Shielded: Shielded by Bung Karno.

In 1970, Sukarno died at the age of 69.

Anxious authorities figured that Blitar, 170 kilometers south of Surabaya, East Java, was far enough from Jakarta to ensure that the tomb of the late president would become neither a shrine nor a rallying station for popular resistance to Soeharto, the man who grabbed the top job after Sukarno was removed five years earlier.

For a while the isolation strategy seemed to be working. But in 1998, when Soeharto was dethroned, the people of Blitar set about repairing their favorite son'€™s reputation (he was said to have been born there) as the nation'€™s founding father.

Accepting Sukarno'€™s five-pronged Pancasila as state ideology as opposed to a belief system defined by religion was a standout decision made during Indonesia'€™s early national history.

Another triumph was not embalming the body of Sukarno and putting him in an icy mausoleum a la Mao Zedong in Beijing. Had that happened, Blitar would now be in adulatory overdrive.

Today, a grand museum stands near Sukarno'€™s grave, and for the past 15 years June has been proclaimed Sukarno Month. This year'€™s Sukarno Month began on the evening of May 31 with a procession of strange and even outlandish floats: The one from the museum'€™s archives department featured a flag of a filing cabinet, while the float built by the water-supply department featured phantom taps '€” some truly weird stuff.

Illuminated: This model of Sukarno is larger-than-life '€” and eerily lit.
The carnival continued on day two with a series of speeches, marches and even a squadron of Roman legionnaire look-a-likes wielding tin shields emblazoned with the Pancasila emblem who chanted Tandyo! a word that translates to '€œready'€ in high Javanese.

To top it off, there were dancers whose incendiary beauty could inflame a reception for Hollywood hots.

'€œThe first of June should be a national holiday to recognize Pancasila Day, the day when Sukarno first declared the five principles,'€ said Djoko Harijanto, former creative director of the parade.

'€œFor us, Pancasila and Sukarno are inseparable, and this is the time [to celebrate them both].'€

As would be expected, many of the displays in the parade featured the first president punching the air, looking splendid in that tidy white suit and black glasses. This was indeed the iconic shot that struck fear in the hearts of many Westerners who thought perhaps there was a '€œred'€ demagogue lurking somewhere behind those frames.

A parade of floats continued to enthrall. Junior high school teachers Mohammad Ashari, Nurul Purwandari and Suwarno bin Ruslan built a Chinese dragon to celebrate ethnic diversity.

They followed this the next day with a giant fruit and vegetable salad containing shredded carrots and drooping chili. The chilies seemed to cook faster in the ferocious sun than they would have on a gas stove.

'€œThis is part of our education and we all have to be here,'€ said science teacher Nurul.

Warriors: Men bear shields emblazoned with the five symbols of Pancasila.
'€œPancasila is important, particularly as an antidote for corruption, though many in the younger generations are not interested [in learning about it].'€

But it wasn'€™t just students who came out to celebrate. Hundreds of gray-suited public servants could be seen lounging at the alun-alun, the great grass square that holds a giant banyan tree and a tall gazebo at its center.

From this vantage, there was a clear view of the scores of bureaucrats sitting and smoking as a choir sang the national anthem and readings of the five Pancasila principles rang through the air.

Only the most serious and those nearest the main stage paid this show of patriotism any mind, however. The show continued.

One group had built an ogoh-ogoh, or giant papier-mâché ogre, whose unsteady swaying forced the float to stop suddenly in the heavy traffic.

Among the 50-odd floats, there were several musical groups whose performances ran the gamut from brilliant to bad to ghastly. Fortunately, however, nobody seemed to care. Pancasila is some esoteric stuff, but this night was never going to get too cerebral.

Perhaps there were a few foreigners mixed into the five-deep crowd that lined the 2 kilometer parade path, but none were reported by the marshals.

'€œI regret this,'€ said Blitar Deputy Mayor H. Purnawa Buchori. '€œWe have got to attract tourists. This is a marvelously colorful and exciting event that visitors would love to see, and we'€™re not getting the word out. I promise that next year will be different.'€

But before then there are lots of functions and speeches to enjoy. It all ends on June 21, the day Sukarno passed away, not too far from Blitar.