Abstract
The article aims threefold as follows. First, to challenge and problematize the general assumption that before the Christian-Muslim communal violence in Maluku from 1999 to 2005 (and continued in the following years), the social condition in the region was peaceful and harmonious. Second, to identify the location of pre-interreligious violence by tracing the colonial era, from the Portuguese to the Japanese, and its post-colonial impact on interreligious suspicion, friction, and conciliation in Maluku. Third, to show the challenges of Christian-Muslim peacebuilding initiatives at the grassroots level. The data used for the analysis in the article were drawn from historical literature and contemporary ethnographic research which included formal interviews, and informal conversations with Maluku’s Christians and Muslims. Sociohistorical frameworks and collective memory approaches were applied to examine the longue durée of fragile Christian-Muslim engagement and the roles of these dynamics in shaping contemporary events of interreligious violence and peacebuilding.
