‘ Unite against extremism’
> Jokowi asks Indonesians to safeguard pluralism
JAKARTA: Indonesia’s president said yesterday that the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country needed to pull together to meet the threat of extremism and safeguard a constitution that enshrines religious freedom and diversity.
In an address to parliament ahead of independence day today, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo peppered his speech with references to the need to address inequality in Southeast Asia’s biggest economy and tackle the threat of radicalism.
Police on Tuesday arrested five suspected militants and seized chemicals near Jakarta.
They said the chemicals are being used to make bombs for attacks on the presidential palace at the end of the month.
“We want to work together not only in creating an equitable economy, but also in ideological, political, social and cultural development,” Jokowi said.
“In the field of ideology, we have to strengthen our national consensus in safeguarding Pancasila, the 1945 constitution, the unity of the Republic of Indonesia and bhinneka tunggal ika (unity in diversity).”
Pancasila is Indonesia’s state ideology, which includes belief in god, the unity of the country, social justice and democracy, and which enshrines religious diversity in an officially secular system.
But there are worries about growing intolerance undermining a tradition of moderate Islam in a country where Muslims form about 85% of the population, alongside substantial Buddhist, Christian, Hindu and other minorities.
“Because the challenges we face now and will face in the future are not easy. We are still confronted with poverty and injustice; we are still facing global economic uncertainty, and we are also facing movements of extremism, radicalism and terrorism,” Jokowi said.
He said the government needed to ensure all state agencies “gain the highest trust of the people” and noted he had set up a presidential taskforce to oversee the teaching of the Pancasila, particularly to the young.
Jokowi said his administration’s focus this year is to ensure that the benefits from an average 5% economic growth in the last few years should be felt by everybody. Inequality in Indonesia remains high. Indonesia’s wealthiest 1% control 49.3% of its wealth, Credit Suisse said in a report issued last November, which placed Indonesia among countries with the most unequal distribution of wealth in the world. – Reuters