IN TIMES OF stress, Indonesians need to look into their past and find the model for the nation they love - namely, founding president Sukarno.
That's the belief of the Committee to Commemorate the One Hundredth Birthday of Sukarno, which is proceeding with plans to remember the 'great man' on his birthday next week, June 6.
'Most of us on the committee are non-partisan. We are not members of his daughter's political party,' said committee vice-chairman Brandan Sembiring, referring to Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle. 'But it is necessary to revive the spirit of Sukarno, the ideals of one nation. If you look to the period of 1945-55, the leaders had many different opinions and even thumped the table in their arguments, but it was always a quarrel between friends. They were united.'
People alive in that early era of independence look back fondly on their 'freedom-fighting days'. They say despite continuing war and tragedies then, life was better because 'we were all so united'.
'We need the teachings of Bung Karno [an affectionate diminutive for Sukarno]; we need them now. We want Sukarno acknowledged as the official father of the nation,' Mr Sembiring said.
Quite what those values are is a matter of debate, of course. Lauded for his charismatic oratory and his connection with the masses, Sukarno, nonetheless led his country into confrontation with Malaysia and left the nation in economic ruin. He helped inspire the newly independent states of the post-war world; he experimented with combinations of ideologies and nationalism; and he remains a symbol of Indonesians' early dreams. Sukarno died in 1970.
