TheJakartaPost
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Equality, diversity, inclusion in Indonesia
I have spent some 40 years working in 13 countries across every continent and I know no country more diverse than Indonesia.
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Connection: Seniors Cornelius RJ and Queensy Lovenia pose in front of the mural they created with their classmates. (JP/Aman Rochman)
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hose of us foreigners who have the privilege of spending a few years living and working in wonderful Indonesia sometimes struggle to make our friends back home appreciate the magnitude and global significance of this country.
The whole world seems to know that the three world population giants are China, India and the United States and we’re all used to seeing Chinese, Indian and American political narratives unfurl across the global news channels every day. These are the big three and they let us know it.
But the fourth? That certainly stumps my British friends. Russia? Brazil? Pakistan? And then, where is the world’s largest Islamic umma? Well, obviously, in the Middle East or perhaps South Asia.
One anecdote we all happily resort to is the archipelago fact. Forget the 17,500 individual islands and just focus on the 9,000 or so populated ones. Explore Indonesia by visiting one of these populated islands a day and your journey to discover Indonesia will take you a mere 25 years.
That’s some holiday (or professional induction) and a day each for those biggies — Java, Sumatra, Sulawesi, Kalimantan et al — is something of a further challenge. So, just a quarter of a century to zip around the peoples of Indonesia.
That fact is anecdotal certainly — a dinner party show stopper. But it’s much more than that. It’s a fact that also testifies to what must surely be the intellectual brand, the global meaning of Indonesia.
This is a country whose singular identity is determined primarily by its multiple diversity. Bhinneka tunggal ika?
