Intellectuals confused over second awakening

JAKARTA (JP): As Indonesia prepares to celebrate national awakening day next week, philosophers and historians have questioned whether Indonesia can ever be swept by such passion again, as the government hopes it can be in the cause of development.

Historian Taufik Abdullah yesterday questioned whether such a second awakening could really occur, given the conditions in society.

"Whether a true "awakening" will take place or not is still unclear," he said.

Taufik maintained that many of the crucial elements which provoked the 1908 awakening no longer exist today.

Indonesians commemorate May 20 as national awakening day. On that day in 1908 a group of educated Javanese nationalists formed an organization called "Budi Utomo".

Taufik was speaking at a seminar titled The Nation and the State in the Era of Globalization at the National Resilience Institute to commemorate upcoming National Awakening Day.

Taufik said that Budi Utomo introduced the concept which led to the birth of the nation.

He explained that any "second awakening" would be pushed ahead and powered by the government, not the people.

Unlike the first awakening, which mobilized all Indonesians, the putative second awakening would simply require the people's compliance with commands from above, Taufic explained.

"If this happens we'll see an anachronistic situation in which we value things of no relevance to today," he said.

Meanwhile, economist Faisal H. Basri questioned the meaning of economic nationalism in a global era.

Faisal maintained that in there was no need to be overly nationalistic and added that a leading economic actor cannot depend on domestic capabilities alone.

He pointed out that the government in the past few years had taken bold initiatives in the economic sector under the guise of "nationalism".

Among these are the N-250 airplane which required the appropriation of funds originally allocated to reforestation projects.

Then there is the Timor "national car". Here, a license was given to a well-connected private company with no experience in the automotive industry.

"Even if this has to be paid for dearly -- that's the cost of nationalism," Faisal commented.

People seem to be required to make a sacrifice by choosing domestic products, even though they are more expensive and of lower quality than foreign ones, he said.