Skip to main content

Diversity is destiny

Competition between pair Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (known as Ahok) - Djarot Saiful Hidayat and Anis Baswedan - Sandiaga Uno in the Jakarta gubernatorial election has ended. Although the scale of this election is only for Jakarta, this political contestation has a wide influence in Indonesia and gained international attention. Because for the first time a candidate, namely Basuki Tjahaja Purnama is from "double minority" background that is ethnic Chinese and Christian

I do not want to talk at length about the first paragraph in this post because I'm sure everyone in Indonesia already knows about the political tension behind it and how its influence to the national unity. I am only interested in conveying the philosophical message to you all in relation to that matter.

Diversity is destiny. So that is destiny if Indonesia consist of multi ethnics: Chinese, Balinese, Javanese, Sundanese, Acehnese, Irian, etc. More globally there are white, yellow, black. We can not choose to be born as what tribe or nation as we want. We can not choose to be born into Muslim, Christian, or Buddhist family. We can not choose to be born into rich family. That is God's choice !!! So diversity is the grace from God. The biggest problem is not everyone realizes that it is God's choice.

Fortunately Indonesia has national four pillars to unite thousands of islands, tribes, cultures, customs, and languages in it, namely:

  1. Pancasila as the foundation of the country.
  2. Undang-Undang Dasar 1945 (in English : 1945 Constitution) as the state constitution.
  3. Negara Kesatuan Republik Indonesia (in English: The Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia) as the form of the country.
  4. Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (in English : Unity In Diversity) as the motto of the country.

I hope the fourth pillar, Unity In Diversity, can be adopted by the United Nations as a universal value for this world. Do you agree?

Comments

  1. The problem is that many Indonesians have forgotten about the fourth pillar. They think diversity is a problem and must be eliminated.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, just one word: "ego".
      Correct?

      Delete
    2. Many? Agree but not majority.

      Delete

Post a Comment

NOTE: Comments are moderated to block spam. Genuine comments will be published even if you are critical or disagree with me. Hate speech, personal attacks, ads, or spam will be removed.

POPULAR POSTS LAST 7 DAYS:

Condemns the Koran burning plan

Terry Jones, a pastor who leads a tiny church called "The Dove World Outreach Center" in Gainesville, Florida, U.S. plans to burn copies of Koran on September 11, 2010, as reported on New York Times with the title: A Bonfire in Danger of Spreading . The reason of this action is to commemorate the event of terrorist attacks on 9/11. Gosh, for me it's really a crazy plan. I warn you that your plan, if it really happened, will spreading the new tensions around the world and very possibly this event (burns the Quran) could be used by extremists as a justification to act further. I also condemn the creator of a Facebook page titled " International Burn A Koran Day " and urge the owner of Facebook to aware and immediately remove such page because the contents of this page just showing emotional debate, hatred and also stupid. Any negative actions will produce another negative reactions as opposed to you . If we really want to give a small contribution for peace and ha...

Someone Stole My Article: What to Do About Plagiarism

A user of www.Zimbio.com with the initials "Pinoy" has stolen my articles titled " Long Journey for Alcoholic Beverage in Indonesia " without my permission nor mentioning the source of original post (my article). I call this plagiarism or cheating . He/She has completely copying (stole) my article into his/her blog and then submit that article to www.Zimbio.com using his/her blog as the source with user name "Pinoy". Firstly I found my article was published at www.Zimbio.com with the URL: http://www.zimbio.com/member/pinoy/articles/Lz8BZTf7gh9/%20Long+journey+alcoholic+beverage+Indonesia And below is the captured image from Zimbio page, where my article has been stolen by Pinoy. Click the image to enlarge and look at the red arrow or visit its link to dig more. You can see that the source of article was mentioned from "global-ids.blogspot.com" (plagiarist blog). Out of curiosity then I clicked on the link and found my article are also stolen an...

Kartini's Day and Indonesian women

Raden Ajeng Kartini On April 21 each year the Indonesian nation commemorate Kartini's Day . Actually Kartini's Day is similar to Mother's Day (celebrated in Indonesia on December 22) or International Women's Day. Perhaps to understand Mother's Day you need to understand a person in your life called Mother, and for the International Women's Day and Kartini's Day perhaps you need to understand the person in your life called wife or sister. If you are underestimating women then firstly you need to look at your mother . Am I wrong? In short: That is all for women. In wider meaning: That is how these special Day to further raise the awareness of Indonesian society or even the world - especially the women themselves - about women rights, their struggle for equality, and their important role in various spheres of life. This is also an occasion for Indonesian women to review how far their struggle get acknowledgment especially from the point of view of Indonesian tr...