Towards a more unified Indonesia

Towards a more unified Indonesia

The recent international conference on population settlement
held in Jakarta has prompted me to write this letter. In his
opening speech at the conference, President Soeharto was reported
(Kompas, Nov. 28, 1995) to have reaffirmed that the objectives of
the Indonesian transmigration program, among other things, were
to accelerate development work outside Java and to further
strengthen persatuan dan kesatuan bangsa (unity and integrity of
the nation).

I agree that transmigration projects could help achieve those
objectives, but their success, particularly with regard to the
ideal of the unity and integrity of the nation, would, I think,
depend a lot on the way the projects are implemented.

When we talk about 'persatuan dan kesatuan bangsa', we should
remember the vital importance of the three primordial elements
which have been directly or indirectly responsible for many
conflicts, or even wars, around the world. They are: race and
ethnicity, religion and language.

Here in Indonesia we are fortunate in terms of religion and
national language, because 88 percent of Indonesians are Moslems
and more than 85 percent regularly speak Bahasa Indonesia, or at
least understand it. These very high percentages are a kind of
godsend for Indonesia and indeed Islam and Bahasa Indonesia
should be used advantageously as a matrix to cement the nation
together, wherein the other religions would function as the
complementary constituents. It follows that in this view any
attempt to weaken Moslem unity or any effort to unnecessarily
dilute Bahasa Indonesia with words or phrases from the various
dialects should be discouraged as they are liable to undermine
national unity.

Although Islam and Bahasa Indonesia should facilitate the
attainment of our national unity, the remaining major factor,
namely racial, or ethnic, identity, is quite a different matter.
Indonesia is far from homogeneous in this respect since the
largest ethnic groups, the Javanese and Sundanese, make up only
39 percent and 15 percent of the total population respectively.

Several medium sized ethnic units, such as the coastal Malays,
the Buginese/Makassarese, Minangkabau, Batak and Chinese range in
the population share from seven percent to three percent, while
smaller ethnic entities constitute less than one percent of the
population each. I would suggest that because the most
distinguishing feature among the ethnic groups is their dialects,
Indonesians should gradually allow them to languish (rather like
the case of the Scottish and Welsh languages in the United
Kingdom today) but at the same time promote the primacy of Bahasa
Indonesia, including in private use.

One obvious advantage of this is that when a Batak, a
Javanese, a Chinese or Buginese does not speak his own dialect
anymore and speak only Bahasa Indonesia, we would automatically
think of him as a pure Indonesian and forget his ethnic origin.
In the case of an ethnic Chinese, however, he would further need
to disassociate himself from Chinese culture and traditions and
channel his orientation and loyalty entirely to this country.

I would not consider transmigration projects successful in the
promotion of 'persatuan dan kesatuan bangsa' if the Javanese
transmigrants continue almost exclusively to speak in their own
dialect, or even use distinctly Javanese names for their new
villages as has happened in the Lampung province. On the other
hand, many a descendant of Javanese indentured laborers in North
Sumatra plantations do not speak Javanese anymore and consider
themselves primarily as Indonesians.

To minimize the use of dialects and hence lessen ethnic
differences as envisaged above will not be an easy task, but with
ready willingness I hope Indonesians can achieve it by the year
2045, in time for the country's 100th anniversary.

MASLI ARMAN

Jakarta