Have Indonesians found their national identity?

Mencari Makna Kebangsaan (In Search of the Meaning of Nationality); Franz Magnis Suseno; Kanisius, Yogyakarta (1st edition, 1998); 193 pp.

As a nation, the Indonesian people are used to brandishing their strongly held nationalism to respond to all their challenges.

This sense of nationalism, brilliantly nurtured by Sukarno, and clearly visible in his aspiration, has become the aspiration of the entire Indonesian people.

The 1955 Asia-Africa Conference in Bandung, the origin of the Non-Aligned Movement, was an excellent example of a great desire to make Indonesia the pioneer of, and the model for, movements for independence in Asia and Africa.

During the New Order era, the government not infrequently put forth Indonesian Nationalism when it was compelled to respond to urgent needs, as demanded by the objective condition of the state vis--vis the society.

It must be admitted that nationalism is a safe hiding place for the state when it eschews its obligation to settle problems that the community places on it by means of shifting this responsibility into that of the nation, which, in other words, means the responsibility of the community.

B.F. Skinner says in his Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971) that "self-government often seems to solve problems by identifying the controller with the controlled."

Nationalism can also be used as an effective weapon to strike at and silence all objective demands that critically call to justice the state's behavior. Besides, it may also be used as a comfortable refuge for various subjective interests of the state and its cronies.

Projects established in the name of nationalism, such as the national automobile and aircraft projects, undeniably show that the idea of a "nation" has been used as a safe place for these subjective interests.

In this sense, the ideological awareness of a social group or class, which frequently shows conflict between social groups or classes and between the society and the state, will be subjugated to a narrow-minded form of nationalism and will then be distorted into xenophobia, an attitude oriented more toward the state rather than the nation.

Danger will always be lurking for a nation accustomed to solving all its problems with only enthusiasm at its disposal. First, this nation will simply base the solution to its problems on something which is not rooted in a social reality. Second, this nation will be blind and deaf to its own imperfection, something like its pent-up anger.

Indonesia is not a nation formed on the basis of ethnic unity like the Koreans or the Czechs. Indonesia resembles India, Afghanistan or Zaire. Indonesia is not, by nature, a unified nation. The Indonesian people have agreed to form the Indonesian nation because their common experiences, like suffering and oppression, have given birth to a determination to live together.

We learn in history how the Indonesian people agreed to set aside their differences and to fight together for the independence of the country, translating into reality their common desire to live together as one nation.

As a nation with diverse ethnic groups, religious persuasions and other specific traits, the Indonesian people also confront problems of great complexity. As a result, the ability of the Indonesian nation to cope with these problems will be very much determined by how well it can identify itself as a nation.

In this book, which is a collection of his articles published in various media publications, Franz Magnis Suseno elaborates on problems which this nation confronts, either secretly or openly.

These are problems which crop up as the Indonesian people are striving to find their own identity. In this identity-searching process, some honestly admit their own weaknesses, but others deliberately hide certain problems in the dark rooms of the history of power.

Some of the problems that call for immediate handling, to ensure that the national unity is maintained, are the economic gaps between villages and cities, in Java and outside Java and between the rich and the poor, invariably lurking racial and religious conflicts, past political trauma, justice and legal issues, practices of corruption, collusion and nepotism and human rights issues.

All these problems may be identified in three groups of weaknesses and may throw our nation into the abyss of destruction unless they are immediately addressed.

First, practices of corruption, in both material and mental terms, are rife and have permeated into all aspects of social life, from the highest all the way down to the lowest levels. Second, social justice is still far from being achieved. Third, there are still many taboos (p. 108).

The fear of national disintegration, as often voiced recently, clearly shows that economic, political and legal problems are closely linked with national ethics. Therefore, it is obvious that these problems cannot be solved simply through sermons on the love and pride for one's nation or the need to sacrifice oneself or one's belongings for the sake of the nation, such as asking the people to fast every Monday and Thursday to prevent national disintegration.

Unless the context is appropriate, few will comply with calls of this type. Put in a simple way: "conglomeration-corruption- collusion-nepotism must be eliminated while honesty in every discussion on national values must be restored." (p. 133).

In other words, national ethics must first be demonstrated by those holding power. It won't be any good if it is demanded only of the people that they should adopt national ethics in their daily lives.

These articles by Franz Magnis Suseno, written between 1990 and 1997, do not lose their relevance because their publication in book form has come at an opportune time, when the Indonesian people are undergoing a difficult test to prove that they strongly believe in their nationalism.

The articles are quite easy to digest thanks to the lucid language used by the author. One handicap, though: readers not well-versed in English might find it difficult to understand some articles which are written in English.

-- Denny B.C. Hariandja

The writer is an alumnus of the School of Social and Political Sciences, Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta