A nation is historically evolved, stable community of language, territory, economic life, and physiological make-up manifested in a community of cultures. Although a nation keeps evolving, it is still defined by its past history. The rich legacy of the past, the enormous sacrifice of the founding fathers, as well as the successful past government policies will be revered in the present and the future. Just like the famous Spartan song, “we are what you were and we will be what you are.” The history we shared together bound us together and forms the foundation of our national culture. This culture serves as the basis of nationalism.
Nationalism is the main force that gives live to a nation that otherwise would just a mere political and geographical location. Nationalism is that sense of patriotism or willingness to sacrifice for a nation. Put it simply, nationalism is the soul of the nation. Unfortunately as the nation evolves, the people become more selfish and less incline to sacrifice for the nation. Their only concerns are their desires and needs. Without intentional effort by the leaders, the spirit of nationalism will continue to erode.
There are many contributing factors that can lead to strong sense of nationalism. However, most experts agree that the strong sense of nationalism will only emerge when the nation can formulate the national ideology and sense of destiny.
This paper proposes that the success of public policy is determined by its ability to create and eventually ride the nationalism sentiment tide. The author will review the three periods of Indonesian history: the pre-independence (1920-1945), the Old Order (1945-1968), and the New Order (1968-1998) regime periods. The selection of these three periods is not aimed to pre-select evidence but rather to be able to use the available literature.
Finally, this paper will conclude by proposing that nationalism is indeed Christian concepts. Christianity puts forth a concept of glorious suffering. More importantly, these sufferings are not for our own selfish interests but for others. The Jesus that we serve and love was despised and rejected not to gain personal glory but to win our salvation. The fact that Jesus and ultimately our sufferings were motivated to serve others; our faith has both private and public dimensions. Our saving faith is privately given to us by grace alone, but it has to affect our public engagements. We have the responsibility to carry the truth about our faith into the whole sphere of the societies.
Nationalism can be a positive force when it can lead people to support public policy that promote liberty for all even at the expense of individual freedom and pleasure. Unfortunately, nationalism can also be a negative force that leads to destruction and despair. Hitler put negative twist on nationalism that led to World War II. Positive nationalism that is pluralistic, democratic, with freedom for all need a theological-moral fiber. The last part of this paper is dedicated to give us confidence that only Christianity can provide that underpinnings.
The Pre-Independence Era (1920-1945): Building Foundation of Indonesian Nationalism
Our founding fathers had understood the importance of building a sense of nationalism. They put it in the form of our national anthem, Indonesia Raya. Indonesia Raya (The Great Indonesia) was composed by Wage Rudolph Soepratman and first sang during the “Sumpah Pemuda” declaration in 1928. Mr. Soepratman tells us that we are a nation because we toil in the same land; and therefore we shall be willing to protect, defend, and ultimately mark it with our blood. He then asks us to unite and rise up for one purpose: to be liberated from the bondage of canonicalization. Freedom is very important to unleash the potential of the people to become a great nation. As it is written in the chorus,
The free and great Indonesia,
The land and country that I love,
The free and great Indonesia,
Long live the great Indonesia nation
Mr. Soepratman continues on to describe what it would be like when we are liberated. We can be happy and become a peaceful nation. Indonesia will be a place where people can work in fertile soil and have plenty. The people can be happy, healthy, and civil.
What Mr. Soepratman and his compatriots did in 1928 could be considered one of the most important moment in Indonesian history. They united, motivated, and directed all Indonesians toward one single goal to be an independent nation. Through the anthem, they gave us vision of what the future would have been when we have attained that freedom.
The sense of nationalism is extremely important to unite and direct the people toward the greater good and away from obstructions. To build nationalism, there should be compelling reasons, a crystal-clear vision, and attainable goals. In 1928, our forefathers were able to fulfill these three building blocks and essentially laid the foundation of Indonesian nationalism. As it is plainly stated in our national anthem, we are a nation because we stand, work, and die in the same land. We have one vision that was, that is, and forever will be an independent nation which allows everybody to achieve peace and happiness. To do this, we then need to be united and become one nation with one language.
Mr. Soepratman died in 1938. However, his song had been a rallying cry for Indonesia’s independence movement. A movement that became stronger by day. The membership of Indonesian political parties had increased by more than 1000%. The membership of PNI alone had increased from less than 10,000 in 1927 to more than 10,000 in 1938. Not only people’s participation had increased, but also the movement had become more nationalistic. Although religion and race had still matter, most political party had adopted Indonesia in their name and Indonesia’s independence as their political platform.
Old Order (1945-1968): Public Policy during the Soekarno Regime
Public policy often mirrors the national sentiment. With Soekarno as the president, the national sentiment was virtually set according to his dream and passion. His extraordinary oration skill and charisma practically set the whole nation on fire. He can energize people and ask them to bear the sacrifice. There is no other person can unite Indonesia to fight the Dutch and then successfully gain independence.
Soekarno is a genuine revolutionist. Revolution is the enemy of stability and revolutionist is typically not a good statesman. He believed that his next task was to lead Indonesia to become a great nation and a world leader. However, one cannot gain respect over night and certainly at the expense of grave sufferings of the people. His public policy was very short sighted and was never thought for creating a sustainable stability and long lasting prosperity. His five major public policies were meant to improve Indonesia prestige in the world.
- He moved Indonesia into a war economy, which did not really invest in the future. He launched military campaign to liberate West Papua in 1961 and against Malaysia in 1963.
- In 1964, he launched a program called Berdikari or “standing on our own feet” campaign. Under the pretext of this program, he banned rice import and increase tax on trades. This policy had really devastating impacts. Indonesia experienced food shortage. On the other hand, farmers had to work on minimum or even for nothing because of the tax increase on agricultural export and import products.
- He nationalized foreign enterprises and rejected foreign investment out of negative sentiment toward mainly Dutch trading firms.
- He was committing the government on massive prestige construction programs. He built large building just to serve the Conefo or Conference on Newly Emerging Forces. He also built huge sports stadium, Senayan, and national monument, Monas.
- He put Indonesia Central Bank, Bank of Indonesia, under government control. The impact on the other previous four policies was pale in comparison to this one. Under the name of “Guided Economy”, President Soekarno compromised the independence and integrity of Bank of Indonesia. Bank Indonesia became government tools to print more money. Consequently, the government was not restrained in their spending and not forced to seek revenue to balance the budget. Under this policy, he also merged all state banks with the central bank. This merger practically made Bank Indonesia to be not only the monetary regulator but also the primary commercial bank. The government effectively destroyed the banking industry. The government through Bank of Indonesia became not only lender of last resort but also the only major lender in the country.
Although he is our nation proclamator, the people still sacked him from his office. His presidency ended disastrously. He plunged the country into hyperinflation, hunger, without real friends, and deeply unstable. There was no way we could grow under his leadership.
His policies clearly reflected the importance of building nationalism. The fact that President Soekarno survived for more than two decades shows his ability to induce the spirit of nationalism. However, we learn that nationalism cannot be built only on symbolism. It has to meet physical needs as well otherwise it will be eroded away. People can only take so much suffering. When they started seeing their kids had to go hungry, while the government lavishly hosted CONEFO, the people would start revolting. He did not understand that the country was entering a new era. His nostalgic revolutionist thinking made the country volatile and unstable.
Fortunately, new order answered the call and stabilized the economy starting from the banking system. The next section will outline the new order efforts in building the sense of nationalism by focusing on the physical-material needs.
New Order (1968-1998): Efforts in Restoring the Central Bank Independency to Tame the Hyperinflation
We need to remember the past to understand how God has blessed us over these years. Right after the failed coup of 1965, Indonesia plunged into deep inflation. With inflation running more than 600%/year, money ceased to hold any value and personal hope for betterment faded away. The focus of daily life was survival. It is still quite puzzling to me how average person with fixed income less than subsistence levels of consumption could survive.
The government needed to take a hold on inflation right away before the country collapse. Most scholars agree that the cause of hyper-inflation at that time was the rapid growth in money supply. The growth in money supply exceeded the current demand for money needed and the level of goods and services produced by the economy. The growth of money supply reached uncontrollable level when the central bank lost its independence and became financer of government prestige projects.
To be clear, there were four other causes of inflation beside the rapid growth of the money supply. These four factors were also somewhat contributed, albeit in smaller scale, to the hyper-inflation faced by the government in 1966. The other four factors contributed to inflation were:
- Scarcity of goods. The price will increase when the commodity is in short supply
- Inflationary expectations. If everybody expects that inflation will be rampant, the situation will be exacerbated because people will hoard their goods or resources.
- Imported inflation occurs when our importer nations experienced inflation. The prices will subsequently increase.
- Increase production cost when the government increase taxes or tariffs.
Soeharto needed to build nationalism spirit to buy him time. He needed time for the people to be patience before his policy would start impacting the nation economy. He successfully built a strong sense of nationalism by 1) instigating hatred toward a certain element of the population, 2) creating national symbol, and 3) focusing on economic growth.
Before the New Order Regime under the leadership of President Soeharto began to work, they really needed to re-channel the hatred toward the Old Order Regime into a positive spirit to endure the hardship to come. Soeharto’s first act was to let people channel their anger toward PKI (Communist party of Indonesia) sympathizers that led to the most horrifying tragedy in Indonesia after independence. Although it is extremely important and painful subjects, it is not in the scope of this paper and hence, will not be discussed in further detail.
Soeharto learnt quickly from Soekarno play book. He needed to create a national symbol or jargons that people can relate to his public policies emotionally. The first act of Soeharto as president was the formation of Ampera (the message of suffering citizens) cabinet. The formation of this cabinet was his other attempt to build nationalism.
The very focus of this cabinet was to reform the banking/monetary system to stabilize the inflation. This effort would take minimum two years and without strong sense of nationalism the people would be impatience and the country would have plunged into another chaos.
The first and most important step in reforming the monetary system was returning the central bank or Bank Indonesia to its original functions which are: preserving the value of the Indonesian currency, maintaining the stability of the banking system, and serving as the lender of the last resort. These efforts were conducted in great speed. Within two years (1968), the central bank began operating under its original functions.
The second step was to tightly control the money supply, which meant spending cuts by cancelling projects and stalling salary increase. Again without strong sense of nationalism, the people would not be willing to endure more sufferings when they lost their jobs and pay.
Finally, Soeharto correctly refocused the government to become the economic growth engine. One needs to be thankful that in the midst of New Order ruthlessness, God still uses this regime to lay out foundations for future growth. The New Order regime built most of the current agriculture and manufacturing infrastructures. This regime had to deal with rice shortage immediately for three primary reasons: to ensure social stability resulted from hunger, to minimize rice import for preserving foreign reserved, and to control inflation. On inflation, one should realize that the rice price stability is extremely important to minimize inflation in Indonesia. The correlation between rice shortages and inflation was and probably will always be a direct one. The price of rice is the barometer for other commodity. If the price of rice fell, the prices throughout the economy fell or vice versa.
The New Order regime was also had to stimulate manufacturing to support the agriculture sector. We needed to make our own fertilizer, agriculture equipments, and transportation equipment. We had to build infrastructures to move rice and distribute fertilizer or other equipment.
We should always be thankful that we as a nation could survive during those dark days. I think it is purely a miracle that we could convince other countries, such as United States, Japan, and IGGI countries, to send us rice and fertilizer when we don’t have enough money to pay them back. Our foreign reserves had been depleted; we would never be able to pay for these rice imports.
To stimulate the economic activity, the New Order Regime needed to improve liquidity. The problem came when the government needed to create purchasing power from nothing or real asset. The government with limited amount of money had to gamble by appropriating credit only to the select few. Only few people or funds that promised huge return could get government financing with interest rates far below the market. This so called “leveraged economics” was the nucleus of the rampant corruption and the structural sin we inherited today. However, at that time this was probably the only instrument the government had to inject liquidity quickly on the priority sectors of the economy.
The New Order regime policies would not work without first building a strong sense of nationalism. The togetherness feeling experienced by Indonesian, especially in between 1965 to 1968, was engineered in three ways as mentioned above. However, the New Order regime failed to continually cultivate the spirit of nationalism, especially since late 1980. By 1990, Indonesians realized that Soeharto’s interest had shifted from building Indonesia to acquiring personal wealth. Only a handful Indonesians closest to Soeharto had experienced economic quantum leap. The majority of population was still very poor. To tame the unrest, Soeharto had to reinvent himself as a good Muslim. His public policy became more supportive of Islamic values. He founded Indonesian Association of Muslim Intellectuals (Ikatan Cendikiawan Islam Indonesia, ICMI) to control Muslim Intellectuals.
His effort to elevate Islam and to diminish nationalism had made the country less united. Furthermore, his effort also left a bitter taste in groups such as Nahdatul Ulama and Muhamadiyah that had been oppressed and supported a more nationalistic agenda. In 1998 the economy experienced hyperinflation again, despite his power and money, Soeharto could not save himself. He was forced to resign without honor.
The next section will discuss that the idea of nationalism was actually based on Christian principles. Nationalism has been used by the government to promote its public policies. Ultimately, nationalism is God’s tool to reorient us that every thing was and is made for His purposes and glory.
Nationalism and Christianity
Nationalism is the spirit that gives a nation life. It usually takes the form of ideas, values, and visions on what the nation capable to achieve. These set of ideas will energize the whole nation. The whole nation will be more willing to sacrifice and work harder to achieve this desired future.
The idea of sacrifice for greater good can be traced back to Christianity. There is no other belief system that glorifies personal sufferings for other benefits. Our theology is theology of the cross not success. Jesus had to die to save us. We had to serve and suffer before we can influence and save our nation.
Nationalism has gotten negative tone among Christian communities today. We feel guilty to pledge allegiance to our nation because Indonesia is not a Christian nation. We are afraid that we might commit idolatry. However, being a citizen of Indonesia is a divine calling. It is part of our vocation. We are called by God to be a good citizen. This means that we need to respect the authority of government by abiding the law and paying our dues or taxes (Romans 13:1-6). Not only that, we are called to influence the nation so that Indonesia can see how God’s preserving hands throughout our history. For God preserves Indonesia for one and only one reason alone that is for Indonesia to glorify God.
Nationalism also has lost its meaning to the general public in Indonesia. The idea that we need to set aside our short term obsessions for long term growth of the country will never gain traction. Indonesians have become like any other nationals that are motivated by biological necessity. Plainly, Indonesians acted according to their economic interest.
This behavior has been predicted by Richard Weaver in his book: Ideas have consequences. He said that as consequence of nominalism view, we deny the existence of moral universals. The highest authority for moral judgment is the individual himself. The denial of the moral universals eventually lead to the demeaning of evil and God. He said that man had come a long way from the image of his creator to a wealth seeking and consuming animals.
For us to redefine nationalism in Indonesia, we need to understand the origin of public space and why it needs the moral universals as stated in the Bible to be a pluralistic space. On that basis, we then can understand why seeking truth is liberating not only on personal level but on the public space.
As it is shown in the Bible and historical records, public space was started as a gathering place to worship gods and idols. In essence, God created the public space to fill humans desire to reconnect to our creator. The public space evolved and became more organized to accommodate the more complicated rituals and larger number of worshippers. The public space was then utilized to elect the worship leaders which then became the leader of the society. Over time, people neglected worship and felt that power came outside worship which led to more secular society.
As the society became secular, the debate that occurs in the public space is mainly focus on defining what our unalienable rights are. From these unalienable rights come other societal contracts or laws that define what is private and public as well as how much freedom to give up for gaining liberty. To define these unalienable rights, we need to answer the basic questions of life: what is our purpose, what is good, and what is evil. We will eventually arrive to a conclusion that we are created by God to glorify Him. From this basic truth, we shall derive the universal moral laws such as piety or godliness, liberty or freedom under God’s law, and serving which includes nationalism.
We want Indonesia to be a pluralistic society. We cannot find the basis in Islam or other religion outside Christianity that support the idea of pluralistic society. Only in Christianity that believes in the concept of common grace can pluralistic society concept not only can be accepted but also can prosper. Abraham Kuyper in his lecture delivered at Princeton University more than 100 years ago stressed this point (Lectures on Calvinism). He argues that God not only created all humans in His divine image, God also works in Humans heart to constrain evil and to foster good. This grace does not bring salvation but it becomes the source of common understanding on what is the ultimate good and evil which serves as the basis for the universal moral laws. Because of this, all Indonesians have the capacity to contribute equally to the general welfare in all spheres of Indonesian society.
However, ultimately sin will corrupt the public space and take away most of our freedom. In reality, more regulations need to be passed to control the society. The society becomes more totalitarian. We probably don’t realize that the US is more likely already becoming totalitarian state. We should realize that totalitarian state does not always mean that we are under physical threat. It could also mean that we are controlled by government regulations, media power, or people majority ruling power. Unfortunately, whenever we experience turmoil, the answer will always be more regulations, sanctions, or believe it or not cops and prisons. We never go back to the bible and rediscover truth to reorient our conscience.
For example, as Christians we should go back and relearn God’s concept of community. This concept has been copied and now known as Social Capital. The whole deposition on the Christian concept of community is beyond this paper. However, one should see the paradox embedded in the community concept to see the significance of Christian perspective. Community in essence is paradoxical. It comprises of many individuals or in a nation of many subgroups. These subgroups commune together because they have shared commonness that is greater than their individual interests. Therefore, we could prevent disunity or chaos by improving shared commonness and minimizing individual interests.
Augustine proposes that the unifying soul of a community is the common love. He summarizes in Latin by these four words ‘amor meus, pondus meum”, which means my love is my destiny. The bottom line is if we are still in love with ourselves and whatever in this world, there will be no shared commonness. Not until we deny ourselves, then we can have a true community and to the extent true nationalism.
In Summary
Last year we discussed how our public space and livelihood are being continually reduced. The implementation of Sharia in highly concentrated Muslim districts such as Padang has put unconstitutional restrictions to the political process. Moderate Muslims, Intellectuals, Nationalists, and Non-Muslim Indonesians are inherently restricted to enter the public space and consequently have shrinking rights or livelihood.
From the left, the nationalists are trapped in the materialistic worldview that focuses on short term gained. The nationalists currently in power have abandoned their vows to uphold the constitution and serve the people. The nationalist elites abuse their power to enrich themselves by tramping on the livelihood of the poor and the middle class. However, if the leadership of Indonesia can instill national pride and build a sense of nationalism, then we could start unlocking the life space and developing the culture, economy, and our global influence (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Nationalism and its limiting influence on economic, cultural, and Indonesia’s global influence.
As a church, we are still living under the shadow of the old Western Christianity. If we don’t feel that way, at least it is the real perception of other Indonesians. We are more willing to participate in Elite/Elitist level (Figure 2). However, we never go to the street and become a friend of the beggars, the cripples, and the blinds. These things never change. When Soekarno was toppled, we gave gold to Soeharto. When Soeharto was replaced, we gave gold to Habibie. But we did not go to the street to fight for both Soekarno and Soeharto demised. We never understand what Kuyper discovered when he entered politics which was Dutch Public Theology. He summarized this theology in two concepts polity and living by faith.
Figure 2. Indonesian churches are still considered outsiders and never adopted Indonesia as their homeland.
Chuck Colson describes humans typically behave according to a certain law as shown in Figure 3. The horizontal axis describes the balance between conscience and regulations. The more conscience the population has, the less regulation it needs to avoid chaos. The vertical axis describes how the building community or social capital can be the antidote of creating chaotic society. This law will also apply in Indonesia. We can regain our liberty by rediscovering our universal moral laws or reactivating our conscience. We can avoid chaos by rediscovering our national pride or nationalism.
Figure 3. Colson’s law on human behavior throughout history.
It is in the interest of the future government to continually cultivate the spirit of positive nationalism through their public policy for at least these three following reasons. First, the new government needs time before its policies can be felt by most Indonesians. In economic front, although we have experienced economic growth exceeding of 6%, our inflation are still high or closer to 11%. Therefore, we probably are not growing by 6%. In order for us to reduce the number of poor, we probably need to grow the economy by double digit to exceed the inflation rate. Second, the new government needs a moral universal values to underpin the pluralistic and yet democratic Indonesian society. These universal values had been inspired by the national anthem and summarized in our national constitution (UUD’45 and Pancasila). Third, the unity of the country depends on the ability to continually refresh and rediscover this sense of nationalism. If nationalism is replaced by Sharia or communism, there will be Indonesia no more because Indonesia was founded on the basis of more than just Islam, geographical location, nor economic system.
Lastly, we as Christians have to be confident that our values and doctrines not only are relevant but also are needed to be the vertebrae of our nationalistic values. We need to develop a public theology that can shape all spheres of life in Indonesia. More importantly, Indonesia needs Jesus to raise us from our graves of sin, poverty, and inhumane, and to take us to the promise land. As it is said in Ezekiel 37:12-13: “Therefore prophesy, and say to them, thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the LORD; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the LORD.”
Reference:
- Chuck Colson sermon series
- Peter Kreeft, “How to win the culture war: A Christian battle plan for a society in crisis”
- Gene E. Veith, Jr., “God at work: Your Christian vocation in all of life”
- Radius Prawiro, “Indonesia’s struggle for economic development: Pragmatism in action”
- Kenneth J. Meier, “Politics and the bureaucracy”
- Thomas A. Birkland, “An introduction to the policy process”
- Harry L. Reeder III, “The leadership dynamics”
- Richard Weaver, “Ideas have consequences”
- Saut Sirait, “Politik Kristen di Indonesia”
- Peter M. Senge, “The fifth discipline”
- Eugene Bardach, “A practical guide for policy analysis”