Newsgroups: bit.listserv.seasia-l
Date:         Tue, 14 Apr 1992 18:31:37 PDT
From:         "Indonesia Publications/Task Force" <apakabar@IGC.ORG>
Subject:      Diss/Indonesia/Mochtar Pabottinggi
X-To:         seasia-l@msu.edu

01181519  ORDER NO: AAD91-29699
NATIONALISM AND EGALITARIANISM IN INDONESIA, 1908-1980
  Author:  PABOTTINGI, MOCHTAR
  Degree:  PH.D.
  Year:    1991
  Corporate Source/Institution:  UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII (0085)
  Chairman: MICHAEL J. SHAPIRO
  Source:  VOLUME 52/06-A OF DISSERTATION ABSTRACTS INTERNATIONAL.
           PAGE 2260.  537 PAGES
  Descriptors:  POLITICAL SCIENCE, GENERAL; HISTORY, ASIA, AUSTRALIA AND
                OCEANIA; ECONOMICS, HISTORY
  Descriptor Codes:  0615; 0332; 0509

     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.


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