Indonesia: Peoples and Histories - Tengku Muhammad Dhani Iqbal

INTRODUCTION
youths who wanted to arouse in Muslims an objection to rule by Christians.
Some also wanted to wrest Islam from its local roots, to shed the distinctive
features of Indonesian cultures celebrated by nationalists, and align Islam with
Arabness.
This book is a social history more than a political one. It narrates journeys
of peoples of the archipelago into today’s republic. It aims to set the lives of
men, women, and children in huts, workshops, and palaces, to present parallel
histories, influenced and influencing, submerged but not obliterated by the
big picture. The subtitle of the book is Peoples and Histories because many pasts
have fused into the nation of Indonesia.
I believe that the past consists of facts about people and processes that are
knowable and verifiable and that interpretations select and suppress facts according
to the personality and moral judgments of each historian. Every writer
has an agenda that emphasizes one class or one gender or one region. Individual
authors may have an aptitude for economic or technological history, or a
fascination with individuals in their settings. My approach to Indonesian histories
grew out of an early interest in the meeting of Indonesian and Dutch in
Asian settings. That interest led into other pasts and times before and since
those encounters.
Modern Indonesia’s presidents have ruled a state that has existed longer
than the Dutch colony did in its final form. They have drawn on technologies
available to the modern world to generate a profound identity of Indonesian
through the state ideology of Panca Sila, whose ideal followers believe in one
God, in one Indonesian identity, in a place in the world for Indonesia, in a
homegrown solution to political organization, and in a just and prosperous society.
This state philosophy competes with Islam and its commitment to Allah,
Muhammad, Islamic law, and a place for Indonesia within the world Islamic
community.
Sukarno, who was Indonesia’s first president (in office 1945–1967), perceived
Indonesia as a land of village republics with traditions of mutual aid,
discussion, and consensus that could be applied to the national level. Maria
Ulfah Santoso, Indonesia’s first woman law graduate, viewed the same landscape
and saw women wanting monogamy and the vote. In 1945 she advocated
protection for all Indonesians through a bill of rights. Pakubuwono X,
ruler of the princedom of Surakarta from 1893 to 1939, wanted to be acknowledged
king of Java. The visionary Kartosuwiryo (1905–1962) accepted
the title of imam from his followers, preached withdrawal, and launched his
militias on campaigns to usher in an Islamic state. The communist activist Tan
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