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?

Labels:

Comments

  1. Anton20/7/17

    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. Tikno20/7/17

      Well, just one word: "ego".
      Correct?

      Delete
    2. Ross29/7/17

      Many? Agree but not majority.

      Delete

Post a Comment

NOTE: comment moderation is activated due to a lot of spam comments. Comments containing racial hatred, personal attacks, or advertising are strictly prohibited.

POPULAR POSTS LAST 7 DAYS:

VETO VS DEMOCRACY

In this post I only quotes the things associated with the two words above. Please use your sense and read carefully to find and feel the fundamental differences from it. VETO According to Wikipedia : A veto, Latin for I FORBID , is used to denote that a certain party has the right to stop unilaterally a certain piece of legislation. In practice, the veto can be ABSOLUTE (as in the U.N. Security Council, whose permanent members can block any resolution). In the United Nations Security Council, the five permanent members (the United States, Russia, the People's Republic of China, France and the United Kingdom) have veto power in substantive matters, though NOT in procedural ones. If any of these countries votes against a proposal, it is REJECTED , even if all of the other member countries vote in favor. According to Global Policy Forum : "The five permanent members of the Security Council (China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, and United States) ENJOY the privilege of veto po...
84 comments
Read more

Dam burst tragedy and three important notes

On Friday, March 27, 2009, Situ Gintung dam at Cirendeu, Tangerang, southeast of Jakarta, has broken-down and the water flooded like a small tsunami, washing away cars, houses and settlement area. Ninety nine people were killed and 102 others were missing (update the number of victims from www.kompas.com on Tuesday, March 31, 2009). My condolence for victims and their family. From all of that, there are three important notes that I want to share through this blog. First , it is indeed the embankment that broken-down was caused by excessive debit of water. Situ Gintung levee was originally built under Dutch colonial authorities era, only able to accommodate 1 million cubic of water, while the debit of water before the incident has reached 2 million cubic of water debit. There should be early warning for residents who live around the embankment when felt there was something that threatens the safety of citizens. In Situ Gintung actually already there, but not work well. Second , allotm...
50 comments
Read more

Flood In Samarinda City

From Friday, November 7th 2008 (Indonesian time), the flood was happened at several places in Samarinda city, and four days next (November 11th) has overflowed into more areas. Close to afternoon the electricity around the city has switched off by the electric company. At one place, a student Roby has died because the flood's water containing electric current derived from the traffic light pole. That's the reason why the electricity cannot be switched on until they find its problems. Local newspapers had reported that in several places the flood's height is about 40 to 100 cm and flooding over hundreds houses. Schools and shops in serious flood location has been holiday. From obtained news, the flood was caused by the high rainfall, dam water overflow, the river water was rising and was aggravated with the shallow riverbed. In the area of the Unmul botanical garden, as many as thirteen crocodile was wandering because the guardrail was broken as a result of being bashed by t...
68 comments
Read more