 2, Table 12.
Membership of religious organizations has no significant relationship to support for harm. Only among Muslims does such membership have a significant relationship to support for demonstrations (eta = 07, p=.05); Muslims who are members of religious organizations are more likely to support demonstrations. Among Muslims, the relationship between participation in religious organization activities and support for demonstrations is also significant (eta=.15, p=.05). If Muslims participate more than once a week in such activities, they support demonstrations significantly more (see appendix 2, Table 13 and Table 14).
4.3. Social position and support for violence
Social position constitutes demographic and social variables that might influence individual attitudes to support for violence. They consist of gender, parents’ religion, parents’ education, parents’ occupational status, parents’ job, and monthly