What Still Makes Us Indonesian?
Amid the fanfare of projections towards the Golden Indonesia 2045 Vision, our public discourse is dominated by technocratic figures: economic growth rates of 6–7%, trillions of rupiah in investment, physical infrastructure expansion, and a surge in per capita income towards the ranks of high-income countries.
However, a nation’s progress can never be sufficiently measured by aggregate economic indicators alone. The most radical and fundamental question we must ask today is: what kind of Indonesian people and society are we building?
After nearly eight decades of independence amidst the vortex of globalisation and exponential digital transformation, we need the intellectual courage to ask again: what values truly still bind more than 280 million people from Sabang to Merauke into one nation?
Is Pancasila still a truly living ideology in public ethics, social behaviour, economic regulation, and state administration, or is it gradually shifting into a mere rhetorical artefact and symbol of formality?
In the national historical record, threats to Pancasila were relatively easy to identify because they came in the form of open ideological clashes or physical rebellion movements. Today, the form of the challenge has mutated subtly yet destructively. Pancasila is no longer threatened by formal constitutional replacement, but by a gradual erosion that gnaws away at its vitality from within.
This erosion takes place through shifting values, changes in social behaviour, a crisis of public civility, and the ways in which power is exercised.
The socio-cultural erosion and our national challenges today do not stand in a vacuum, but are concretely recorded through a number of indicators and empirical data across various dimensions.
On the dimension of economic justice, a BPS report records Indonesia’s Gini Ratio at 0.375, while inequality in urban areas records a higher figure of 0.395.
This figure of unequal distribution of development outcomes is a serious alarm because it has the potential to erode social capital and crack cohesion among citizens.
Meanwhile, on the dimension of civility in the public sphere, the Digital Civility Index (DCI) research released by Microsoft places Indonesian netizens in 29th position out of 32 countries studied. The low level of digital civility reflects a weakening culture of tolerance, which is directly proportional to the rise of hate speech, cyberbullying, and sharp polarisation in our digital public opinion.
This civility crisis is also in line with challenges on the dimension of integrity and law enforcement. This is evident from BPS’s Anti-Corruption Behaviour Index (IPAK), which stands at 3.85.
The normalisation of petty corruption and the neglect of public ethics gradually trigger the erosion of social justice and weaken respect for the principle of the rule of law.
On the other hand, on the dimension of inclusion and tolerance, the monitoring titled the Tolerant City Index released by the SETARA Institute underscores the crucial need to strengthen inclusive city governance. Fair and open governance is essential to guarantee the protection of diversity, civil liberties, and the rights of every citizen in social life.
This series of indicators is not a reason to be pessimistic or to declare that our nation has lost its identity. However, this is an early warning indicator—a warning that the crisis of civility, extreme individualism, and the loss of tolerance must not be allowed to crystallise into a new normal.
The Dialectic of Justice and Civility
One of the main pillars in the edifice of our nationhood lies in the formulation of the second principle of Pancasila: Just and Civilised Humanity. There is a dialectical causal relationship between injustice and the decline of public civility.
Justice must not be reduced merely to economic redistribution. True justice encompasses equality before the law, equal access to life opportunities, dignified treatment of citizens by the state, and mutually respectful relations among human beings.
When citizens feel that the law is blunt upwards and sharp downwards, or when life opportunities are concentrated in a handful of elites, the collective sense of justice is wounded. A nation’s civility is tested by how power is exercised, how the strong treat the weak, and how minorities and those who are different are protected. Without justice, public civility collapses into social cynicism and mutual suspicion.
Therefore, Pancasila must be restored from dogmatic abstraction to a practical principle or way of life: (1) Belief in God gives rise to noble public morality and inclusive tolerance; (2) Humanity guarantees absolute respect for the dignity of every citizen without exception; (3) Unity ensures that differences of opinion and identity do not turn into destructive hostility; (4) Deliberation opens up space for articulate dialogue, willingness to listen, and respect for freedom of expression; and, (5) Social Justice ensures that the fruits of national economic progress are felt evenly by all layers of society.
We must erode the narrow dichotomy that pits modernity against local wisdom, or religion against national culture. Indonesia must not be trapped in anti-Western xenophobia or passive romanticism of the past.
A mature national vision requires the ability to absorb science, cutting-edge technology, rationality, and global data without losing the cultural roots of the archipelago.
Religion in the Indonesian context must be a bastion of morality and spiritual inspiration that strengthens humanity and unity, not a sectarian instrument that divides.
Our development formula is absolute: modern without losing roots, religious without losing tolerance, and open to the world without losing Indonesianness.
It is at this point that the Justice and Unity Party (PKP) places the Human Development agenda as the epicentre of political struggle. Human capital development must not be reduced merely to the mechanical production of productive labour for industry. Indonesia needs a comprehensive human development strategy with a civilisational character.
We need qualifications for Indonesian people who are: (1) Intelligent and of Character: Possessing intellectual sharpness guided by a solid moral compass; (2) Competent and with Integrity: Mastering high-level technical skills without sacrificing professional honesty; (3) Religious and Tolerant: Holding firmly to faith while respecting the freedom and diversity of others; (4) Competitive and Cooperative: Able to compete in the global arena without losing the spirit of social solidarity; and, (5) Modern and with National Identity: Able to master future technology without abandoning the noble values of Indonesianness.
Approaching a century of independence, we do not need to return rigidly to the past. What we need is the courage to bring Indonesia’s best values to answer the challenges of the future. Economic development, strengthening defence, utilising technology, and educational reform must march in harmony with the formation of national civilisation.
Golden Indonesia 2045 must not only give birth to a country that is richer and more physically advanced. It must give birth to Indonesian people who are more dignified and a society that is increasingly just and civilised.
For, in the end, the true strength of a nation is not only determined by what it succeeds in building, but by what kind of human beings it succeeds in shaping.