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Gadjah Mada University
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, first of all, thank you very much
Dr. Pintavanicha, General Ekachai, distinguished speakers, and ladies and gentlemen.
First of all, I want to thank KPI for having me. It’s my great pleasure to be
here to share some of my knowledge. I think Dr. Norbert has started out a discussion
very well by giving us a big picture on what’s going on, on the global’s fate related
to conflicts and political conflict in particular. My share is smaller than that. I will be
focusing on Indonesia. My title of presentation would be “Women’s Role in Building
Multi-Cultural Society in Indonesian Lesson” Disclaimer, I’m not speaking for women
because I can’t do that. But I will be speaking about women. I think I can take that
position. And by Indonesian lesson, I don’t mean to preach anything, but I want to
share something that has been done by some Indonesian group. And I think they’re
relatively successful in how creating the multi-cultural society, especially the rule of
religion. So, my focus will be on the role of women in Interfaith Dialog as a way to
create a democracy in multi-cultural society.
Let me start with this fact, the very basic fact. I’m afraid not every one is
familiar with Indonesia. So, probably this basic fact numbers can be very helpful.
Indonesia already got independence since 1945. Today the population of Indonesia is
261 millions, so it’s not a small number. Majority of them, 87% are Muslims.
Indonesia consists of over 300 ethnic groups, speaking in different languages. They
spread in over 2,000 islands. Most of the Indonesian islands are inhabited, but the
total 2,000 islands are with people. One of the most basic principle by which
Indonesia is organized, this is related to multiculturalism and Indonesian democracy is
bases on these five principles. And they are:
Believe in God
Humanism
Nationalism
Democracy
Social justice
When we talk about interfaith dialog, and conflict that happens we will go back
a little bit here. The context of Indonesia is just like what happened in Thailand.
Indonesia also has experienced different political situation. The last one, the
turbulence happened in 1998 when Suharto, the second Indonesian President was
forced to step down from power following the financial crisis that hit Asian countries
during the time. Since 1998, Indonesia moves from authoritarian regime into more or
less better democracy. After 1998, we have been enjoying more freedom, and ª£¸²£ª±¡¡²¥¸h¡¢h¢µÈ
eventually also sometimes freedom euphoria happen, especially because we were
