Indonesia is a country in Oceania between the Indian and Pacific Oceans, consisting of thousands of islands, counting as bordering countries Philippines and Sarawak (on Borneo Island and Sulawesi) in the north, Java in the south, Micronesia and Australia in the east.
History
Indonesia, or Dutch East Indies as it was then known, began the 20th Century with Dutch colonial control being at long least enforced after centuries of fighting : although inherently pyramidal, with the Dutch settlers forming a strong elite, efforts were put towards instruction and emancipation of the Natives within the Dutch system. As was the case in all European colonies, Indonesia saw the rise of an independentist movement, be it secular (Indonesian National Party, with Sukarno), islamist (Sarekat Islam) or marxist (with exiled Dutch socialist Henk Sneevliet as its leader). Inspired by the Syndicalist Revolution in France, socialists in the East Indies began to agitate starting in the mid-1920s, an era that was noticeable due to the occupation of East Timor by the Dutch colonial army following the fall of Portugal. But the Dutch East Indies changed for the most when, after the Syndicalist invasion of the Netherlands, the Dutch royal family and most of the government managed to get into exile in Batavia on 1 August 1933, making it the seat of the Dutch government-in-exile.
Relying on the colonial administration, the installation of the Dutch government-in-exile considerably enhanced the independentist movement who, in light of the difficulties of the homeland, wanted to be better taken into consideration by the overlords. Sneevliet, inspired by the Third Internationale, would attempt to create a Syndicalist uprising in the East Indies : a Syndicalist plot in November 1937 was defeated by the Dutch colonial authorities but led to the assassination of Queen Wilhelmina. Juliana, who succeeded her mother, cut a deal with Indonesian nationalists led by Sukarno to help her rule, allowing them to run in local elections in 1939 : the first free elections in Indonesia led by a nationalist victory, allowing Sukarno, in a strange turn of events, to be appointed Prime Minister of the Netherlands - seating in Batavia. Indonesian nationalists, encouraged by Sukarno, turned towards Pan-Asian Japan. After the 1944 elections were canceled by the Dutch military authorities, fearing the collapse of the colonial order, Sukarno decided to take matters into his own hands and unilaterally proclaimed the Republic of Indonesia on April 29 1939, hereby ending Dutch authority. The arrest of the Dutch royal family, the day before, turned into a massacre in unclear circumstances, still to this day, but mostly blamed on Japanese agents or radical elements, sending shockwaves throughout the world. Overnight, Indonesia became independent and the House of Orange-Nassau became extinct.
Although allied on paper with the Japanese, Sukarno was worried of the militarism and integralism of the Japanese and remained an unreliable partner within the Sphere of Co-Prosperity, allowing Japanese investments and military cooperation yet attempting his own Indonesian way, the Pancasila, trying to enforce a federal, democratic and secular state. After last elements of the Dutch colonial army had been defeated in the Moluccas in 1948, Sukarno had yet to deal with islamists, as the Darul Islam became more and more critical of the Japanese alliance. The assassination of leader Kartosuwiryo in 1950 worsened things, and an all-out Islamist uprising began in Sulawesi, Borneo and Aceh in 1953. Bogged down by the Islamic State of Indonesia, Sukarno began to be more and more critical of the Japanese, accusing them of fostering the balkanization of Indonesia and not helping them enough against rebels. Sukarno became more isolated after the assassination of Vice President Muhammad Hatta by Japanese intelligence in 1956 and Sukarno was himself assassinated in 1957 by Darul Islam terrorists. The following year, on February 9 1958, as the odds of the war against islamists became more and more risky for the Republic of Indonesia, General Abdul Haris Nasution, heavily supported by Japan, took power in a military coup.
Helped by the Japanese, Nasution managed to reach victory against the Islamic State of Indonesia, taking back its territories and allowing an Islamic State to remain independent, limited to Aceh, in 1959.Turning Indonesia into an all-out confederation and referring more to Islam to curb islamic influence, Nasution also invited Japanese troops into Indonesia and to adopt a Pan-Malay rhetoric, aligning his speech on irrendentism, against the British still present in Malaysia and Sarawak and Americans in the Philippines. Keeping with his Japanese alliance, Nasution heavily supported the Sphere after the 1964 Singapore riots and the Japanese invasion of British Malaya ; the following year, Indonesia joined the war and invaded Sarawak. The Indonesian Army, exhausted by the war against the Islamists and badly equipped by the Japanese, was defeated by the mercenaries recruited by Sarawak. On 30 September 1965, disgruntled officers of the army, led by General Ahmad Yani, invaded Jakarta and assassinated Nasution. The shock of the military coup, rampant islamism and neo-syndicalism, and the defiance towards Japan and Nasution policies would result in the Indonesian Civil War.
The Indonesian Civil War (1965-1972) was first a three-way conflict between the Japanese-supported military in Sumatra, Java and Borneo ; islamists in Borneo, helped by the British, Americans and Germans ; and neo-syndicalist militias in Java and Sumatra. After a Sarawakian attempt at invading Borneo failed, a new military coup, by General Mohammad Jusuf, took power in 1966, after neo-syndicalists were gaining ground in Java. As Malaya was fully conquered by Japan and an invasion of Hong Kong had been averted in 1967, risking the conflict to escalate into a full nuclear war, foreign powers decided to intervene in Indonesia : cooperating with the German Army present in Micronesia and New Guinea, the Australian Army occupied Sunda Islands and Timor in 1968, Irian Jaya in 1969, the Moluccas and Java in 1970, Borneo in 1971 and Sulawesi in 1972 ; neo-syndicalists were ultimately defeated in 1968 ; Philippines invaded North Sulawesi in 1971, joining the Australian-German effort. At the end of the Civil War in 1972, with the Bandung Conference allowing a complete ceasefire, Indonesia had lost all its eastern territories (Irian Jaya, Sunda Islands, Moluccas, North Sulawesi) to Australia, Germany and Philippines ; Jusuf was forced to accept islamist participation into his government ; Indonesia was ruined and heavily destroyed and had become a puppet state of Japan. Occupied by Australian and German forces, the island of Java, the most populous and multicultural of the country, proclaimed its own independence in 1973 in reaction with Japanese influence, forcing the Indonesian government to relocate to Banjarmasin, on Borneo, stressing the utter devastation with the Indonesian Confederacy.
Under a succession of military presidents and a close watch by Japan, Indonesia after the Civil War effectively became a Third World country, poverty reigning, all in a islamized authoritarian democracy. As Aceh left the Sphere of Co-Prosperity in 1976, Indonesia and Japan went in a war against Aceh from 1979 to 1985, that even more depleted Indonesian resources and would end in statu quo ante. But what was noticeable during that time was that the youth and the cultural elite became tired of military rule, with massive riots for democracy being repressed in 1978, 1980, leading into a new military coup in 1982 led by General Leonardus Benjamin Moerdani. The 1983 krach and the collapse of the Japanese Empire in 1987 had both a limited impact over Indonesia, and Moerdani finally relinquished power in 1991, after renouncing to an extended term of office due to popular discontent, allowing for free elections.
The 1996 presidential election allowed for the victory of Darul Islam candidate Amiens Rais in 1996, leading Indonesia to adopt a new Islamic Constitution in 1998, that allowed the reintegration of Aceh the following year. The new Islamic Republic formally recognized its borders and renounced to irredentism in 2000, as the country adopted a toned-down version of the sharia in 2009.
Political situation
According to its Constitution, Indonesia is a federal presidential constitutional islamic republic. The government seats in Banjarmasin, south of Borneo Island, a mostly administrative capital. Modeled on the German Constitution, most executive powers are concentrated in the different districts of the republic, while the federal government ensures defense, foreign affairs, citizenship, communications and currency standards. Even the Parliament is officially known as a Consultative Assembly, formed of a Federal Committee and a Council of Representatives ; the prevalence of islamic law, that was already inscribed in the Pancasila ideology of the Sukarno era, must be respected by all member states.
As evidence for the diversity of Indonesia, the country enforces sharia (Islamic law) at the federal level since 2009, but its implementation can be extremely different from one part of the country, such as highly conservative Aceh, where the death penalty is enforced for minor offenses, to another where it’s lax, with alcohol and pork consumption being tolerated. It has to do with the confederal nature of the country but also with the status of Islam in the Indonesian archipelago, that only arrived in the 13th Century through Muslim traders and was always mostly idiosyncratic and inspired by Sufi Islam, making the implementation of sharia in Indonesia one of the lightest in the Muslim world, as compared to the Middle East, even if the country remains very conservative.
The current President is Yusril Ihza Mahendra, who was elected by universal suffrage on 14 April 2021. A lawyer, he served as Governor of East Sumatra and Minister of Justice in the second Rajasa administration, hailing from the Council of Indonesian Muslim Associations (Masyumi Party, islamist centrist) ; he defeated Eddy Soeparno from the National Mandate Party (islamist conservative) in the second round of the presidential elections. A moderate, Mahendra has pushed for enhanced relations with Australia and economic development.
In an interesting note, it must be stressed that the flag of Indonesia, adopted in 1959 by Nasution, is eerily similar to the Javanese one, both having been inspired by the banner of the Majapahit Empire, centered on Java and a fixture of Pan-Malay nationalism. Only the shade of red can differentiate it : Java’s darker while Indonesia’s lighter. It has been proposed to change the flag for something with green and yellow stripes, the national colors of Borneo and Sumatra, or to add an islamic crescent moon.
Social situation, population
Even having lost most of its territory in recent years, Indonesia is one of the most populated countries in the world, with more than 120 million inhabitants, mostly living in Sumatra and Borneo and Medan (Sumatra) as its most populous city, with 5 million inhabitants. Very young (with a median age of 30 years) and more than 60 % of the population living in rural areas, Indonesia also has a growing diaspora, mostly leaving for the Hashemite Empire, the Netherlands, Australia and the United States. A confederation almost since independence, Indonesia is also notable for its exceptionally diverse ethnicities, with more than 1,000 distinct native ethnic groups, from Austronesian to Melanesian peoples, along with descent from Dutch settlers. A developing country, Indonesia has a lot of efforts to make in terms of education, employment and health care.
The confederal status of Indonesia and its consideration of islamic law (see Politics) mean that respect for human rights can vary vastly from one district to another : most human rights surveys on Indonesia criticize the general criminalization of homosexuality, widespread racism and disrespect of women rights, and the dhimmi status being forced upon members of Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Confucinanist and indigenous religions
Economy
Indonesia, long considered a third world country after the utter devastation of the Civil War, had become the virtual breadbasket of the Sphere of Co-Prosperity, with its very large and rural population being invested in agriculture (rice, spices, seafood, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, livestock); but since the downfall of the Empire of the Rising Sun, Indonesia became a darling of Chinese and Indochinese industrial companies, looking for cheaper labor than in their homelands, leading to the construction of massive industrial complexes in major cities, mostly for the automobile, handcraft, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, aeronautic and oil industries. Indonesia’s economic growth is now among the fastest in Southeast Asia and the cost of living is rising, even if this cornucopia has proven disastrous for the environment, with pollution levels and deforestation becoming a national priority in 2015.
Military
Since the restoration of democracy in 1991 and an attempted military coup in 1997, the main priority of the Islamic Republic of Indonesia had been to neutralize the considerable influence of the army, that had been a constant fixture of the political life of Indonesia since independence, taking into account the humiliating defeats suffered in the Civil War and the Aceh War. Most importance has been derived towards the Navy, concentrated against piracy, while the Army has been used to repress radical islamist elements since 2003. Since Since 2020, a full reorganization of the military has been under way, with Chinese military advisors providing equipment.
Culture
The Indonesian language, due to the mixed ethnic map of the country, is itself a lingua franca, based on the Malay language and spelled with the Latin alphabet due to Dutch policies, according to the Van Ophuijsen Spelling System, in use since 1901, in order to provide a standard spelling for the whole archipelago and making Indonesia one of the few Asiatic countries to use the Latin alphabet. There was an effort to have Indonesia use the Sanskrit script during the Nasution era, but it was abandoned due to customs and the chaos of the Indonesian Civil War.
Even if Indonesian Islam is much less rigorist than the one practised in the Middle East, political islamism was used first as a rallying point first against Dutch rule then Japanese interference, thus mixing it with nationalism. Younger generations since the establishment of democracy tended to be more conservative, with lighter clothing, non-veiling of women, conversion to other religions, homosexuality and alcohol consumption are frowned upon and even prosecuted by some extremist elements. Even as popular as they are in Indonesia, foreign movies or TV shows are heavily censored, with large black bands covering female nudity or all scenes showing smoking being removed ; excessive violence, on the other hand, is not removed at all.
Music, dance, shadow puppet theatre shows, crafts, clothing, cuisine and archeological sites from Sumatra and Borneo are incredibly rich and tourism has always provided a steady income for Indonesia, mostly for Chinese, Australian, European and Arabic visitors ; in sport, the nation is crazy with football but has fared very well in martial arts competititons throughout Asia. Cinema, literature and other more western forms of art have yet to form their own industries in Indonesia, where popular culture is much more imported, with films, TV shows and electronic games being massively imported from China, Korea, Japan, Australia and Philippines, thus massively influencing Indonesian culture.