A CRITICAL REFLECTION
In a societal world, people are often guided, glued, and guarded by narratives. The narratives could be acquired from imagination, empirical experiences, or the fusion of the two. Either way, these narratives are intentionally constructed and present for different particular purposes.
The narratives are conveyed in forms of talks and stories, depictions and portrayals, or dreams and visions—which basically function to tell people how something in our world is present as it is, or how it is supposed to be, including ideologies that drive a lot of people’s behaviors.
IDEOLOGIES
Most of the times, ideologies are spread and practiced throughout the world the way they are being taught, told, and passed on. And it is no different with our Indonesian ideology: Pancasila. Pancasila is famously known for its essence as the soul of Indonesia and is present to keep Indonesia united.
But what drives us, Indonesians, to bow down before Pancasila? Is it simply because our nationality "requires" us to?
- “What does comprise our nationality?” To be noted, our nationality generates legal, political, social, economic, and cultural consequences for us.
- “With the nationality I have, do I feel like I belong to it?”—given the aformentioned consequences it might put ourselves into.
The first question can be answered with an emotionless logic. We can provide law theories to explain and justify how one can obtain one’s nationality. But the second one needs something more than an emotionless logic: it needs something that can explain a sense of belonging which involves the structure of feeling (William, 2009).
Arguably speaking, with nationality thrives nationalism. And nationalism, at its roots, grew out of nation's ideologies—fostering a force that drives mutual attraction between one and another.
As an ideology, Pancasila has to be understood as something that is present (today) as the result of what has been created by and in the past, materially and ideologically. We could use a help from historical studies to explain how our nation was materially created, but how "it ideologically was" needs a different kind of discussion.
COMMON SENSE
Humans are constantly creating models, setting standards, and constructing of almost anything in our societal relationships. Our societal institutions provide senses and penetrate values, for us, to identify what is (considered) good or bad, positive or negative, moral or evil, and so on and so forth. It shelters us into a space where we all, in this societal relationship, can acknowledge a common sense that we feel like “we share it with others.”
Related to this topic, the example of Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense" might help portraying how constructed narratives can do so much in guiding and bringing a lot of people together.
"Common Sense" was published in January 1776 and functioned as a catalyst for the independence of the United States. At that time, Paine was the person who was able to articulate the belief that the American patriots had and shared together: that their land had to be free and politically independent from the British colonial rule, the Old World.
PANCASILA AND INDONESIA(N)
Similarly, at its early birth, Pancasila functioned as a means to glue the Indonesian free will of colonials. It aimed to grow the sense of "Indonesianess" to unite Indonesian people and fight together for the sake of the nation.
Pancasila spoke as a language that "could be understood" by the members of the nation: the Indonesians.
As an ideology, it is being preserved even after the independence was declared. And today, the essence still remains the same: to unite Indonesia and bring Indonesians together.
But throughout times, after Indonesia declared its independence, “what makes we feel like one (Indonesian)” needs something more that we can only seek answers within ourselves: whether or not we feel like part of the community, or whether or not these societal forces and institutions are (into) us.
Nonetheless, it has been a long-lived belief that Pancasila is the crystallization of values that exist and live in Indonesia. But critically, it just becomes more challenging to define "what is Indonesia" alone and "what makes it (an) Indonesian." Because today, it requires a much more reflective and critical view to come into our considerations.
However, as an ideology, it has been around for quite some time. But as a form of soul reflected in our daily practices, is it (still) a synthesizing force of Indonesia? Only we ourselves can answer the question.
(Picture credit: Ideologi Pancasila Harga Mati Indonesia, PKPBerdikari, https://www.pkpberdikari.id/infografis/ideologi-pancasila-harga-mati-indonesia/)
Reference: Williams, Raymond. 2009. “The Analysis of Culture.” In Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: A Reader, edited by John Storey, 44-48. Harlow: Pearson Education.
-Alifa Salsabila, June 2020
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