Recently I was invited to speak on “Indonesia’s Independence and Its Relevance Today”. The theme made no sense to me. The line did not sound right. The relevance of Indonesia’s independence is the freedom you and I are enjoying today.
There are people who think and feel little about the name given them by their parents, and there are others who hold their names in high esteem. To “what’s in a name”, some would argue that, “it’s my name at stake”.
In the special National Awakening Day issue of this paper (May 19), Perbanas director Harinowo challenged us to ask whether our souls and our beings were still capable of “dreaming”, while India, China and even Brazil are already realizing their dreams. Harinowo is an economist, and he knows well where we and this nation stand on this point.
In recent years, Muslim radicals here have gained more power and energy, largely due to the weakness of our state. Our present government is backed by several parties and many of them are clearly in favor of those radicals.
June 1, 2008, will be remembered as a black day in the history of Indonesian democracy. A group of people from different walks of life — Balinese Hindus, Javanese Catholics, Sumatran Protestants, Buddhists and Confucianists from Celebes and Muslims from all over Indonesia were beaten up by radicals.
“Indonesia is still in the process of becoming,” said a rector of a reputable national university in Jakarta last month. Hundreds of students from several universities in and around Jakarta sat mesmerized by his fine oratory and body movements, hearing him speaking without understanding just what he meant.