Nationalism and egalitarianism in Indonesia, 1908-1980

This thesis examines how the ideas of nationalism and egalitarianism emerged and were contested in Indonesia. It begins by uncovering the uniqueness of Indonesian history, which gave birth to the uniqueness of Indonesian culture and economy. This in turn determined the contour of the land's politics during independence movements and long after.;The colonial scheme ingeniously combined the use of coercive and symbolic forces. The Dutch deployed and manipulated them in such a way as to enable the maintenance of the colonial order through which an unprecedented system of exploitation was perpetuated. The eradication of natives' international and interinsular trade in the 17th and 18th centuries was followed by "the five-time exploitation" in Java and the establishment of a number of colonially deformed traditions and institutions throughout the islands. Hence the prevalence of economic and cultural distortions.;This largely concocted inegalitarianism collided with the egalitarian forces which antedated or evolved during and after the colonial period. The decimation of the natives' economy led to the politics of "the mobilization of meanings," which molded Islam, Javanese traditionalism, Dutch liberalism, and Russian Communism. Here the egalitarian Malay played an important role.;The long exploitation of the majority of Indonesians and the molding of existing ideologies rendered the birth of a distinctly egalitarian nationalism. This ideology survived the uncertainty and ordeal of the era of Guided Democracy as the mobilization of meanings turned into a contestation of meanings.;The egalitarian nationalism remained hegemonic in political discourses amidst the New Order's inegalitarian practices in the fields of economy and politics. Comparable discourses from the inegalitarian side were non-existent. Moreover, the inegalitarian practices had to move in masks using the rhetoric of egalitarianism. Thus the thesis seriously questions "the enduring school of interpretation" which maintains that inegalitarianism is culturally rooted and sanctioned in the land.