Nation Building in Indonesia: Role of President Sukarno

Abstract

Nation building became a challenge for many nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America. It was not only a process of a political economic or social restructuring of an erstwhile colony-it was much more to do with creating an identity of a sovereign nation. In post-colonial societies, nation building implies that its citizens have formally been bestowed with nationality. The nationality or nation-ness of a sovereign nation is the cultural artifacts of a particular kind (Anderson, Benedict, 1883). It needs delicate handling as it involves a process of integration and reconstructing of a new sense of unity and belonging. In a multi-cultural society, the issue of integration assumes complexities as it entails integration and accommodation of diverse entities into a common framework. Many nations have failed in that process. Indonesia is one such country which is diverse in every sense of the term. On top of that its vast geographical spread posed serious challenges before the process of nation building. The article is an attempt to examine the issues that came across before the architect of modern Indonesia-president Sukarno and how he had cope up with that. How Indonesia was able to curve out a mechanism to deal with its multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-religious realities, is what the paper seeks to explore.