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