A Collective Awareness on the Nation’s Early Years

“A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things, which are really one, constitute this soul and spiritual principle. One is in the past, the other, the present. One is the possession in common of a rich trove of memories; the other is actual consent, the desire to live together, the will to continue to value the undivided, shared heritage.” (Ernest Renan, What is a Nation?)

If the postmodern era often makes us nervous in trying to understand our national identity, the early years of the Republic are a good starting point to reflect. In the era, people from different ethnicities, religious and social backgrounds can merge into one collective awareness; of either achieving freedom and living together as one sovereign nation or die trying.

First president Soekarno in his book Di Bawah Bendera Revolusi (Under the Banner of Revolution) talked about the meaning of being a nation by quoting Renan’s writing from an 1882 French conference titled What is a Nation? This meaning of nationhood became highly contextual in the experience of establishing a diverse Indonesia. The nation of Indonesia was not formed on a singularity of ethnicity, culture, religion and belief.