In the mid- to late 1960s a series of meetings was organised between dhalang and New Order officials. Pausacker (2004) describes how the Soeharto regime used the medium of wayang kulit for propaganda purposes: By these means, the victor needs not to worry about a threat from below. The plotter will then emerge to pick up the spoils after they have destroyed each other’. As summarised by Rinakit, he moral of this story is that someone must create two balancing and powerful camps and plot to make them fight each other. The political wisdom contained in Javanese alphabet of Hanacaraka that tells a story about how to secure political power game was used by Soeharto to control the military. This is an interesting quote from the second thesis: Academic theses have been written which describe the influence of Javanese Philosophy on the Indonesian Military: ( “Impact of Javanese culture on Indonesia's strategic outlook and on the Indonesian armed forces (TNI)” and “The Professionalisation of the Indonesian Military”. The Economist noted it in their 2019 article “How the mores of Indonesia’s biggest ethnic group shape its politics”. Generally, people are aware that Javanese culture affects many aspects of this country’s politics.
To aid them, Javanese leaders often look to examples from the two Adikakawin (Great Epics: Ramayana and Mahabharata) in wayang for inspiration, which form an integral component of their culture and philosophy.
To briefly summarise, the interests of the Islamists and the Pluralists (which includes the moderate Muslims and the ethno-religious minorities) must be harmonised and kept at balance, while the interests of Tanah Jawa are also worked on behind the scenes.Īs you can imagine, maintaining the balance between these 3 communities is a complex and monumental task. I have previously written an essay titled “The Glue of Nusantara: Understanding the Javanese, Islam and the Minorities” in which I describe how Indonesia’s ethnic Javanese leaders have to carefully manage the interests of the various communities so that the country can function.
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