Blaming it on anger and a lack of knowledge about Bahasa Indonesia, French national Frank Jean Pierre Schulthess issued a video apology to the Muslim people for his angry rant about the sholawat prayers being read over the loudspeakers of an Islamic house of worship near his home in the Jakarta satellite city of Bogor, West Java.
Video of Frank’s angry rant, which took place on Saturday afternoon at a musholla (house of prayer) in Tegalwaru Village, quickly went viral on social media and soon made the national news.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntEVW3cdd1w
The video begins with Frank asking the musholla’s caretakers, “Kenapa karaoke?” (Why karaoke?).
The woman in the video tries to explain that it’s not karaoke, it’s sholawat (prayers) coming from their loudspeakers.
Frank says while he is angry at night (because of the loudspeakers) he will block the mosque. The other man in the video, the mosque’s Ustadz Adi Syafei, tells Frank that he cannot harm the community’s mosque and that he’ll report him to the local RT (neighborhood chief). They argue for a little while longer before Frank finally leaves.
Police in Bogor said they responded to reports about Frank’s actions by calling on neighborhood groups such as the village’s branch of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) not to be “reactive” but instead work out the conflict through a meeting with the 62-year-old French man as well as Ustadz Adi, with police acting as mediators.
The meeting took place on Sunday, during which time police also checked Frank’s citizenship status (he is married to an Indonesian women who has reportedly donated to the musholla in the past).
According to this post from the official Bogor Police Instagram account, Frank realized he had made a mistake due to his anger and his lack of knowledge about Islam and promised to not do it again.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BjjduRRgdPr/?hl=id&taken-by=polresbogor
“I personally apologize to the community of Tegalwaru, Ciampea, and Muslims in Indonesia in general, for my words and actions that offend Muslims because I do not understand the Indonesian language,” Frank says in the video (in Indonesian).
Bogor Police Chief Dicky Pastika Gading said that Ustadz Adi Syafei had already forgiven Frank and asked that Adi let the rest of the community know that Frank had apologized and promised not to repeat his actions.
There have been no suggestions by police that they will be charging Frank with blasphemy or any other crimes following the mediation.
If he manages to escape any further repercussion, Frank can consider himself lucky. An American expat living in Lombok allegedly pulled the plug on a mosque’s loudspeaker. His house was destroyed by an angry mob and he was sentenced to 5 months in jail for blasphemy.
In many other Muslim countries, including those in the Middle East, mosque loudspeakers are used only for call to prayer, whereas in Indonesia they’re often used to broadcast prayers, Quran recitals, and even public announcements. However, muffling mosque loudspeakers is understandably a sensitive subject in Indonesia, with previous attempts to do so, including one directive by Vice President Jusuf Kalla, falling on deaf ears.
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