We need core values to serve as umbrella for various ideologies living in this country of plural community."Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Pancasila, known as the official Indonesian state ideology is more appropriated if it is called the nation`s core values.
Pancasila is not just an ideology, said Dr Yudi Latif, who won his doctorate from The Australian National University, now the executive chairman of the Pancasila Study Center of the University of Pancasila in Jakarta.
"We need core values to serve as umbrella for various ideologies living in this country of plural community," Yudi said here on Monday.
Yudi, who is also the executive director of "the Reform Institute" was asked to comment on the relevance of the ideology on the occasion of the Pancasila Sanctity Day on Oct 1, which marks the day after the failed coup attempt by the communists on Sept 30 in 1965.
He said Pancasila has not lost its value, it is relevant to answer challenges of all time.
Pancasila, which was first introduced by the country`s founding father Soekarno, is a vision that continues to live when the world begin to abandon other major ideologies, he said.
"We are undervaluing Pancasila if we see it only as an ideology with the condition at present amid the diversity of ideologies growing in the world," he said.
He said many Indonesians, amazed by the liberal ideology of advanced countries such as the United States have been blind to what the founding fathers have done for the country.
He said the founding fathers had explored deep into the various ideologies that lived in their time before introducing the vision which has greater relevance at present and in the future.
Their understanding of democracy is not based only on what prevailed at that time, liberalism and socialism , he added.
The world no longer fully accepts liberalism, and communism has been almost completely been defunct because of its rejection of religious values, he said.
He said democracy based on deliberations a value implanted by Pancasila is the most appropriate for Indonesia.
He compared Pancasila democracy with the US democracy which attaches greater importance to the mechanism of voting of one man one vote and Scandinavian democracy which is characterized by consensus.
He said consensus model of democracy, much more than voting or majority democracy, meets the real principles of democracy .
Democracy and modern political life is confronted with a situation of how to solve mutual problems, he said.
He cited economic unfairness have to be cope with political moves acceptable collectively not individually.(Uu.H-ASG/A014)
Editor: Priyambodo RH
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