Indonesia 2045
God willing we will remain a single nation of Indonesia, but a just and prosperous society for all the Indonesian people may not necessarily be able to be realized.
Social media disseminates a part of Prabowo Subianto\'s speech stating that overseas experts estimate that Indonesia may break up by 2030. Prabowo\'s remarks were based on a novel titled "Ghost Fleet" by Peter Warren Singer and August Cole.
The public immediately responded to the speech negatively. They said Prabowo is a pessimistic leader, contrary to Joko Widodo (Jokowi) who is optimistic. Prabowo\'s supporters and a number of neutral parties stated that Prabowo\'s speech is a warning to keep us alert to any negative potential.
Inevitably we are reminded of the situation in 1998 when we were hit by multidimensional crisis. At that time the people of Aceh and Papua very strongly struggled that the two areas were separated from the Republic of Indonesia. The people of Riau also voiced similar aspirations. At that time many people predicted that Indonesia would be split into several countries. Thanks God, now we are still united as a nation, with East Timor being back outside Indonesia. The Aceh issue was resolved in 2005 under the Helsinki Agreement. Papua is still full of problems, but thanks God, it is now given full attention by President Jokowi.
Reflecting on other countries
In the 20th century, disintegration occurred in a number of countries, Sweden-Norway (1905), England-Ireland (1922), Otoman-Turkey (1923), Denmark-Iceland (1944), North Korea-South Korea (1950), West Germany-East Germany (1945), Pakistan-Bangladesh (1971), Soviet Union (1990), Yugoslavia (1991), Ethiopia-Eritrea (1993), and Czechoslovakia (1993) ). The separation of Southern Sudan from Sudan was the first case in the 21st century.
There is an interesting case, namely the merger of Egypt and Syria under the name of the United Arab Republic in 1958, followed by Yemen, but to no avail. The most interesting was the unification or merger of West Germany and East Germany into Germany in 1989 and is now the strongest country in Europe. Currently in the world not many countries reach the age of over 100 years, only about 40s. Countries, which reach the age of 100 years with high ethnic homogeneity (51-100 percent) and high religious homogeneity (51-100 percent), include Portugal, Japan, Haiti, Dominica, Italy, Colombia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Greece, Hungary , Venezuela, Chile, Paraguay, Luxembourg, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Uruguay, Romania, France, Panama, Mexico, Argentina, Sweden, Denmark, Spain.
There are nine countries aged over 100 years with less than 50 percent ethnic homogeneity, but a religious homogeneity of more than 50 percent, namely Belgium, Peru, Guatemala, Ecuador, Thailand, Bolivia, Nepal, the United States and Liberia. If Indonesia is 100 years old, it will be in this group, with an ethnic homogeneity rate of about 30 percent and a religious homogenity of 88 percent. Countries over 100 years of age with ethnic homogeneity of more than 50 percent and religious homogeneity less than 50 percent are the Netherlands and Britain. A country over 100 years of age with ethnic homogeneity less than 50 percent and religious homogeneity less than 50 percent is Switzerland.
Reaching to the age of 100 for a country is not easy. Many which reach the age of 100 years, their people are not prosperous and the countries are not democratic. For example Haiti and Nepal. The one, which is really prosperous, progressing and becoming the world\'s greatest power, is the United States, which over the past several years has been experiencing difficulties and setbacks.
The great economic power
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has made projections of the gross domestic product (GDP) of a number of countries by 2030. The top 10 biggest will be China (US$38 trillion), US ($23.5 trillion); India ($19.5 trillion); Japan ($5.6 trillion); Indonesia ($5.4 trillion); Russia ($4.7 trillion); Brazil ($4.4 trillion); Germany ($4.7 trillion); Mexico ($3.7 trillion), and Britain ($3.6 trillion).
The government of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) once made an announcement about McKinsey\'s projection which approaches PwC projections. There are a number of other institutions which conduct similar activities. For Indonesia, there are results which approach PwC results above, but several others do not. Based on International Monetary Fund (IMF) projections on Wikipedia, by 2030 Indonesia\'s GDP will stands at the ninth position with $2.45 trillion, but in 2050 it will be in the fourth position with a figure of $7.3 trillion.
From the economic scale, it is clear that Indonesia has increased significantly, and it is a very promising market potential for entrepreneurs from other countries. However, what becomes the problem since the beginning is that 70 percent of the money supply in Indonesia circulates in Jakarta.
The gap between a handful of people and the greatest number of Indonesians is still wide. The money supply in Indonesia is not much different from Malaysia and Singapore, even the number of our population is much bigger. The per capita money supply in Indonesia is very small compared to the two countries.
The existence of a number of companies controlling millions of hectares of plantation land, in my opinion, is contrary to the principle of social justice. The National Commission on Human Rights has asked the government to resolve the issue. The government once promised to realize the idea of agrarian reform that had been made by President SBY. We hope the government will do it soon. The publication of the land certificates by the Jokowi government is very meaningful for the people.
Golden generation
We hear there are figures/leaders who put forward the term "golden generation". If the goal is to raise the spirit, it does not matter, but it must stand on the facts. It has to be realized that many challenges which must be overcome to enable use to take advantage of demographic bonuses to realize the "golden generation". We can mention a number of challenges, namely malnutrition, drugs, cigarettes, poor education due to poor quality teachers, the character of the nation which is less supportive, lack of honesty among pupils and students, violence against children, early marriages.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 7.8 million of the 23 million children under five in Indonesia are suffering from a stunting condition (about 35.6 percent). A total of 18.5 percent of them are included in very short condition and 17.1 percent in short children. The stunting tolerance limit, according to WHO, is 20 percent. A child who is malnourished until the first 1,000 days of his life will become a physically weak child and his brain is poor. It is not known exactly the number of malnutrition sufferers in Indonesia as experienced in Asmat several months ago. The World Nutrition Report 2014 states, 5 percent of people suffer from malnutrition. Around Tebuireng area the number is far below that.
The threat of drugs is getting higher. The number of victims is also increasing. Drug smuggling from China is getting crazy and it seems that we are less prepared for it. Its condition really enters an emergency state. We seem to have lost our mind to face the threat of drugs. The number of smokers in Indonesia is the third largest after China and India, reaching 35 percent of the population. Young smokers are increasing, the age of smoking is getting younger. The economically weak community puts aside enough funds to buy cigarettes so that family nutrition is neglected. Our legislatures and executives are friendly to the tobacco industry.
The education that is the basis of all the activities of the nation in the future is not encouraging. The quality of our education internationally is very low, even in ASEAN we are in the middle rank and has been left behind by Vietnam. The national average grade for mathematics is below 50. In a test, about half of the students cannot thoroughly capture the content of the Indonesian texts. The teachers do not master the subject matter well enough and lack a good way of teaching. About a third of teachers do not meet the qualification. Religious education increasingly becomes a matter of transferring religious knowledge than the formation of religious attitudes.
A Kompas survey in 2017 revealed that according to 42.8 percent of respondents, Indonesia\'s biggest problem is corruption, 17.7 percent about law enforcement, 12.9 percent about poverty and 10 percent about ethnicity, religion, race and inter-groups (SARA) problem. Another survey by Kompas uncovered that lying behaviors such as plagiarism, corruption, and bribery in the society are considered very severe by 50.7 percent of respondents and considered severe by 43.1 percent. In the same survey, 74.9 percent of respondents considered corruption and bribery are triggered by the habit of lying. Another survey by Kompas in 2017 says that consistently honest pupils/students reach 2.3 percent, frequently honest 7.5 percent, sometimes honest 50.5 percent, often lying 30.8 percent, and always lying 5.8 percent.
With such obstacles, we understand that realizing the 100 years of independence that we dream of as a golden age is not easy. God willing we will remain a single nation of Indonesia, but a just and prosperous society for all the Indonesian people may not necessarily be able to be realized. It takes courage and persistent attitude of the leaders to improve many policies that are not in accordance with Pancasila and also realize the existence of Indonesia as a state law. The basic rights of the people must be guaranteed by the government.
Salahuddin Wahid, Caretaker, Tebuireng Islamic Boarding School