Reinterpreting the Reality of Diversity in Indonesia

Abstract

This study digs into the socio-historical underlying Indonesia's founding fathers. The study founds that the meaning of the nation has become very contextual in the experience of the establishment of Indonesia, which is not formed based on ethnicity or the same culture, religion, and beliefs. Awareness in the context of diversity has become a motivator for religious activists to play a role in maintaining harmony in plural life in the community. Since the founding fathers had established Pancasila as a national principle, every group, whether religious, ethnic, or another group, absorbed themself into a comprehensive Indonesian frame. Consequently, when this country has designed various rules for governing the nation's life, referring to the 1945 Constitution as the basis of the constitution, Pancasila as the basis of its ideology, and democracy as a system of its governance, anyone must bend done to these rules. It is not appropriate to make various kinds of subordination and rebellion just because of the social teaching or religion we embrace, emphasizing a different value system.