TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Millennials' take on ideology
Millennials will dominate the voter demographics, and about 10 million of them will be first-time voters next year. Will they elect leaders who will strengthen Indonesia’s diversity and shun intolerance?
Change Size
National interest: The country’s national emblem, the Garuda Pancasila, carries the Sanskrit motto “Bhinneka Tunggal Ika” (Unity in Diversity). (JP/Maksum Nur Fauzan)
I
quietly sympathize with a friend who has to teach the mandatory Pancasila course at a university. Pancasila is the state ideology comprising five sila, or pillars. Aren’t the students, self-trained to avoid uncool subjects such as ideology, rolling their eyes?
Of course, that’s the challenge. “I assigned tasks that have them show how they practice Pancasila in everyday situations,” my friend said. “I tried to make it less boring.”
An Indonesian movie, launched on the first of June, Pancasila Day, is focused on doing just that: showing how Pancasila exists in the life of an Indonesian middle-class family.
Titled Lima (Five), this is a film about Pancasila, said the producer, Lola Amaria. “Pancasila is not to be memorized, but Pancasila should be implemented in everyday life with our family and at our workplace,” her statement reads. She works with four other directors, each working on one story inspired by each of the five sila — belief in one God, humanity, Indonesia’s unity, the rule of the people through musyawarah (dialog) and representation, and last but not least, social justice for all. Indeed, Pancasila’s lofty ideals are expressed through words that are not easy to digest and not present in everyday conversation.
