East Timor's integration

East Timor's integration

How much time is needed for the process of integration to be
completed? Twenty years is considered long enough if statistics
are the yardstick. And in East Timor, if this is the criterium
used, great strides forward have indeed been made in this
youngest of Indonesian provinces.

Integration, however, cannot be measured by figures only.
Thus, while the process of political integration may be
considered accomplished with the territory joining the Republic
of Indonesia as its 27th province on July 17, 1976, the process
of social and cultural integration has not been so smooth.
Various recent incidents in this province are proof of this fact.

Most of the incidents clearly only served the interests of
anti-integration groups in East Timor as well as abroad, but
others occurred due to collisions of a sociocultural nature. This
is a very sensitive area for various reasons. The most important
factor is that the historical and cultural background of East
Timor is very different from that of our other provinces. As a
consequence misunderstandings easily occur.

These considerations have spurred us to suggest a novel
approach to the process of East Timor's integration. If, for the
past two decades, we have focused our attention on political
integration, in the coming period we need to put the focus more
on the sociocultural aspects of East Timor's integration in the
context of Indonesia's cultural diversity. This second stage of
integration will be much more difficult to accomplish.

-- Republika, Jakarta