Indonesia’s rightful place in history is as the actor that allowed for great inter-cultural dialogue and sharing to take place at a time when cultural identity was not linked to narrow nationalism or ethnic-racial superiority, observes Farish Noor.
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Dealing with the bugbear of our colonial past, our cultural-linguistic anxieties of the present and the challenges of the future will be a task that no nation can avoid. But dealing with the thorny question of language and the politics of language policies will require more than the emotional humbug and patriotic essentialism that we have come to expect from some of our politicians, writes Farish Noor.
Francis Loh attended a memorial to honour the late pre-eminent public intellectual, Rustam Sani, who was also an Aliran member.
Can we look up to Gandhi to confront the misuse of religion for the political agenda of the mighty at the global as well as local level?
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