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A Pancasila discussion
Where are we on infrastructure, education, food production, logistics, urbanization, ASEAN and global issues and so on?
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Indonesia’s national emblem, Garuda Pancasila, is hung at an offering altar. JP/Tarko Sudiarno (JP/Tarko Sudiarno)
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ancasila Day is a time to reflect on how we are faring, which is what some of us by chance found ourselves doing on June 1. Where are we on infrastructure, education, food production, logistics, urbanization, ASEAN and global issues and so on?
What Indonesia has managed over seven decades is quite astonishing against a background of large global changes fueled first by competing ideologies surviving the ructions of World War II and then an astonishing, long-term unsustainable rapid expansion in global population. In parallel, there came the 1960s dawning of the computer age and its rapid expansion across all fields of human endeavor, in turn its continual sophistication and miniaturization.
In telecommunications, what is up-to-date today is already approaching obsolence next year, but even slightly dated technology has hugely changed the nature of communications, arguably not always for the better.
But we can now instantly connect with someone by voice, video and text, which was unheard of less than 40 years ago and overall this must be seen as a force for good.
Yet there are still too many people not connected and barely scratching a living to stay alive, and serious ongoing wars creating insufferable refugee crises.
Within the large archipelagic republic, the rooting of democracy within the ideals set out by Pancasila provides a solid foundation for steady, peaceful growth, which can only be unsettled if the ideals are ignored and government does not pay enough attention to providing a sound formula to alleviate poverty and give employment. Solving these issues, which also unfortunately remain large around the world, means accelerating actions on building out infrastructure and widening and upgrading education at all levels.
There is no sufficiently understood growing issue on the need to significantly increase food production through improving current agricultural practices, which also requires a strong element of instruction. It is frankly a poor reflection on a country which is blessed with some of the best climatic conditions in the world and plentiful fertile soil that it needs to import basic food commodities, instead of being an important exporter to other needy countries.
