The Indonesian Culture: The Diversity Of Culture In Indonesia

Background

Indonesia is a large country that is made up of more than 16,000 islands, which, in 1999, were populated by 206,51700,000 people (Biro Pusat Statistik, 1999) who, according to Alisyahbana (1990) speak about 500 different languages. The people inhabiting this vast region are generally grouped as

Indonesian. Anthropologically speaking, they are made up of many different ethnic groups, each having its own culture and speak a distinct language as its mother tongue. In spite of differences in cultures and native languages, there still exists some common aspects of their cultures, and so one can talk about “Indonesian Culture” (Alisyahbana, 1961: 9-10). However, due to the diversity of cultures, it is often difficult to pinpoint the distinctive

However, due to the corrupt system which was cleverly developed by the Suharto regime and has been thoroughly inculcated throughout the whole system it is very likely that the economic condition of the country will not improve significantly in the near future.

Indeed, it was the reformation movement that was pioneered by university students who were supported by the majority of Indonesians that was able to remove Suharto from power. However, since the fall of the Suharto regime, the internal politics and economy have destabilised. This is due not only to the fact that a lot of people who were closely tied with the corrupt regime are still in power but also to the increasing number of fundamentalists and opportunists. These are the groups suspected to have used ethnic and religious issues to escalate sociopolitical destabilisation. These, together with globalisation, have crippled the country which has become one of the biggest international debtors; in

2001, its debt was about 140 billion US dollars. As a consequence, Hamzah Haz, the Vice President to

Megawati Sukarnoputri, has stated that the country is no longer a developing, but a poor country

English has also become the most popular foreign language in Indonesia partly due to the centralised education system. It is the central government that has chosen it as the only foreign language to be taught as a compulsory subject in Indonesian formal education. This can be seen initially as a political decision. First, it was adopted to replace the Dutch language, which was not only the language of the coloniser but also internationally a “small” language. Second, English has become the most important language in the world – it is the most common means of communication in international meetings. As a consequence, if Indonesia wants to get access to and participate in the international arena, it needs the English language. Thus, the government’s choice of English as the most prominent foreign language in the country (see Section 4.5.1) is considered an important political decision. In addition, because of the centralised education system, the English teaching-learning process must be based on the 1994 English syllabus (see Section 4.5.4), the latest standardised national syllabus produced by the Centre for Curriculum Development. This is accompanied by