Have Indonesians found their national identity?

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