For my second cultural artifact, I decided to look deeper into the concept of Pancasila, the foundational ideology of Indonesia. Previously, I did research and wrote a thesis in Indonesian on the historical legacy of this ideology, and decided to dig deeper into it with my language partner on italki.
Much like the United States with the creation of its constitution, Indonesia required a set of institutions and a political system that would be seen as legitimate in a country with diverse peoples and ideologies. The Pancasila was essentially a mission statement for the country, that laid out both an identity and a set of goals for the new country. The 5 tenets of Pancasila are: Belief in one god,which was inclusive of Christian minorities and Balinese Hindus, who were considered to worship one God, albeit with many faces; a just and polite humanity; Indonesian unity (one country, indivisible); rule guided by elective representatives (democracy); and social justice, shared by all the peoples of Indonesia.
I have long been interested in the foundation of Indonesia. Pre-colonization, Indonesia was always a collection of dozens of different kingdoms, speaking different languages and often following different religion. The Dutch ruled Indonesia as a business to be profitable, with little consideration for the development of workable institutions or a unified Indonesian identity. Soekarno's project to create a unified identity in Indonesia was not without resistance--and indeed there were many wars and insurgencies during the 1950s and 1960s--but its lasting success can largely be attributed to the broadly acceptable ideology and institutional foundation laid out in the Pancasila.
Replies