Pancasila helps sustain unity in Indonesia<\/p>\n
Anthony Paul, The Straits Times, Asia News Network, Singapore<\/p>\n
Three cheers for the Indonesian nation-state?<\/p>\n
No, not yet. But six years after Indonesians wrenched
\nthemselves into a new era, it's an appropriate moment for one
\nmuted, cautious hurrah.<\/p>\n
The main reason: Despite Timor Leste's independence, there is
\nstill, practically speaking, only one Indonesia. That's a
\nsubstantial result, considering the tumult there since 1998-1999.<\/p>\n
In a column in Mainichi Daily News in 1999, then Malaysian
\nprime minister Mahathir Mohamad implied darkly that Australians
\nwere helping East Timor because Australia would be "the main
\nbeneficiary of a broken-up Indonesia". (He failed to explain
\nhow.) Some voices were even predicting that three to five new
\nnations might emerge from the wreckage of president Soeharto's
\nregime.<\/p>\n
That hasn't happened. And now economic recovery, though moving
\nslowly, seems within grasp. Last week, for example, Fitch
\nRatings, the London-based international rating agency, noted the
\nMegawati Soekarnoputri administration's economic achievements.
\nThe government, Fitch observed, had reduced public debt to 72
\npercent of GDP last year from a peak of 100 percent in 2000.<\/p>\n
International interest rate increases, as well as the rupiah's
\nrelative weakening and the imported inflation that would result,
\nare going to make that performance difficult -- though not
\nimpossible -- to sustain. But if much-needed reforms succeed,
\nsays the McKinsey Quarterly's latest issue, "the real economy,
\nthe financial system and individual banks will be well-positioned
\nto drive sustained growth".<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, let me suggest that Indonesia also benefits from a
\npolitical fundamental that gets insufficient attention -- the
\nnational ideology, Pancasila.<\/p>\n
In 1945, facing the need to pull together a nation of more
\nthan 17,000 islands, at least six major religions, more than 200
\nethnic groups and countless languages and dialects, the nation's
\nprincipal founding father, Sukarno, promulgated Pancasila as a
\nrecipe for Indonesian patriotism. He attached to it a Sanskrit
\nword meaning "five virtues".<\/p>\n
Under Pancasila, the newly independent nation's institutions
\nwould conform to belief in one god, just and civilized humanity,
\nIndonesia's unity, democracy and social justice for all
\nIndonesians.<\/p>\n
Indonesians have often failed to comply. Nevertheless,
\nPancasila precepts taught from kindergarten have given their
\nnation remarkable resilience.<\/p>\n
Western intellectuals have often scorned what one of them,
\nHubert Luethy, called "this incomparable orgy of synthetic
\nemotions". In Encounter magazine in 1965, Luethy described
\nSukarno's Indonesia as an "extreme case" of newly emerging
\nnations' "unique preoccupation" with "education in the service of
\npatriotism".<\/p>\n
Wrote Luethy: "Insofar as a collective psychosis controlled by
\na charismatic leader is accessible to reason, the case of
\nIndonesia deserves analysis."<\/p>\n
Perhaps so. But his comments are also irrelevant. If this
\npompous writer were still around, he'd be obliged to note that
\nsuch nation-building has prevailed over a wide range of enemies.<\/p>\n
Many conservative Muslims objected to Pancasila on the grounds
\nthat it threatened to place man-made precepts at a higher level
\nthan the Quran. Jamaah Islamiyah (JI), the clandestine Islamist
\nterror group, is just the latest anti-Pancasila manifestation.<\/p>\n
JI's progenitor was the Darul Islam (Abode of God) movement
\nwhich in 1948 challenged the new republic. The Islamist-versus-
\nsecularist civil war that followed claimed some 27,000 lives.<\/p>\n
In the 1950s and early 1960s it was America's turn. Suspicious
\nof president Sukarno's flirtations with communism, United States
\npolicy factions tried to break up the nation. The Central
\nIntelligence Agency helped secessionist rebellions in Sulawesi,
\nWest Java and Sumatra, but to no avail.<\/p>\n
In the early 1960s, China, through the Indonesian Communist
\nParty, had a go at taking charge. Failure again -- amid massive
\nblood-letting. And by some accounts, Soeharto's exit followed his
\nfailed efforts to change the system by implying that Pancasila
\ninsisted on personal loyalty to him.<\/p>\n
But what if there is no "morning in Indonesia" after next
\nmonth's presidential election?<\/p>\n
Indonesia has strengths other than Pancasila. Though the
\ncountry recently became a net crude oil importer, it remains the
\nworld's biggest natural gas exporter. So Indonesia will benefit
\nfrom a likely surge in energy prices.<\/p>\n
Investors are taking note. Earlier this year, a US$1 billion
\n(S$1.7 billion) sovereign-bond offering was very well-received.
\nMcKinsey and Company analysts also point to the government's sale
\nof 10 percent of Bank Mandiri, the country's largest bank in
\nterms of assets, for $333 million -- "more than it made a year
\nearlier from the sale of a stake twice as big".<\/p>\n
The analysts offer an agenda for the country's next leader:
\nTransform sectors such as agriculture, energy and manufacturing
\ninto "competitive and efficient drivers of growth, much as (the
\npresent administration) has begun to do in the financial sector".<\/p>\n
The message to him or her is clear: Succeed -- and listen to
\nall three very loud cheers from throughout the region. Fail --
\nand 238 million Indonesians (the equivalent of about 10
\nSingapores have been added to the population since Soeharto left
\noffice) will drift once more into ever more dangerous waters.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/pancasila-helps-sustain-unity-in-indonesia-1447893297",
"image": ""
},
"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
}