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The Importance of Indonesia's Nationalism Revitalization in the Globalization Era: a Historical Perspective

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The Importance of Indonesia's Nationalism Revitalization in the Globalization Era: a Historical Perspective View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Universitas Diponegoro: Undip E-Journal System (UEJS) Portal Journal of Maritime Studies and National Integration, 2 (1), 1-15 The Importance of Indonesia’s Nationalism Revitalization in the Globalization Era: A Historical Perspective Singgih Tri Sulistiyono Department of History, Faculty of Humanities, Diponegoro University Abstract Received: This article analyze on how nationalism which is product of 11 February 2018 nineteenth century in Europe can be revitalized in facing the challenge of globalization. In Indonesian context, this issue is very Revised: urgent to be discussed considering the fact that the process of 28 June 2018 globalization tends to be confronted with the spirit of nationalism. Sometime nationalism is viewed as an obsolete tradition that should Accepted: be revitalized. But there are still many people who believe that 2 July 2018 nationalism is still indispensable in the face of an increasing wave of globalization. However nationalism must be revitalized in order to Corresponding author: be able to face the challenge of globalization. For this purpose, it is [email protected] very interesting to strengthen the spirit of nationalism by revitalizing it for improving the nation competitiveness in facing the expansion of globalization. The questions are in what ways could nationalism be revitalized in order to improve the nation competitiveness to face the global competition? In addition, the fundamental question to be asked is why does Indonesian nationalism need to be revitalized? What is wrong with Indonesian nationalism? If Indonesian nationalism can be revitalized, how is it done? Those are set of questions that will be discussed in this paper. Keywords: Nationalism; Globalization; Nationalism Revitalization; Nation Competitiveness; Historical Perspective. Introduction The title of this paper contains at the very least two immense issues which are Indonesia’s nationalism revitalization and globalization. Those issues seem not directly associated. Literally, the term ‘revitalization’ can be defined as to reactivate or to make function again something that probably has expired. In the repertoire of anthropology, the concept of revitalization refers to an intended and organized movement as a conscious attempt performed by the members of some certain communities to build a more satisfying culture that can be easily woven into innovative configuration corresponding to the demand of time. It is strongly related to the nature of culture which has an internal mechanism to self-change adjusting to the encountered challenges. Meanwhile, globalization is an international integrating process which happens due to the exchange of perspectives, products, ideas, and any other cultural aspects. Along with the development of information technology and transportation, the physical boundaries among nations become bias because they are penetrable with the advanced communication technology and global mechanism which compel every nation to open up in the global interaction. The 1 The Importance of Indonesia’s Nationalism Revitalization in the Globalization Era (Singgih Tri Sulistiyono) improvement of information technology and transparency regime has been setting up free competition especially in the field of economy with a series of rules that are considered fair.1 The matter is what is the relation between revitalization effort toward nationalism related to globalization challenge and the effort of national quality improvement? In other words, can national quality in facing globalization be reached through nationalism revitalization? In what way nationalism revitalization can be treated as media to improve the quality of Indonesia? Besides, the fundamental query which should be questioned is why does Indonesian nationalism need revitalizing? If Indonesian nationalism can be revitalized, how is it executed? How come? Those are the sets of question which will be discussed in this paper. Nation’s Actual Problem The two of the most problematic issues that are still faced by the Indonesian are dependency and inefficiency. Indonesia is still very dependent toward other nations whether it is recognized or not. It can be seen that Indonesia is still unable to fulfil its basic needs such as staple food and micro technology. This condition can change into a catastrophe if natural resources are sold out while we have not yet formed a strong structural foundation to become an independent and highly productive nation. At that time, the inability of the nation to fulfil basic human needs such as food becomes visible while in fact Indonesia has a great agriculture potential.2 This fits the first verse of Khalil Gibran’s poem: “Pity the nation that… eats bread it does not harvest, and drinks wine it does not breed”.3 Food crisis is only a little part of a bigger crisis encountered by Indonesia which is economy crisis started from the end of 1997. This crisis leads Indonesia into what is called economic decline. It was reflected by the piling state debt as well as private debt, rupiah’s irrecoverable exchange rate toward US dollar as before the crisis, and the high rate of poverty.4 The unsolved economy crisis brings another crisis, such as political crisis which at that time contributed the fall of Soeharto regime.5 In addition to that, there are also leadership crisis, heroism crisis, trust crisis and moral crisis; as illustrated by Gibran “…whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking”. A historian of Indonesian economics stated that in the Reformation Period, Indonesia suffered a 1Manfred B. Steger (Translator Heru Prasetia), Globalisme: Bangkitnya Ideologi Pasar (Globalism: The Rise of Market Ideology) (Yogyakarta: Lafadl, 2006), 38 – 44. 2On 15 January 2008 there was a demonstration by tempe and tofu manufacturer demanding the price of American-imported soybean is not increased. At that time, the price of soybean increased twice that the manufacturer of these product went bankrupt. See “Ribuan Perajin Tahu dan Tempe Demo di Istana” [thousands of tofu and tempe manufacturers run demonstration in the palace], in http://internasional.kompas.com /read/2008/01/14/10380239/ribuan.perajin.tahu.dan.tempe.demo.di.istana, retrieved on 9 June 2017. 3Kahlil Gibran’s poem, “Bangsa Kasihan” (Pity the Nation) in http://www.sutrisnobudiharto.net/2015/09/ puisi-kahlil-gibran-bangsa-kasihan.html, retrieved on 7 June 2017. 4Howard Handelman, The Challengse of Third World Development, 3rd edition (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2003), 279. It has ever been predicted that in the late 2007 the amount of the state debt is approximately US$ 150 billions or about 40 percent of the total GDP US$ 364 billions. If it happens, 40 percent of annual state fund must be spent on debt interest. See”Utang Nominal Diproyeksikan Rp1.325 Triliun” (The Nominal Debt is Projected to be IDR 1.325 trillions, in http://suaramerdeka.com/ cybernews /harian/0707/11/nas4.htm, retrieved on 20th January 2014. 5Robert Cribb, Historical Atlas of Indonesia (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000), 188. 2 Journal of Maritime Studies and National Integration, 2 (1), 1-15 total crisis.6 The recent heartbreaking phenomenon is the character damage of Indonesia reflected by many corruption acts and amoralities happening in the community. This “rotting Gambar 2 Kekerasan di Kalimantan process” will become a form of self-destruction if it is not anticipated immediately. Aside from economic crisis, Indonesia is also facing various kinds of social and political conflict. In the community level where many economic problems arise, the atmosphere of openness and freedom even nearly tend to be anarchy. This is contra productive when democracy is deflected to be “democrazy” (in the context of demos who are crazy). It can be seen from television programs which broadcasts violence scenes in particular. Sentiments caused by race, religion, and community differences often become the conflict triggers. News and information that come from uncontrolled social media usage have contributed to the birth of persecution acts. Within the respect of situation, the community leaders are sometimes unable to control society emotion even taking part in creating the anarchy situation. This is similar as what Gibran said in his poem “… pity the nation that welcomes its new leader with trumpeting, and farewells him with hooting…” Meanwhile, at the national level, many social and political conflicts are still considered as potential threats to disrupt national unity as what happened in Aceh, Maluku, Poso, West Papua, and so on. Some of the community organizations even demand for independence to detach from Republic of Indonesia. They want to establish their own nation like East Timor. The phenomena are still happening in West Papua. In addition to that, the emerging of radicalism in the name of religion also hazards the existence of Indonesia as a state. “Pity the nation that breaks into pieces and each piece thinks of itself as one nation,” said Gibran. There are indeed many efforts attempted by the government, yet they are done sporadically and not thoroughly executed. In the other time, it may explode again even become worse than before. The local community dissatisfaction toward central government frequently becomes the main reason of this problem. There is an accusation that central government improperly intervene local matters and draining out regional resources.7 Those issues escalated after Indonesia entered the era of democratization, transparency, and reformation. In this case, it can be considered that democratization is not always benefitted in a responsible way with respect to national unity. On the contrary, it is used to do things that potentially threat the unity. Therefore, the interest of national unity turns out to be an unimportant consideration. Meanwhile, the central government should realize that they observe things only from the central government point of view. They should consider the 6Jeroen Touwen, “The Economic History of Indonesia”, in http://eh.net/ encyclopedia/ article/touwen.indonesia, retrieved on 9th June 2017.
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