Youth told to avoid fanaticism, promote pluralism

Youth told to avoid fanaticism, promote pluralism

Slamet Susanto and A. Junaidi, The Jakarta Post,
Yogyakarta/Jakarta

Yogyakarta-based presidential candidate Governor Sri Sultan
Hamengkubuwono X called on youths on Tuesday to avoid myopic
nationalism and promote pluralism instead.

The governor, who is also the Sultan of Yogyakarta, said
youths should not be trapped in a narrow religious outlook, nor
tribal or political sectarianism.

"So far, we have considered others of a different 'color' are
not part of us as a nation," he said at a ceremony in Yogyakarta
commemorating Youth Pledge Day.

He said people's differences in religion, ethnicity and
political affiliation should be seen as social capital, and that
the spirit of the second Youth Congress in 1928, in which youths
of varying backgrounds came together as a single community,
should be kept alive.

In the 1928 congress held in Jakarta, the youths pledged that
they belonged to one undivided nation, one motherland and one
common language.

Separately, Vice President Hamzah echoed Hamengkubuwono,
calling on the youths of Indonesia to be independent and be
pioneers of the reform era, as were the youths in 1928.

Hamzah also chairs the United Development Party (PPP), which,
along with the Crescent Star Party (PBB) and certain elements in
the bureaucracy, is continuing moves to try and impose the
Islamic sharia law on the country.

The commemoration of Youth Pledge Day at the Vice Presidential
Palace was also attended by Minister of National Education Malik
Fadjar, State Minister of Research and Technology M. Hatta
Radjasa, National Police Chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar and House of
Representatives Speaker Akbar Tandjung.

While state officials commemorated the day with formal events,
students marked the day by staging rallies across the country.

Dozens of youths in Yogyakarta condemned the neo-liberalism,
neo-imperialism and hedonism that have undermined the spirit of
youths today.

Following the fall of Soeharto and his New Order regime in
1998, those problems that had been swept under the carpet by his
autocratic rule resurged and erupted as sectarian conflicts in
many parts of the country.

Since then, violent and bloody ethnic conflicts have broken
out in Kalimantan, religious conflicts in Maluku and Poso,
Central Sulawesi, and a separatist conflict in Aceh.

Noted sociologists called on the government and the people on
Monday to address these problems in order to keep the nation from
disintegrating.