Volume 1

Halo para pejuang budaya! Selamat berjumpa di volume pertama Kohesi, sebuah jurnal ilmiah karya mahasiswa S1 yang diterbitkan oleh Badan Eksekutif Mahasiswa Fakultas Ilmu Pengetahuan Budaya Universitas Indonesia. Terbit sekali dalam satu tahun di bulan Desember, Kohesi berisikan 10 paper dari mahasiswa S1 seluruh Indonesia.

Dalam edisi pertama ini, Kohesi mengusung tema “Redefinisi Identitas Indonesia Melalui Kajian Budaya”. Sebuah tema yang amat menarik untuk kita kaji selaku bangsa yang pasti membutuhkan identitas. Identitas yang akan menjadi pembeda antar bangsa dan pada akhirnya juga merupakan kebanggan akan jati diri nasional.

The success of Indonesia as a nation among the other nations in the world can not be seen in a glance, it has been preceded by long struggle and sacrifice. Moreover, the cultural diversity isn’t only considered as an asset, but also a threat. As an asset, the diversity can be recognized at the natural resources which enrich Indonesia’s culture. However, as a threat, it can weaken the interethnic relationship. The objective of the essay is to redefine the Indonesia’s identity by analyzing the input, process, and output aspect through cultural studies. The local cultural richness exploration to discover “indonesianess” element can be considered as a formulation way to interweave identity between nation’s elements to realize the value of unity in the diversity.

Crisis of monetary, economics, and politics that occurred since the end of 1997, in turn, has resulted Indonesia into the condition of socio-cultural catastrophe. Socio-cultural disorientation in our society increasingly spread while the penetration of Western civilization (especially United States) expands to eastern countries as the result of the globalization process. From this entire tendency, nowadays, in Indonesia people can see the emergence of hybrid cultures which mixed many cultures without any obvious identity. The fact that multiculturalism deal with various problems in reform period, it seemed that we need to reconstruct the Indonesian national culture in order to find the integrating force that is able to unify all the ethnic and cultural diversity. One of the most strategic steps is by holding the multicultural education in every educational institution even formal and informal. On this case, it is important to apply the civics education to redefined the identity of Indonesia.

Nationality is a conception that should be always built in a process of history; neither a freeze conception nor constant. Thus, nationality should bear from the real experience of the citizens, not only in a social-cultural or political level, but also in an individual level, so the nationality is undergone actively, neither just received nor obeyed. Therefore, the individual’s autonomy as a history activator remains important. It can be attained if three conditions are realized, which are accessibility of an individual trough history, education based on humanities, and preserved democracy by the effective government as the recognition of a country

Being Indonesia was a big decision of our founding fathers. All is merged into unity, remaining Bhineka Tunggal Ika as a collective self-concept which is agreed by them. Without that decision, there will no liberty and freedom that we have today. However, depression in Indonesian government contaminates the society’s paradigm, appealing vagueness on the definition of integration. That’s why it is important for us to redefine the meaning of Indonesia through several perceptions. This paper talks about a discourse in redefining the Bhineka Tunggal Ika concept and an attempt in strengthening the existent. To extend the discourse, the author adopts European development, and compares it to Indonesia’s.