State Liquefaction

KOMPAS/FERGANATA INDRA RIATMOKO

Local villagers work together on Jan. 25, 2018 in repairing a house belonging to Jumilah, who lives alone in Jatimulyo village of Girimulyo, Kulon Progo, Yogyakarta. The villagers follow the local tradition of raising funds and providing mutual help to build and repair houses for the poor.

The foundation of the Indonesian state today is like a plot of unstable land with alluvial soil. During vibrations of social earthquakes, all the buildings so painstakingly erected are endangered by liquefaction, which could see them disappear from the face of the earth.

We must seriously examine the process of stretching social cohesion. For a highly diverse nation like Indonesia, no social capital is more important for the survival of the state than that of social cohesion. Achieving social cohesion in the multicultural nation is far more complicated than in other nations.