however, that development does not only sustain the regime’s legitimacy, but is also an aspiration that has been used in the process of nation-building. 6. Nation-building, development and modernity After the independence, the Indonesian state claimed that the territorial boundaries of the Netherlands East Indies as being Indonesia, it thus asserted itself as the successor of the colonial authority. At that time, while the Indonesian state came to existence, there was no such thing as an Indonesian nation. The only common denominator of the “Indonesian” was that they were all part of a colony. With the exception of this common denominator, “Indonesian” actually were consisting of various cultures, languages, and customary laws and, thus, they lacked a sense of common belonging. The Indonesian state used both the colonial past and distant memories of the Majapahit kingdom (which ruled in fourteen centuries a territory almost similar to contemporary Indonesia) as ways to create a common sense of belonging. Thus, the Indonesian state had to construct a national community, or, to use Benedict Anderson’s term 10 ; an “imagined community”. In Indonesia, as in most former colonies, nationalism emerged not so much as a result from national self-determination, but more from an “anti-colonial” nationalism. This characteristic limits the nationalist sentiments to the achievement of independence. It cannot really be regarded as a “true” nationalist movement as there is no actual or potential Indonesian nation (Smith 1991, 108). Hence, the state is required to start from scratches the nation-building process, to create both a national culture and a political identity that will unite its diverse and distinct communities into one national community. In the context of de-colonization, one pre-condition for nation-building is territorial integrity and unity. As explained by Clive Christie,
“In reality, Indonesian identity had been forged not by any indigenous historical
process, but simply by the consolidation of the Dutch Empire. It was precisely
because of this weakness of what might be called historic national legitimacy that the