As Indonesia celebrates the 49th anniversary of its
\nindependence on Aug. 17, many wonder what holds the 180 million
\ninhabitants of this archipelago together, while other nations of
\nsimilar diversity have split up. Historians and other observers
\ninterviewed by The Jakarta Post believe that the nation is tied
\ntogether by hopes, legacies, myths and threats.<\/p>\n
Unity will likely prevail ...<\/p>\n
By Ati Nurbaiti<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): The busy area around Senen to Salemba in Central
\nJakarta houses a number of forlorn buildings with billboards
\nreminiscent of a young generation (pemuda) with fiery ideals who
\nwere caught up in the political frenzy until the late 1960s.<\/p>\n
The faded signs bear the names of the original youth groups
\nlike Gerakan Pemuda Ansor, Gerakan Pemuda Marhaen Indonesia,
\nwhile one, adorning a run down building on Jl. Kramat Raya, reads
\nGedung Sumpah Pemuda 1928.<\/p>\n
This building, now a museum, reminds passersby of one of their
\nmost important history lessons. It reminds them of a gathering
\nthat formed the core of the nation.<\/p>\n
The dark faces of the 50 or so men peer out of an old picture
\nin front of the building. Clad in suits and Javanese kain, they
\nrepresented several ethnic youth groups such as Jong Java, Jong
\nAmbon and Jong Sumatra and were picking up on a failed first
\nattempt to talk in 1926.<\/p>\n
\"They had questioned whether anything could bring them
\ntogether, and the first (youth) congress failed,\" explained
\nhistorian Taufik Abdullah about the meeting of Oct. 28, 1928.<\/p>\n
The need to work together stemmed from what the youths felt
\nwas a widespread feeling of backwardness and inferiority,
\ninherited from an almost 3-century-old Dutch colonial structure
\nin which they were born and bred third class citizens or
\nInlanders.<\/p>\n
\"This feeling brought together strangers from all the colonial
\ntowns,\" said Abdullah. These urbanites were strongly bound to
\ntheir home villages and therefore brought the identity of
\nInlanders back when they returned. The Europeans came first and
\nthen \"Eastern Foreigners\" second while Indonesians were last.<\/p>\n
It is this mixed identity, Abdullah points out, which was
\nbehind the failure of the first meeting. Nobody really felt like
\nclashing with their elders, despite the urgent need to unite
\nagainst backwardness in their respective ethnic groups.<\/p>\n
\"Modern ideas, mainly democracy, were the main reference for
\nprogress,\" Abdullah said. Progress was the key word of each
\nethnic group, since the often cited 1908 Javanese organization of
\nBoedi Oetomo.<\/p>\n
Yet as concepts like equality contradicted traditions like the
\nhierarchical language of the Javanese, the second meeting
\nacknowledged this \"cultural deadlock\".<\/p>\n
Abdullah said the men then made up \"a new, modern sphere of
\ndemocracy, while maintaining a dialog with their old
\ncommunities,\" and embodied it in the Sumpah Pemuda declaration
\n(Youth Pledge).<\/p>\n
This declaration, which every child now recites from
\nkindergarten onwards, was the vision of one motherland, one
\nnation, one language -- each called Indonesia.<\/p>\n
The name Indonesia, coined by British ethnologist G.R. Logan
\nin 1850, was first adopted in 1922 by Inlander students in
\nHolland who were grouped into Perhimpunan Indonesia and chaired
\nby Muhammad Hatta. Hatta later became the new country's first
\nvice president.<\/p>\n
At that time no one had a solid idea about the boundaries of
\nthis tanah air (literally land and water, archipelago) and simply
\nenvisioned the Dutch reign covering most of the archipelago from
\nSumatra to the eastern islands.<\/p>\n
But \"one language\", as political scientist Mochtar Pabottingi
\nstates, was \"providence\".<\/p>\n
Those who gave birth to Sumpah Pemuda decided at last that
\nbahasa Indonesia be based on the vernacular known as bahasa
\nMelayu, used for centuries across the archipelago.<\/p>\n
Observers stress this agreement on one language, lacking in
\nlarge diverse countries such as India, is one of the strongest
\nsources of Indonesia's unity.<\/p>\n
\"No one was jealous,\" said another political scientist, Burhan
\nMagenda, of the fact that the national language was not that of
\nthe majority Javanese.<\/p>\n
Besides language, Islam markedly influenced cultural
\nnetworking as it had infiltrated through several points of the
\narchipelago from the 15th century.<\/p>\n
\"We must be grateful that the Islam that entered here had a
\nsympathetic face,\" says Pabottingi. It was accustomed to
\ndifferent peoples with different faiths, he added.<\/p>\n
Abdullah also points to this shared Islamization as a genuine
\nsource of unity up to the present. Those from South Sulawesi, for
\ninstance, remember their Islamization came from Minangkabau in
\nWest Sumatra who, in turn, recall theirs was strengthened from
\nAceh in North Sumatra.<\/p>\n
That the majority in the archipelago are Javanese is also a
\nboon says Pabottingi, as this ethnic group, \"is also accustomed
\nto being exposed to different cultures.\"<\/p>\n
Abdullah added that extraordinary high mobility, where \"not a
\nsingle small town remained homogeneous\" long before the birth of
\nIndonesia weakened any ethnic orientation in the new country.<\/p>\n
Trade links, then formal education and modern bureaucracies
\nunder the Dutch colonial government further brought together
\npeople of different ethnic groups, most evident in the many
\ninter-ethnic marriages.<\/p>\n
Pabottingi says any ethno-nationalistic aspiration that might
\nhave existed \"did not resound in their respective communities,\"
\nand adds it was in the interest of the Dutch to exploit ethnic
\ndifferences.<\/p>\n
Decades of struggle under Dutch and Japanese colonial rule
\nculminated in the 1945 proclamation of independence.<\/p>\n
\"We were so proud,\" says Surastri Karma Trimurti, 82, then a
\nreporter and a witness of the event on Jl. Proklamasi, originally
\nJl. Pegangsaan Timur, Central Jakarta.<\/p>\n
A tug of war with the Dutch and resistance to integration in
\nsome aristocratic areas continued for years after independence
\nwas declared, while national symbols to unify he nation were
\nsought.<\/p>\n
Local leaders, for example, who fought against the Dutch were
\nrecognized as Indonesian heroes. Attempts to write a national
\nhistory included accounts of the grandioseness of earlier
\nkingdoms said to form the basis of Indonesia.<\/p>\n
Observers regret that some have used this part of history to
\nidealize strong forms of government. The \"myth\" of the great
\nkingdoms of Mataram, Majapahit and Sriwijaya, Magenda says, \"is
\nnevertheless a uniting symbol,\" drilled through history and civic
\nlessons across 27 provinces.<\/p>\n
The late intellectual Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana once remarked,
\n\"present Indonesia and the period before Indonesia don't smell
\nalike at all.\"<\/p>\n
Another historian, Ong Hok Ham, stresses that these kingdoms
\nnever resolved conflicts within themselves but, \"were always
\ndivided.\"<\/p>\n
Pabottingi states that these kingdoms \"only make us proud of
\ntheir ability in creating large polities.\" Thanks to these
\nmonarchies, \"from an early time we were not an obscure people in
\ninternational relations.\"<\/p>\n
However, historians had noted these achievements \"regardless
\nof how the kingdoms treated their subjects,\" in a period where
\nthe notion of equality was almost non-existent.<\/p>\n
Therefore there is no use in continuing such myths as they are
\n\"irrelevant with our political agenda,\" stressed Pabottingi
\nreferring to the aspirations of democracy flourishing here since
\nthe early 20th century.<\/p>\n
Abdullah likens the focusing on myths and discussions of
\n\"national identity\" to the task of former court writers, who had
\nto psychologically sustain the power of the rulers when the Dutch
\nstalked their territories.<\/p>\n
He regrets current discourses which do not strive towards
\ndemocracy but aim at progress.<\/p>\n
\"The danger of these discussions (to seek a traditional form
\nof governing) is that local traditions were necessarily
\ntotalitarian,\" said Abdullah.<\/p>\n
While Pabottingi points out that the state ideology,
\nPancasila, is the strongest of uniting symbols, he also regrets
\nefforts to irrationalize it.<\/p>\n
The ideology reflects \"the transcendation of ideas that
\nevolved in the movements\" towards the birth of the country, but
\n\"there is nothing magic about Pancasila,\" he said, referring to
\nphrases like Pancasila sakti (magical power).<\/p>\n
The only power in its legacy, he argued, \"lies in its highly
\ndemocratic process\" as it was discussed by 60 representatives
\nwith different ethnic, religious and political leanings.<\/p>\n
Compared to other political designs, such as the \"Guided
\nDemocracy\" of the late 1950s, \"there was absolutely no
\nimposition,\" he added.<\/p>\n
Pabottingi speculates that among the Japanese were those who
\nreally thought it better to deliver a free Indonesia rather than
\na colonized one to the victorious Allied Forces. \"They guarded
\nthe place heavily with bayonets but did not interfere\" in the
\nmeeting of June 22, 1945 on Jl. Pejambon no. 2, Central Jakarta
\nhe said.<\/p>\n
The result, the Piagam Jakarta (Jakarta Declaration),
\ncontained the preamble to the constitution and the ideology later
\ncalled Pancasila.<\/p>\n
Pabottingi pointed out that those who drafted the Declaration
\nhad \"matured in society,\" unlike the karbitan (firecracker) or
\n\"instant\" representatives today's Indonesians complain about.<\/p>\n
These brilliant persons, rooted in their societies, such as
\nK.H. Dewantara and H. Agus Salim, \"are also our heritage,\"
\nPabottingi says, adding others who contributed much thought and
\nsacrifice to early Indonesia.<\/p>",
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