While the United States debates what multiculturalism is, what it should be, and whether it is even a desirable goal, Indonesia appears to have gone a long way towards conceptualizing and implementing a national vision of multi-ethnic coexistence. "Unity in Diversity" (Bhinneka Tunggall Ika) was proclaimed the national motto of newly-independent Indonesia when it served the bonds of Dutch colonial rule at the end of World War II. The motto, drawn from Sanskrit and attributed to rulers of the Majapahit Empire (a Javanese polity of the 14th century), evokes ancient ties between Javanese and other powerful Asian Kingdoms.
The prominent use of this motto by Indonesia's two post-Independence leaders, former President Sukarno and current President Suharto, is noteworthy for two reasons. First, it marks their early insights about the political importance of supporting a diversified multi-ethnic fusion rather than an American-style "melting pot." Second, the maxim tellingly represents how Indonesian government policies have been designed to address the political challenge of cultural pluralism through the mass manipulation of cultural ideas about a glorious common history and the harmonies present founded on important yet unthreatenting social differences.
The history of post-Independence Indonesia thus offers a contrast to that of other areas a contrast to that of other areas of the world that are torn by ethnic strife. The Indonesian government has succeeded in constructing a unified, multi-ethnic state (admittedly at some costs to its ethnic minorities) with the fourth largest population in the world (after China, India and the USA) and the thirteenth largest economy, just behind Canada's.
THE POLITICAL CHALLENGES AFTER INDEPENDENCE
On August 17th 1945, Indonesia was proclaimed an independent republic with Sukarno as its first president. The new government faced the challenge of politically uniting almost 100 million people comprising approximately 300 ethnic groups who spoke an estimated 650 local languages. Moreover, this heterogeneous mixture was spread out over 6,000 inhabited islands encompassing almost 2 million square kilometer archipelago roughly as broad as the United States. The country's population was distributed very asymmetrically with approximately 60% of the population clustered on the central or "inner islands" of Java, Madura, and Bali which comprise only 7% of the nation's land mass. By world standards the citizens, were impoverished and had been kept largely illiterate by the elite-oriented Dutch colonial education system.
The newly independent government inherited from the Dutch regime few tools with which to forge an ethnic union except a basic legal code, the administrative use of Malay as a lingua franca, and a set of arbitrary political boundaries running from the island of Sumatra in the west up to the island of New Guinea in the west up to he island of New Guinea in the east. And aspect of genius in the Sukarno regime, which would be further developed under President Suharto, was its ability to orchestrate public policies which engaged virtually all ethnic groups in the process of constructing new national identities. Ultimately these identities were drawn toward the aim of stable and uniform economic development. Although sporadic ethnic rebellions broke out in many areas of the archipelago between 1950 and 1964, virtually all these incidents were motivated by struggles for higher political status within the new Indonesian nation, not for a separation from it (Anderson 1983:120).
The Indonesian government channeled the revolutionary fervor an diffuse nationalism of its citizens in the post-Independence period into feelings of pride in the illustrious heritage of past Javanese and other, smaller regional kingdoms. The army, dominated by Javanese, was given as unusual dual role in implementing national defense (including internal security) and economic development. At the same time the government sought to defuse inter-ethnic tensions through a continuing mass media and public education program and focused not only upon literacy and skills but on a common platform for "moral development," largely emphasizing the government's national philosophy, the Pancasila. Outlined by President Sukarno in 1945, the Pancasila (meaning "Five Principles" in Sanskrit) are: belief in a supreme God, humanitarianism, national unity, democracy, and social justice. By inserting the term Tuhan yang Maha Esa ("God who is the Great One") into the Pancasila doctrine other than the Islamic term Allah, Sukarno intentionally encopassed the legitimacy of Hindu, Christian, and Buddhist minorities of the country to offset the potentially volatile political power of the 90% Muslim majority.
Despite his early revolutionary vision and personal charisma, Sukarno lost control over his "Old Order" government in September 1965 during what was labelled at the time as an "aborted communist coup." Benedict Anderson and Ruth McVey later reinterpreted the event as an internal army purge designed to depose Sukarno whose alliances with the Indonesian communist party (PKI) became unacceptable to the armed forces and leading Islamic groups. No matter who was responsible for the "abortive coup," the controversial event was followed by devastating anti-communist, anti-Chinese riots particularly on Java, Bali, and Sumatra.
The social explosions of 1965 resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Indonesians and Chinese. The tensions which sparked these attacks often have been traced to Sukarno's economic policies, which resulted in hyperinflation, increased hardship for the average citizen, and billions of dollars of foreign debt for the nation. Moreover, the ethic rage which was visited on those of Chinese descent was fueled by the disproportionate Chinese control of the nation's business enterprises and wealth - resources upon which political leaders in Java depended, and continue to depend. For Suhorto's succession to the presidency to succeed, he desperately needed both real economic gains for the majority and a mean to neutralize incendiary discourses about ethnic, religious, political, and wealth differences among the nation's citizens.
SUHARTO'S VISION OF DIVERSE UNITY AND ITS CULTURAL IMPLEMENTATION
The New Order government's early emphasis on the improvement of national infrastructure ensured that outer island ethnic minorities were not only subject to greater social controls but also received some benefits from expanding services such as roads, schools, and health clinics. President Suharto has achieved further successes in controlling the military, revamping the national economy, and securing virtual self-sufficiency in rice production. He has been praised for establishing productive foreign relations with other Southeast Asian nations and the West, but his acumen in handling the internal "politics of culture" is even more noteworthy (Liddle 1988; Pemberton 1989; Kipp 1993). Under the New Order regime, certain aspects of ethnic difference have been concealed while others have been promoted, coopted, and even invented to serve the twin causes of national stability and economic development.
While citizens of the United States are currently discussing the necessity and constitutionality of regulating ethnic "hate speech" on college campuses and elsewhere, Indonesia decided in favor of a government-regulated code of "political correctness" decades ago in order to curtail ethnic unrest. The Indonesian government's interpretation of the Pancasila philosophy has entailed the suppression of all overt ethnic and religious sectarianism in public political forums since the 1970s. In the mid-1980s Indonesian political parties and religious organizations were further required to acknowledge the Pancaila doctrine as the primary philosophical foundation for their organizations. Although such government pressures set off brief incidents of Muslim rioting and terrorism, Suharto moved swiftly to punish "extremists," thereby assuring cooperation from the majority who were urged to avoid "tribalism" (sukuisme).
Recent political history suggests that the most serious challenges to Indonesia's political unity derive not from the existence of hundreds of small ethnic minorities located on the outer islands, but rather from the explosive dynamics of centralized Javanese political power working in conjunction with the business wealth of non-Muslim, ethnic Chinese (Kipp 1993:109). Thus the New Order government has sought to mask from public view aspects of ethnic difference that reveal discrepancies in economic opportunities, including political nepotism within the Javanese-dominated government bureaucracy and economic nepotism within lucrative Chinese business enterprises.
The government's efforts to legislate unity by disguising certain aspects of ethnic, religious, and class differences have been complemented, paradoxically, by a simultaneous effort to showcase other aspects of regional cultural diversity. Although the numerically small ethnic Chinese minority - associated with foreignness, disproportionate wealth and a stilldreaded communism - is completely ignored by government efforts to highlight the nation's ethnic diversity, other ethnic groups throughout the archipelago have been drawn into a national campaign to celebrate their seemingly timeless "traditional" customs. Most particularly, the Ministry of Education and Culture has sought to identify and display the most apolitical features of regional identity such as local costumes, dances, handicrafts, and architecture. These plastic elements are then presented to both locals and foreign visitors as the visible and meaningful bases of regional ethnic identities and differences.
In the early 1970s at the nation's political center in Jakarta, President and Mrs. Suharto began construction of a disneyland-inspired "Beautiful Indonesia in Miniature" theme park (Taman Mini "In