Impartiality and Governance of Identity Conflict

The minority groups are vulnerably marginalized by the majority groups. When a violent conflict escalation breaks up, the victims are mostly from the minority one. It happened to Shiite group in Sampang, Madura Indonesia during 2004-2012. Sunni community dominates the reality of being genuine Islam by accusing the Shiite group as a deviant sect or infidel. Therefore, Sunni group acts repressively toward the Shiite group. As a democratic state, the Government of Indonesia is responsible to protect every identity including their belief and security. However, the government leaders such the regent tends to skip the responsibility to protect. Instead of realizing the responsibility, the government leaders stigmatize the Shiite group as a deviant sect too. In this condition, the Shiite group is more marginalized from social structure. The provincial government has made a relocation policy which is perceived by Shiite group as an expulsion from their own land. Basically the practice of marginalization got more visible after the violent conflict escalation. Currently the Sunni community's leaders in Sampang control the land of Shiite members. They state that the land will be returned if Shiite members do repentance upon their "sin" for defending a wrong belief. Based on the practice of marginalization, this study is challenged to reveal the reason of marginalization and what are the interests behind the practice of marginalization to Shiite group. Therefore, the study examines two research questions. First, how is the concept of marginalization constructed socially in Sampang. Second, how does the government implement governance of identity conflict whether partial or impartial? In order to examine those research questions, the study has undertaken a qualitative research which focuses on the everyday language of groups' members during May-August 2013.