Our Diversity

KOMPAS/P RADITYA MAHENDRA YASA

A mural with the theme of diversity adorns one of the walls of a building in Lamper Village, Semarang City, Central Java, on Friday (14/8/2020).

One of the strengths of the Indonesian nation lies in its diversity. There are various religions, hundreds of local languages, thousands of islands and many ethnic groups. Apart from the large number of ethnicities such as Javanese, Sundanese and Malay, Indonesia is also home to the largest Melanesian race in the world, greater than the combined Melanesians in six countries: Papua New Guinea, Timor Leste, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Solomon and Fiji.

The majority of the Melanesian race is in Papua, West Papua, Maluku, North Maluku and Nusa East Southeast. Diversity is an asset and wealth of the Indonesian nation. With this diversity, this nation has great potential to have a rich perspective when looking at various problems.

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The nation’s awareness of plurality was realized long before independence with the Youth Pledge on 28 Oct. 1928 as a very important historical milestone. However, due to the long history, many consider this diversity issue as over or take it for granted. In fact, diversity is always changing (evolving) and dynamic.

Issues related to diversity, for example, lie in the fact that even though our awareness of diversity has ingrained and become a part of this nation, however, to borrow the term from Hajriyanto Thohari (2015), in reality sometimes it is still “segmented” and “fragmented”. Some people only interact with those of the same faith and some others feel reluctant to live with those who come from a certain ethnicity.

In some places there are also housing clusters and schools devoted to certain religions. Even cemeteries must be separated based on religion. The phenomenon of rejections at boarding house for those from a particular religion or ethnicity also shows that some of us still adopt that segmented and fragmented diversity.

What happened at Wisma Transito Mataram shows that some of us still find it difficult to live together with those who are different. At Transito, there are hundreds of members of the Ahmadiyah congregation who live inside tiny cubicles separated with clothes after they were expelled from their home and village in 2006.

They fantasize that harmony will occur if society is homogeneous.

There is a growing sectarianism and exclusivism in some societies. They fantasize that harmony will occur if society is homogeneous. The fantasy is described by Slavoj Zizek in his words: "If only they weren\'t here, life would be perfect, and society will be harmonious again.

Segmentation and fragmentation

Politically, among the factors that affect the fabric of diversity is the creation of new administrative areas (regency or province) that sometimes lead to the growing segmentation and fragmentation of diversity. It happens because, among others, the creation of the new province or regency is based on the intention that certain ethnic or ethnic group can rule in the area.

KOMPAS/RONY ARIYANTO NUGROHO

Interfaith people chat at the Garuda Pancasila statue at the Cathedral Church, Jakarta, when they gather before breaking the fast together with the theme of Strengthening Tolerance, Brotherhood and Human Solidarity, on Friday (1/6/2018).

Things like this then open the Pandora\'s box of the growing primordialism and feudalism, which can also potentially be misused for the sake of separating themselves from Indonesian diversity. Fortunately, the government carried out a moratorium on the creation of a new province or regency since 2016. Otherwise, as many as 300 proposals for the creation of new administrative areas at the Home Ministry could add to the problem of segmentation and fragmentation of our diversity.

One more challenge for our diversity is the existence of the tendency of “majoritarianism” among how many people. Majoritarianism is often interpreted as the will that the fate of the nation is only determined and controlled by the majority group, while the minority only play a passive, minimal or silent role (Sidney Jones 2019).

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Majoritarianism here certainly does not only occur at national level, but also in certain provinces and carried out by certain ethnic or religious groups. In responding to this (phenomenon) it is necessary to recall what founding father Bung Karno had said about the goal of establishing this country: "Are we going to establish an Independent Indonesia for certain people, for certain groups? ... Certainly not! ... It’s not our goal to create such country. We are about to establish a country ‘[by] all for all’” (Sukarno 1947, 7).

This is because indeed every citizen is essentially the same and equal.

I strongly agree with the opinion that the terms majority-minority are not supposed to exist in our national politics dictionary. The dichotomy needs not to exist in government policies. This is because indeed every citizen is essentially the same and equal.

However, the growing majoritarianism phenomenon has made the group of citizens, which is the minority group, experience marginalization and is under threat of losing equal rights. If this term is removed from public discourse, the public awareness of the existence of this social injustice will be obscured.

The challenge for this nation in the future is how to change the plurality that is still segmented and fragmented into a beautiful and impressive mosaic. The recognition of diversity should only not stop on the recognition and knowledge about the reality of Indonesia’s diversity, but it needs a way on how to celebrate and fill it.

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The recognition of diversity requires the absence of certain groups that feel more important than other groups, or even disregard the contributions of other groups. In politics, recognition of plurality means an affirmation that the power under a democratic system must not be monopolized by certain oligarchs.

KOMPAS/YUNIADHI AGUNG

Ahmad Najib Burhani

There is always optimism that this will happen because one of the basic values of Indonesian society is mutual cooperation, the high spirit of sharing and working together, as well as a willingness to sacrifice for fellow. We also have cultural treasures that unite our diversity as a nation into one soul. Among them, as written in the book “Sains45” (2016), is sustained by the philosophy of “Torang Samua Basudara” (We are all brothers), one nation in diversity.

AHMAD NAJIB BURHANI, Research Professor at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI)