Pancasila symbolizes religious harmony, American scholar says
Pancasila symbolizes religious harmony, American scholar says
By Prapti Widinugraheni
JAKARTA (JP): Pancasila, the Indonesian five-point state
ideology, is a unique concept which stems from a culture of high
religious tolerance, an American scholar says.
Douglas E. Ramage, a researcher from the Hawaii-based East-
West Center's Program on International Economics and Politics,
said he discovered from extensive studies and interviews with a
wide range of Indonesian intellectuals that the core principle of
Pancasila is religious tolerance.
"This is implicit in the first principle, Ketuhanan yang Maha
Esa (Belief in One God), that Indonesians should respect one
another regardless of their religion, and more importantly that
all citizens should be treated equally by the government
regardless of their religious or ethnic background. That is the
way Pancasila is most commonly interpreted by most Indonesians,"
he said in an interview with The Jakarta Post.
During his two-year research in Indonesia from 1991 to 1993
for his dissertation on Pancasila, Ramage, a fluent speaker of
Bahasa Indonesia, made an attempt to understand what Pancasila
meant to Indonesians.
"I was initially interested in Pancasila because, as any
visitor that comes to Indonesia can see, Pancasila is
everywhere...I was always curious why," he said, explaining how
he got involved in the subject.
Ramage received a bachelor's degree in Government and Politics
in 1985 from the University of Maryland and later a master's and
a doctoral degree in international studies from the University of
South Carolina in 1987 and 1993, respectively.
He is currently serving as a project fellow in the Program on
International Economics and Politics at the East-West Center. He
is also researching political changes in Indonesia and Southeast
Asia and is responsible for the conceptualization and
administration of an East-West Center project on Indonesia's
political economy. In January he will also become visiting
assistant professor at the Asia Studies of the University of
Hawaii at Manoa.
In the Indonesian academic circle, Ramage is dubbed the
student of Pancasila for his in-depth study of the state
ideology.
Ramage acknowledged the important role of religious tolerance
in Pancasila but thought it did not necessarily guarantee
Indonesia freedom from religious conflict.
However, Indonesia, in comparison to many other countries in
the world, has a generally good historical record in avoiding
religious conflicts.
"Indonesia is doing very well, but whether this has anything
to do with Pancasila, I'm not certain, but it certainly doesn't
hurt to have a national ideology that supports tolerance," Ramage
pointed out.
Pancasila, he said, to a certain extent reflects the cultural
tendency towards religious tolerance, especially in Java, which
is used to blending different religious and ethnic groups.
Pancasila was founded in 1945 by Indonesia's first President
Soekarno who was of Javanese origin.
"Soekarno created and manipulated (Pancasila) to appeal to all
Indonesians... It was a political compromise to allow all
Indonesians to join together in one unitary state," he said.
Nonetheless, Ramage said Indonesian society is currently
undergoing a process of polarization where a certain group of
people tend to assert that some Indonesians are more deserving of
particular rights or special treatment by the government because
they are of a particular religion.
"But I think there is only a very small number of people (of
this group) because Indonesia in fact has a long history of
tolerance," he said.
This group, he said, consists of elite intellectuals who see
the emphasis on religion or ethnicity as a way to justify demands
for increased access to political power.
Ramage, who was recently in Tasikmalaya, West Java, to observe
the national congress of Indonesia's biggest Moslem organization,
Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), said the congress reflected what he
considered a genuine articulation of democratic aspirations and
behavior.
He was uncertain however, whether it was a reflection of the
Pancasila Democracy.
"The election process during the congress seemed very open,
fairly conducted and, most importantly, secret as it was done by
secret ballot, so in a sense NU did seem to be representing by
its very behavior the essence of a democratic organization," he
said.
The reelection of Abdurrahman Wahid -- more familiarly known
as Gus Dur -- as NU chairman had an important role in
establishing such an atmosphere in the organization.
"He is an extraordinary man ... He's both a political democrat
as well as a highly knowledgeable religious leader. He's a kyai
(Moslem leader) and a leader of Indonesia's democratization
movement," he said, giving his impression on the leader.
Ramage said that despite what many people think, Gus Dur does
not lead a "one man show" in NU because many of his followers,
especially from the younger generation, have a similar, broad
kind of vision as he does.
Islam and the role of religion in Indonesian politics are
subjects which appear to have caught the fascination of Ramage,
judging from the list of articles and books he has written. He
wrote Religion and Political Discourse in Indonesia which will be
published next year, and contributed to an article entitled
Islam, Democratization and Religious Tolerance -- the Political
Thought of NU's Abdurrahman Wahid in a book called Nahdlatul
Ulama: Traditional Islam and Modernity, also to be published next
year.
Asked whether he thinks Indonesians are obsessed with
ideology, he said: "Only Indonesians can say whether the emphasis
on Pancasila education is appropriate or not," he said.
"But as to whether or not other countries have intensive
national ideological education programs like Indonesia, Indonesia
probably is unique in that it has devoted so much energy and
resources to the propagation and education of its citizens about
the national ideology."