Indonesia must promote indigenous culture, experts say

Indonesia must promote indigenous culture, experts say

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Indonesia should promote its indigenous cultures to help
strengthen stability and security, experts said on Thursday.

The director of Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University's
Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS), Badrus Sholeh, said
Indonesia could follow the New Zealand government policy of
incorporating Maori culture into its national identity.

"We need to promote local cultures in order to strengthen
their identities, which is what the New Zealand government did
with the Maori. This kind of policy can be used to overcome
separatist movements in the country," he told The Jakarta Post on
the sidelines of an international seminar in Jakarta on
strengthening security in the Asia Pacific.

The one-day seminar, organized in conjunction with the opening
of the CSEAS, featured a number of speakers including Prof.
Azyumardi Azra, the rector of Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic
University, David Strachan, the charge d'affaires of the New
Zealand Embassy in Jakarta, and James Veitch, a lecturer in the
School of Government at Victoria University of Wellington.

Azyumardi said Indonesia and New Zealand had significant roles
to play in strengthening stability and security cooperation in
Asia and the Pacific.

"They have originally internal sources of culture, identity
and state policy which may influence the ongoing peace building
and efforts to prevent regional conflicts," he said.

New Zealand has facilitated interreligious forums in the
region, while Indonesia has initiated strategies to fight the
rise of Islamic radicalism and terrorism in Indonesia and the
region, said Azyumardi, who is also on the advisory board of the
CSEAS.