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Pancasila a 'religious laicity' for the world ?
Why use the term “laicity” to refer to the Indonesian approach to the place of religion within the state?
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A man sweeps the floor of the Potent Pancasila Monument in East Jakarta. (Antara Photo/Risky Andrianto)
A
seminar recently organized by the French Embassy and the Leimena Institute brought together Muslim scholars from various institutions around the ambassadors of France, Germany and the European Union.
Entitled “Pancasila and the European models: Toward mutual inspirations,” this event highlighted ways to overcome harsh opposition between secularism and Islamic governance which often ends in deadlock.
As an illustration Pancasila could be a source of universal inspiration and that it is possible to draw a fruitful parallel between the religious ideology of the Indonesian state and French laicity.
The first argument that comes to mind when thinking about the potential universality of Pancasila is the fact that it is the product of multiple influences including foreign ones.
Unlike most Muslim-majority countries that had to choose urgently, and sometimes painfully at the time of their independence, between a secularized regime and the adoption of Islam as the state religion, Indonesia is one of the rare cases in which in-depth political debates were held on the relation between religion and the state.
If one wants to have an idea of the diversity of references mobilized in the collective debate and deliberation which led to the adoption of Pancasila, one needs only to read the famous speech of Sukarno later called “the Birth of Pancasila”.
Indonesia’s founding father proposed to adopt five principles of Pancasila with reference to Negarakertagama. He acknowledged the influence of Sun Yat Sen, the founder of the Republic of China, quoted Ernest Renan, the French historian of national identity, and also Mahatma Gandhi.
