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Unity
in Diversity
Indonesia,
with over 228 million people, has the fourth
largest population in the world. Indonesia
can be considered a spectrum of all the
Asia cultures, races and religions with
87% Muslim, 6%Protestant, 3%Roman catholic,
2%Hindu, 1%Buddhist and 1%other. Freedom
of religion is protected by the Indonesian
Constitution, which defined in the First
Principles of the State Philosophy.
From
"Sabang till Merauke" is the name
of a song dedicated to Indonesia’s
many island and it’s diversity. Sabang
is a small island just off the coast of
Sumatra; Merauke is a small village near
the border of Papua New Guinea.
Indonesia
inhabited by 350 different ethic grouped,
and more than 700 different languages and
dialects, although there is a national language
spoken throughout the country, namely Bahasa
Indonesia. Bahasa Indonesia, is kind to
Malay, finally adapted to be the official
language and is written to Roman script
based on European orthography. English is
the most widely used foreign language for
business and travel alike. In some of the
bigger cities and tourist destinations Dutch
is still used, and the influence of Dutch
in Bahasa Indonesia is quite obvious.
It
is thus appropriate that the country’s
motto is "Bhinneka tuggal ika",
which means unity is diversity. Consequently
this part of the world gave many different
cultures, traditions, and way of lives.
Despite
this diversity, Indonesia today has a common
bond that united them all into one nation,
one language, and one people although conflicts
are sometimes unavoidable.
However,
the people of Indonesia have been able to
manage their differences. The spirit of
musyawarah (to deliberate or confer), mufakat
(to agree), and gotong royong (mutual assistance)
that have been instilled by their fore father
have helped in achieving peace between the
people’s groups.
