KUALA LUMPUR (AP): Malaysian and Brunei maritime agencies searched Monday for eight missing crew of a Thai cargo vessel that sank in waters off Borneo island five days earlier, officials said.
The MV Emerald, carrying logs from Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Malaysia's Sabah state, to Bangkok, was believed to have sunk Dec. 26 due to engine failure, said a spokesman with Malaysia's Maritime Enforcement Agency.
The crew on board was comprised of eight Thais and five Myanmar nationals, he said on condition of anonymity citing protocol.
Brunei maritime authorities rescued two Thai crew, before seeking help from Malaysian counterparts to jointly mount a search and rescue operation, the spokesman said.
Three more crew were plucked from the waters Sunday in weak condition but four Thais and four Myanmar nationals remain missing, he told The Associated Press.
The operation, which has been hampered by strong winds and high waves, will continue until the eight men are found, he said. No other details were immediately available.
Malaysia's Sabah and Sarawak states share Borneo island with oil-rich Brunei and Indonesia's Kalimantan province.
- Jakarta Post Januari 01, 2008 -
Monday, December 31, 2007
News : Eight crew missing 5 days after Thai vessel sinks off Borneo
News : Building a pluralist nation (opinion)
What is pluralism? Why is it important for Indonesia's future? Like every other "ism", pluralism is a set of values. They include respecting our differences, and striving to work together on the basis of equality. Dialog is also an important part of pluralism in order to nurture relations between people of different backgrounds. And there is also cooperation to achieve common goals.
Many conservative religious leaders have denounced pluralism as going against their belief.
They fear that since pluralism treats all religions as equal, it liberates people to choose and switch between religions.
This of course is a gross misconception.
Pluralism does not make all religions equal. No one has the right to tell you what to believe, and similarly, if you believe your religion is superior, no one can tell you otherwise. Pluralism states that in interfaith relations, there should be equality in positions between people of different faiths for any meaningful dialog to take place.
This requires people to go beyond tolerating "the other".
Many religious leaders are already advocating tolerance to promote interfaith dialog. But tolerance still implies one's own superiority; that one is stronger, more powerful, or is in the majority and can therefore dictate the terms of their relationship with the others.
Such a presumption makes meaningful dialog difficult if not impossible. We need to go beyond tolerating people of other faiths, and that means respecting their beliefs and restraining ourselves from imposing our values or beliefs on them.
The argument for pluralism in religion holds true in other aspects that divide our nation along the lines of race, ethnicity, language, custom, tradition and historical background, and even gender, sexual orientation, generation, social and economic status.
The four main tenets of pluralism -- mutual respect, equality, dialog and cooperation -- should be applied in promoting peaceful coexistence among people of diverse backgrounds, whether within marriage, in villages or communities, or in a nation.
Pluralism is crucial for Indonesia because of the immense diversity of its 220 million people spread across the archipelago. The people of Europe, by comparison, are far more homogeneous.
* Race: There are two dominant races: Malay in the west and Melanesian in the east. There are also minority groups like Chinese, Arabs, Indians and European/Eurasian.
* Ethnicity/Cultural group: There are hundreds of ethnic and sub-ethnic groups each with its own culture and traditions. Javanese is the largest of the ethnic groups. Other major groups include Batak, Acehnese and Minang in Sumatra, Sundanese, Madurese and Balinese, Bugis and Menadonese in Sulawesi. Then there are the small and often marginalized groups like Betawi in Jakarta, and the Dayak in Borneo and the many tribes in Papua.
* Language: Nearly 400 distinct languages and dialects are spoken in Indonesia. Bahasa Indonesia is the national language and is used in official functions. Most people, however, speak their local tongue in daily activities.
* Religion: All the world's major religions are represented in Indonesia, and they coexist and are often practiced side by side with local and homegrown beliefs that include various forms of animism. Although the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, the government only recognizes five faiths for the purpose of population census. Islam is the largest with 88 percent, followed by Protestantism with 5 percent, Catholicism with 3 percent, Hinduism with 2 percent and Buddhism with 1 percent.
There are not many other countries that are as racially, ethnically, culturally and religiously diverse as Indonesia.
But as in other parts of the world, this diversity is complicated by issues of gender, political ideology, rising regionalism, and social and economic divisions also clamoring for attention. Any debate on pluralism cannot avoid addressing these issues either.
While this diversity has certainly enriched Indonesia, it has also been the source of many violent conflicts, tensions, prejudices and mutual suspicion.
Most of the conflicts that we have seen in the nation's 60-year journey can be traced to the failure of people to overcome their differences, whether in ideology, religion, race and ethnicity, custom, tradition and language, or social and economic disparity, or a combination of two or more of these factors. Even today, one can still sense tensions rooted in the diversity of this nation. Discrimination and marginalization, as well as prejudices, inflicted by one group against another in society remain rampant.
In the past, particularly during the Soeharto years between 1965 and 1998, differences that even remotely threatened to break out into a conflict were suppressed, at times by violent means, in the name of preserving unity. Diversity was sacrificed in favor of uniformity if not conformity, and to protect the Unitary Republic of Indonesia.
Today, we, as a nation are committed to democracy. And promoting pluralism is a much better way of dealing with our differences. Resorting to the use of force and intimidation, as Indonesia has done in the past, only stokes resentment that would explode into violent conflicts later on. Many present conflicts are legacies of past wrong policies.
It is clear that the extent to which Indonesia adheres to and practices pluralism, and thus addresses issues arising out of its complex diversity, will determine the future of this country. As we celebrate our 60th anniversary of independence, we should renew our commitment to the state motto Unity in Diversity by making pluralism part of our daily lexicon.
Our survival as one nation depends on it.
-Jakarta Post Januari 01, 2008 -
News : Who are the Indonesians?
by Meidyatama Suryodiningrat
Since early childhood, Indonesians have been, and continue to be, taught that their country is a huge archipelago comprised of thousands of islands and hundreds of ethnic groups. It is also common knowledge that the Javanese are the largest ethnic group in the country and, not surprisingly, that the island of Java is the most populated in the country.
Beyond these facts few actually know the exact ethnic composition and distribution of these groups.
The 2000 Population Census conducted by the Central Statistics Bureau provided much insight into the make up of the Indonesian population. Further invaluable analysis was provided by Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) when in 2003 it published Indonesia's Population: Ethnicity and Religion in a Changing Political Landscape, which was planned as the first in a series of publications on the Indonesian population.
The findings of these two reports, both of which complement each other, has provided some striking knowledge about the people who inhabit the world's biggest archipelago.
What is interesting about the methodology of the BPS census is that ethnicity is defined by the respondents themselves. That it is people themselves actually choosing which ethnicity they self-identify with. Those who do not respond or cannot make up their mind are classified according to their father's bloodline.
The diversity of this country was confirmed with the finding of about 1,000 ethnic and sub-ethnic groups in the country. However most are very small. In fact only 15 of the ethnic groups have a population of over 1 million.
There is no surprise that the Javanese continue to be the predominant ethnic group (Graph. 1). Combined with the Sundanese, these two ethnicities make up over 57 percent of the Indonesian population.
Such is the preponderance of the Javanese that they have a high concentration in almost all provinces. Javanese comprised of at least 15 percent of local populations in 13 of the 30 provinces surveyed by BPS in 2000.
Even outside of the island of Java, Javanese make up the largest single ethnic group in the provinces of Bengkulu, Lampung and East Kalimantan. In many other provinces they are usually only second or third to the local indigenous population in terms of size. For example, they are the second biggest ethnic group in North Sumatra comprising 32 percent of the provincial population, in Riau with 25 percent, Jambi with 27 percent, Central and South Kalimantan with 18 and 13 percent respectively.
The demographic shifts can be attributed to several factors such as transmigration, greater mobility as a result of intensified transportation infrastructure and the search for economic opportunities.
The high concentration of Javanese in many provinces supports the increased diversification of the Indonesian population. It would be a simplification nowadays to say that a particular province simply belongs to a certain ethnic group. The facts simply do not support it.
In only six provinces did the perceived indigenous population comprise more than three-quarters of the total provincial population: West Sumatra (Minangkabau); South Kalimantan (Banjarese); Yogyakarta along with Central and East Java (Javanese); and Bali (Balinese).
In other words, there is greater diversity within the peoples of any given province.
In terms of religion the numbers have generally remained consistent over the last three decades with the Muslim population accounting for 87 to 88 percent of the population. In the 2000 census over 88 percent of Indonesians chose Islam as their declared faith, followed by Christians with 8.9 percent, Hindus 1.8 percent and Buddhists with just under 1 percent.
The caveat however, is that the government only formally recorded and recognized five religions: Islam, Protestanism, Catholicism, Hinduism and Buddhism.
There little room for deviation if one prescribes to an alternative faith. Up until 1971, Confucianism was still listed in the census with a record of 0.82 percent. Since then consequent censuses have not officially recorded the numbers of those following Confucianism. In the 2000 census, those who did not prescribe to the five recognized religions were categorized as 'others' and accounted for 0.8 percent of the population.
Ethnic Chinese
Despite being so prevalent on the economic stage, repeated surveys have consistently shown that ethnic Chinese constitute a tiny minority of the population, in fact less than 1 percent.
In Indonesia's Population... by Leo Suryadinata et al, it is suggested that because the survey was based on self-identification by the respondents, many second and third generation ethnic Chinese (peranakan) considered themselves to be part the local indigenous population. Furthermore, despite the era of greater openness, some may continue to fear the stigma of being considered Chinese.
In the mid-1960s the government launched a campaign to 'indigenize' the ethnic Chinese by encouraging -- or forcing -- them to shed their Chinese names and adopt more locally sounding ones. Under President Soeharto's three-decade rule, Chinese cultural and ethnic symbols, including their celebrations, were completely forbidden. It was not until the presidency of Abdurrahman Wahid could this rich cultural heritage resurface.
Suryadinata in his study nevertheless suggests that even if the number of ethnic Chinese in the 2000 Census was inflated further to account for those who refused to identify themselves with this ethnic group, their composition would only range between 1.45 to 2.04 percent of the population.
Based on data compiled from the statistics bureau, nearly half of all ethnic Chinese are concentrated in two provinces: Jakarta and West Kalimantan. (Graph 2)
This statistical information helps show two things:
First, it confirms the diversity of the nation and illustrates the intensity of pluralism pervading all corners of the archipelago.
Second, it also exposes the fallacy of accepted 'prejudices' when talking ethnicities. People, for example, are wrong when they say that "the Chinese are everywhere" when in fact the group as a whole comprises no more than three percent of the population.
Furthermore, due to increased mobility, mixed marriages, and economic activity, it becomes increasingly difficult to make simplistic categorizations of the Bataks only living in North Sumatra, or the Dani tribe in Papua. Respective 'indigenous' populations may have historical and cultural ties born out of a particular venue, but what Indonesians are realizing is that no one group has particular exclusivity as a consequence of it.
This is the challenge of the evolving new Indonesia.
-Jakarta Post January 01, 2008-
