Nationalism on the rise?
Nationalism on the rise?
Although there is no reason to be surprised at the mounting
international pressure which Jakarta's ineffectual handling of
the East Timor crisis has brought on this country, many
Indonesians nevertheless seem to be unprepared to cope with the
emergence of one particular by-product of this development.
Still numbed and worried by a never-ending economic crisis and
petty political party squabbles, Indonesians seem to have long
ignored their old nationalist penchant to denounce slurs and
indictments aimed at their country from the outside and blame
outsiders for anything that goes wrong.
The East Timor crisis, and particularly the open threats of
sanctions and intervention, which not only the United Nations,
but countries such as the United States and Australia have hurled
at the government, have corrected this neglect, at least to a
certain extent. A member of the House of Representatives, Yasril
Ananta Baharuddin, for example, was reported as saying on Tuesday
that in the case of East Timor, Indonesians should be wary of a
possible international political scenario designed to destroy
Indonesia's good standing in the eyes of the world -- one
indication of the existence of such a plot being that the
violence in East Timor was so difficult to suppress.
Pointing a finger at Australia and New Zealand in particular,
Yasril said those countries could have an interest in keeping the
discord seething in East Timor for the purpose of firmly planting
their influence in the area. Yasril, evidently, is not alone in
his opposition to such sinister foreign plots. The many -- if
small -- protests that were held during past days, not only by
pro-Indonesian activists in East Timor but in Jakarta and
elsewhere outside the territory, attest to the fact that there
are quite a number of Indonesians who are antagonized by what
they see as foreign interference in Indonesia's internal affairs
in the case of East Timor.
The problem, of course, is that Indonesians -- nationalists or
otherwise -- at present must live in a world that is totally
different from that of their parents and grandparents. In today's
world, national borders are as good as gone, except to serve as
functional delineations outlining the world's political-
administrative regions.
International trade, communications, ideas and even
interchanges between individuals occur almost freely,
unrestrained by international boundaries. The economic crisis
that spread across Asia during the past couple of years is clear
evidence of such as truth. In such a world, the old mold of
narrow nationalism -- and even more so, xenophobia, or the
aversion to anything that is foreign -- is clearly out of place.
Yet, there is no denying that nationalism in its more broad-
minded characterization has it uses, even in this age of
globalization. Sukarno, this country's late founding president,
used to refer to this kind of nationalism as "internationalism".
It is the kind of nationalism that inspired his formulation of
the Indonesian state ideology, Pancasila, in which the
nationalist spirit is tempered by ideas of universal humanism.
What this column aspires to say by all this is that while
nationalism has its place, care must be taken that it does not
turn into a selfish, acquisitive ideology that disregards the
recognized universal humanitarian values. No less important,
Indonesians must realize that in this era of globalization, self-
isolation and disregard of the accepted universal norms of
international conduct can lead to political and economic
devastation for the nation. This, surely, is not what any well-
thinking nationalist anywhere aspires to achieve.