How Indonesia’s people and government destroyed its potential as one of the best societies in the world.
As an Indonesian, I always believe that Indonesia won the geographical lottery. We have a diverse ecosystem, with countless amounts of fauna and flora seeding the hills and valleys of Nusantara. All that paired with beautiful lands and views in every single one of our 38 provinces. We have the possibility of being that one state that has everything given to them by mother nature, all for us to exploit and improve our lives with. Need coal for power? We have it. Need heavy metals for electronics and technologies? Extract them and process them locally. Need blue or green foods? Go farm or fish, we have it all.
At the same time, I always despised this state. Many times, I have said and joked that I wanted to leave the country. Especially now that democracy might as well be dead in our society. I want to move to the Netherlands and live a biker life. Or move to Sweden and enshroud me in Scandinavian culture and society. I want more, I want to be a citizen of a state that allows me to be who I am. It’s something that is always stuck in the back of my head, motivating me to register for IISMA or look for Student Exchange programs and scholarships. Motivating me to study, to be who I am today and who I will be in the future, moving out. It’s cliché I know, but I never really wanted to lose my identity as an Indonesian, I love Nusantara and all the cultures within the communities here. I love to be an Indonesian, to be one of those from “wkwkwk”-land or to be overproud in every single post from non-Indonesians mentioning even the slightest bit of Indonesia. I love it as it is. I don’t want to be another nationality. Well, maybe not really on the latter but yeah you get the gist.
It’s a love-hate relationship, one aimed at the country itself and the latter being directed mostly to its people and government. Heck, that’s probably one reason why I chose international relations and affairs instead of domestic affairs to study at college. But in the end, it is how it is. I love Indonesia with all of its cultures, languages, traditional arts, and its natural beauty. It’s a nature enjoyer’s dream.
The curse of diversity
Diversity and multiculturalism are two of the biggest things that defines and glues Indonesian society together. It’s the special sauce that makes us who we are, and frankly it’s a miracle that we held on to it this long. I get it, we are different, but we have the same goal. Bhinneka Tunggal Ika, our national motto. And I love that we have this diverse mix of cultures spanning a spread between Sabang to Merauke. Like, if you want a state that manifests that saying in International Relations that says our world today is a melting pot of cultures, well just take a peek at Nusantara. Historically, we have native cultures from multiple kingdoms trading with each other and many foreign cultures around the world, assimilating native cultures with influences and ethnicities from the Middle East, East Asia, and many more locations. Like managing a state that has one major dominating ethnicity and culture itself is already hard, even more with thousands.
The problem in my eyes lies in the cultures held within and the various ways that Indonesians tend to be conflictual. In the past, many cultures can work together to fight colonialism, freeing each and their own territories until they are then pushed out and they joined hands in establishing the state of Indonesia back in 1945. You’d hope that the retreats and recognition from the Netherlands in the years after would lead the Indonesian society to start assimilating even closer and build up from it. But no, we started off okay with Soekarno’s Old Order, mostly a fight for Indonesian independence and recognition in the international stage. The specifics of which I am going to explain later in this article.
Overthrown by Suharto’s New Order, the state turned into an authoritarian hellscape, often catalyzing latent conflicts that exist from the prejudice and mismatched identities of Indonesians everywhere. Starting from the systemic discrimination that Suharto’s regime instilled on the Chinese minority, forcing them to have a standardized Indonesian name instead of using their Chinese birth name in the legal system, creating the current status quo for many Chinese Indonesians who has two names. This systemic discrimination only grew, causing many massacres of the Chinese communities like the one in that happened in 1998. While this is happening, the government also did radical amounts of transmigration. Moving citizens from Java to other regions in an effort to equalize economic and population growths around the country. This backfired instead, only instilling distrust and anger from the locals who felt like they are being overtaken in their own territories by Javanese people.
Evidence of the distrust materialized in the major separatist movements that grew under the New Order. From the fundamentalist Islam separatist movement of GAM (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka) based in Banda Aceh, the bloody separatist movements and fights in East Timor, and to the many military excursions trying to curb any means of Papuan independence through OPM (Organisasi Papua Merdeka). These three conflicts under Soeharto showed how much our people are conflictual, and how much our government didn’t act as a peacekeeper, but a catalyst to societal distrust and imbalance. Not to mention our own version of the Red Scare that materialized as G30S/PKI. That is another problem on its own with many deaths associated with it. All this complexity coming from our multicultural history and demography meeting the conflictual past of early Indonesian government policies, it left a mark that is still very much visible today. Racism is very much rampant and intercultural conflicts still happen all too often. A sign that Indonesia’s multiculturalism has failed, and exists not as a positive to Indonesia’s identity, but as a scar and a stain.
Ideologically gray
One of the big things established along with Indonesia is Pancasila, our national ideology. Etymologically two Sanskrit words, panca meaning five and sila meaning ideals. Built upon the Jakarta Charter, it became our national ideology, our ideological base for laws and government policies. It reads; Ketuhanan Yang Maha Esa (lit. A singular god or belief); Kemanusiaan Yang Adil dan Beradab (lit. A fair and cultured humanity); Persatuan Indonesia (lit. The unity of Indonesia); Kerakyatan yang Dipimpin Oleh Hikmat Kebijaksanaan Dalam Permusyawaratan Perwakilan (lit. A society lead through the belief on policies in discussion and representation); and Keadilan Sosial Bagi Seluruh Rakyat Indonesia (lit. Social welfare for every Indonesian citizen).
What’s funny about it to me is that in practice, Pancasila as an ideology is flawed. There’s so much about Pancasila that directly clashes with its main goal to be the one ideology that unites Nusantara in one singular belief. For one, literally point number one, the practice of point number one in Pancasila has been mired by fundamentalist beliefs, conflicts, and more. Even the implementation of the actual clause itself to me feels stupidly misguided, textually I’d imply that the clause allows us to have freedom of religion, which is great. In practice though, it’s a mandate. There are only six major religions that are accepted legally in Indonesia: Islam, Catholicism, Protestant Christian, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Konghucu. Believers in animist and dynamist religions like Kejawen all gets grouped legally under the umbrella term “Kepercayaan” or Belief. Legally, you can’t be an atheist here. So much for freedom.
And on the other side of the charter there’s point number five. Social welfare for all Indonesian citizens. That is a big promise, but it is the state’s responsibility to make sure that their citizens are have a livable and prosperous welfare situation. Yet in its implementation, many politicians use this clause as a way to justify a lot of their actions in government, saying they are a devotee to Pancasila and is doing it all for good. All the while they steal money from the common folk, normalizing corruption within the government from the top to the lower echelons. All a ruse, just a way for them to look good and compliant while being hypocrites. Sleeping in the parliament, watching porn in a parliamentary meeting, or even gambling online in the parliamentary chamber. Keeping themselves and their families and friends very much rich and prosperous, while leaving the common folk behind to suffer in the boots of their actions. Simple example, Prabowo’s free student lunch programs. Falsely promising something to the masses in campaigning and delaying the implementation till the end of his term in 2029, all the while essential subsidies for basic resources and fuel is cut to make funding for what is really a dystopian unreachable dream. He gets the election and the publicity, and we the common folk get to pay more taxes and suffer from fuel surges to compensate with our already struggling lives.
Historically, Indonesia was more diverse. Soekarno, our founding president had a belief on his own version of Pancasila that is dubbed NASAKOM, an acronym that stands for Nasionalis (Nationalist), Agamis (Religious), Komunis (Communist). It’s his own way of applying his vision for Indonesia as a multicultural and conservative welfare state. Heavily influenced by his relations to China and the USSR back in the day, while also being friends with the Western countries of the time. All this matters not in the end because the government never really allows people or political parties for that matter to have or declare their belief on an ideology outside of Pancasila. This Pancasilaist view on ideologies is very much visible in the wake of G30S/PKI, where Indonesia basically wiped out the entire population that exists in the political left. A tragedy that was memorialized in many forms of media, one of which I just recently watched called Exile. Documenting the various experiences of left wing Indonesians left in exile abroad. Damned and afraid of the consequences if they return home. All for believing in a different ideology.
It’s all just a ruse to me, I always joked that Pancasila is an ideology of centrists, of people and values that has no strong footing in reality. It’s something Indonesia wants to be but can’t be with how our government is running the country. They all scream that Pancasila is our only ideology, it must be protected, and all political parties follow Pancasila as their ideologies. It’s just stupid, every single political party minus two or three in parliament band wagoning to the government with no steadfast footing of their own beliefs and values. There’s no opposition, there’s no democracy, it’s flawed from the start, and it’s only getting worse by the regime.
What now?
I have set aside this article in my draft for ages now. Its just a very long and complex article I felt like writing. I’m gonna end this one here, it’s been too long of a time being in the drafts that we just got the election results announced. Hopefully the future is brighter, but with the current outlook I am pessimistic about it. We’ll see the how this regime fairs, or if it will even pass the legality tests that we will put forward to put them in their places. I’ll write more about it when I feel like it. Or not, I might be jailed along the way.
previously posted on Medium at https://medium.com/@fjello/a-state-nerfed-societally-d4ef097595aa
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