Since the Youth Pledge of 1928, the nation has remained fragile

Since the Youth Pledge of 1928, the nation has remained fragile
JP/3/INSIGHT

Since the Youth Pledge of 1928, the nation has remained fragile

J. Soedjati Djiwandono
Jakarta

"What experience and history teach is this -- that people and
governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on
principles deduced from it" (Georg Wilhelm Hegel, quoted in G.B.
Shaw's The Revolutionist's Handbook).

Today, 77 years ago, on Oct. 28, 1928, Indonesian youths,
representing various youth organizations in their common struggle
against Dutch colonial oppression made a pledge, that they had
one fatherland, Indonesia; one nation, Indonesia, and one
language, Indonesian."
Every year since then we have celebrated Youth Pledge Day by
singing those words in a beautiful song.
That was the final determination, after long debates by the
youths to, from then on -- regardless of differences in race,
ethnicity, religious, traditional, cultural and language
backgrounds -- build the nation of Indonesia. It was an
expression of the ideal of national unity.

Indeed, the birth of the Indonesian nation itself was on Aug.
17, 1945, the day of the proclamation of Indonesian independence.
Perhaps contrary to the idea contained in the quotation cited at
the beginning of this commentary, the young leaders of this
nation were aware of the historical fact that, for a period of
over three centuries, intermittent but isolated revolts by
different regions of the then-Netherlands East Indies against
Dutch colonial rule were never successful.

Perhaps the Indonesian leaders of the time finally
came to the bitter conclusion that only a united and concerted
struggle by all the peoples throughout the territory would be
able to oust the colonial rule. They were aware of the need for a
new all-embracing and all-inclusive nation. The Indonesian nation
was thus born primarily out of pragmatic considerations.

As regards Renan's idea of nationhood, his was simply a
speculative, metaphysical or intellectual construct rather than a
theory based on empirical evidence to explain or to understand
the phenomenon of nationhood. As far as Indonesia is concerned,
it seems arguable that the nation of Indonesia developed in line
with Renan's conceptualization, as "a soul, spiritual principle",
or "a great solidarity, created by the sentiment of the
sacrifices which have been made, of those which one is disposed
to make in the future.

"It presupposes a past; but it resumes itself in the present
by a tangible fact: the consent, the clearly expressed desire to
continue life in common." However, as far as Indonesia is
concerned, the Youth Pledge could be seen as an expression of
that kind of common desire among many "nations" in the narrow
sense of the term.

Since its inception 77 years ago, however, as a nation
Indonesia has remained fragile. Indeed, national unity seemed to
be strong in the face of a common enemy, namely, Dutch
colonialism. Once that common enemy was gone with the attainment
of Indonesian independence as a nation-state, national unity has
been challenged from the start by different views on the
philosophical basis of the new state along a religious (Islamic)
vs. nationalist/secular line.

The original draft constitution of the new nation-state of
Indonesia was the Jakarta Charter, containing the famous "seven
words", which provided for the imposition of the obligation to
implement the Islamic sharia law for Muslims.

Just before its promulgation to be the provisional
constitution of the new Republic of Indonesia the day after the
proclamation of independence, those seven words were deleted in
the interest of national unity. When put to the vote in the
Constitutional Assembly resulting from the 1955 general election,
the Muslims lost the vote to the nationalists.

Indeed, it is unfortunate that the resentment of the Muslims
has continued to mark Indonesian politics to this day. Thus, to
maintain what has proved to be a continuous pretense of national
unity, the myth of unity has been maintained to this day by
identifying the Indonesian republic as being "neither theocratic
nor secular".

Thus, as a nation, Indonesia has remained fragile, because
there is no set of common values that bind the Indonesian people
together as a nation. National unity is surely an ideal, but its
expression has been no more than a self-deception. It has
continued to face the threat of disintegration by separatism,
horizontal conflicts marked by religious tension, and constantly
made worse by the ever-widening gap between the rich and the
poor.

However, during the era of Sukarno's "guided democracy" and
Soeharto's New Order that succeeded him, the pretext of national
unity could be maintained by authoritarian rule. In this era of
reform, however, which has been marked particularly by greater
freedom of speech, the continuous threat to national unity can no
longer be entirely concealed.

The three successive presidents in the post-Soeharto elections
have all named their Cabinets with a phrase expressing concern
over national unity, even if they have not reflected that concern
in their policies. Thus, Gus Dur named his Cabinet one of
"National Unity," president Megawati called her government the
"Mutually Cooperative" (Gotong-Royong) Cabinet, and SBY has
called his Cabinet one of "United Indonesia".

The continued existence of unjust laws that violate human
rights, particularly freedom of worship, and other laws and
regulations of a discriminatory nature reflect a lack of maturity
in our concept of nationhood, which embraces the principle of
pluralism as formulated in the motto "unity in diversity". One
tends to forget that the Youth Pledge did not include a claim to
one religion for the nation.

It will take further generations, if ever, until the nation
will finally agree to a set of common values, commonly understood
that will serve as a lasting foundation for national unity. God
bless this country!

The writer, a PhD graduate from the London School of
Economics, was an academic member of the UN Secretary-General's
Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters from 1999-2000 and a
consultant to the preparation of the UN Review Conference of NPT,
2000.