The Pancasila, or Five Pillars, contained in the preamble of the Indonesian constitution, have formed the foundation on which the Indonesian state ideology has been based since its independence. They comprise (1) belief in one God, (2) just and civilized humanitarianism, (3) national unity, (4) democracy based on the wise guidance of representative consultation, and (5) social justice. They were originally formulated by the eminent leader of the Indonesian independence movement, Sukarno, who for the first time publicly proclaimed them in his speech to the Preparatory Committee for the Independence of Indonesia on 1 June 1945 (celebrated in Indonesia as the "Birth of the Pancasila"). Designed to integrate Western democratic, nationalist, modernist Islamic, communist, and indigenous ideas on political organization, the Pancasila made Indonesia a religious state, albeit not an Islamic theocracy. Religion had been put forward as the first and foremost principle in order to appease the radical Muslims among the delegates of the Preparatory Committee, who had drafted a provision ("Jakarta Charter"), demanding the implementation of the shari ʿa (Islamic law) as the sole juridical guideline for all Indonesian Muslims. This had, however, been rejected by the majority of delegates. When Indonesia finally acquired full independence as a unitary nation-state in 1950, a provisional constitution was drafted that ratified the Pancasila as state ideology.
In 1955, the Constituent Assembly was formed in order to pass the final constitution of the Indonesian state. The issue of an Islamic state was again brought up, underpinned by the Darul Islam rebellion in various parts of the country. In 1959, Sukarno dissolved the Constituent Assembly, which had still not arrived at a conclusion, and reinstalled the constitution of 1945 as the only valid constitution of Indonesia. At the same time, on the basis of the Pancasila, he proclaimed his concept of "guided democracy," which had by now acquired a more authoritarian notion boosting the autocratic position of the president (i.e., Sukarno). This notion was taken over and reinforced under Suharto's "New Order" regime. In 1975, he decreed that the Pancasila were to be introduced into the curriculum of all educational institutions in order to forestall the intrusion of socially destabilizing ideologies. His P4 decree of 1978 and his decree of 1985, which established the Pancasila as the sole ideological foundation of all social, religious, and political organizations, were geared to boost the realization of the Pancasila society. Thus entwined with Suharto's New Order ideology, the Pancasila experienced a crisis of legitimacy after Suharto had to step down in May 1998.
Further Reading
Cribb, Robert, ed. (1991) Islam and the Pancasila. South East Asian Monograph, no. 28. Townsville, North Queens-land, Australia: James Cook University of North Queens-land, Centre for Southeast Asian Studies.
Dahm, Bernhard. (1969) Sukarno and the Struggle for Indonesian Independence. Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press.
Ramage, Douglas E. (1997) Politics in Indonesia. Democracy,Islam, and the Ideology of Tolerance. London and New York: Routledge.
Vatikiotis, Michael R. J. (1993) Indonesian Politics underSuharto. London and New York: Routledge.
Wandelt, Ingo. (1989) Der Weg zum Pancasila-Menschen. DiePancasila-Lehre unter dem P4-Beschluss; des Jahres 1978. Entwicklung und Struktur der indonesischen Staatslehre. Frankfurt, Bern, New York, and Paris: Peter Lang.
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