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Pancasila is better than no ideology, experts say
Indonesia may face disintegration if its national ideology, Pancasila, is replaced by sharia, said politicians and historians Monday
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ndonesia may face disintegration if its national ideology, Pancasila, is replaced by sharia, said politicians and historians Monday.
Pancasila was developed by Indonesia's founding fathers as a middle way to accommodate the interests of numerous ethnic, cultural and religious groups in Indonesia. Any attempt to replace it with religious ideology would trigger civil conflict and tear Indonesia apart, experts said.
Indonesia will observe today the 65th anniversary of the birth of Pancasila on June 1, 1945. The People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) will host the celebration for the first time in 20 years, and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is expected to attend.
Irman Gusman, Speaker of the Regional Representatives Council (DPD), said that the celebration would strengthen Pancasila's position as the ideology that glues the nation's ethnic, religious and cultural groups together.
"History has proven that Pancasila has been very effective in saving the nation from the dangers of communism and capitalism. We need it to achieve social justice," he told The Jakarta Post on Monday.
The country might have disintegrated into several smaller countries along ethnic and religious lines without Pancasila, he added.
The five tenets of Pancasila are belief in one God, just and civilized humanity, unity of Indonesia, democracy guided by consensus and social justice for all.
Pancasila lost popularity after Soeharto's downfall in 1998. Pancasila was abused by Soeharto during his authoritarian 32-year rule.
Islamic fundamentalist groups have recently revived their old dream to replace Pancasila with sharia, which is supported by some Islamic political parties.
Slamet Effendy Yusuf, deputy chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), Indonesia's largest moderate-Muslim organization, said that the sharia campaign was a setback and would undermine the nation's progress over the last six decades.
"The whole nation should celebrate the birth of Pancasila on June 1 and stop questioning its position as the state's ideology.
"For NU, Pancasila is final and *we* will never entertain any idea of replacing it. The real problem is how to refresh our perceptions of it and put it into the 1945 Constitution and lower laws," he said in a recent discussion.
A.M. Fatwa, a regional representative and Muslim figure, is opposed to celebrating Pancasila's birthday on June 1. He was imprisoned by Soeharto regime for celebrating Pancasila's birthday on June 22, the day the Jakarta Charter was established.
Fatwa said that Pancasila was mentioned in the preamble of an early version of the 1945 Constitution that had also mentioned sharia.
"We want it to be celebrated by political parties and mass organizations, instead of state institutions. If the nationalist Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) wants to celebrate Pancasila because its ideology is close to founding president Sukarno's, it should be given chance to do so," he said.
However, the government and the state should not observe a national celebration of Pancasila, as some have wanted, he added.
All parts of society should accept Pancasila as the final state ideology and end the prolonged debate, or Indonesia would suffer a setback, said Asvi Warman Adam, a historian at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences.
