DEVELOPING MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION;
Strengthening Democracy, Humanism, Justice and Pluralism
Through Education Development on Local District
Background
Indonesia is one of the big multicultural countries in the
world. This condition can be seen from its socio-cultural diversity and geographic territory. Indonesia
has both 13.000 small and big islands and more than 200.000.000 populations. They are divided become 300 ethnic groups (indigenous
peoples) which speak more than 200 different languages. The other important characteristics of them are their miscellaneous beliefs
and political orientations. They are Moslem (Sunni, Syi’i, traditional and modern Moslem), Christian (Roman Catholic,
Protestant, and Orthodox), Buddhist, Hindus, Confucian, and hundreds of local beliefs. Their political orientations are democrat,
liberal, socialist, communist, and people who follow several political ideologies, which are based on the values of religions.
This plurality and diversity are the cultural wealth of Indonesia.
It can be a blessing, but also a disaster. It will be a blessing when they live together in peace; however, it will be a disaster
when they are involved in a conflict. Unfortunately, the past and present experiences of the Indonesian multicultural society
show more adversities than good things. In deed, people in this country and the world still remember a chaos that is called
Black May 1998 in which more than 1100 Chinese had been the victim of uncivilized genocide in Jakarta.
Their shops were plundered and burned. Women were raped and killed despicably. Furthermore, we still have fresh memory to
remember a war between Moslem and Christian in North Maluku on 1999. On the unexpected war, besides
the death of more than 1000 Moslems and Christians, we could see 400 churches and 30 mosques were destroyed and burned. Another
screamed conflict was an ethnic conflict in the West and Central Borneo
Island (Kalimantan) between Dayak and Madurese at 2000.
2000 Madurese were killed, 5000 of them were evacuated and became refugee on Madura
Island. The newest nightmares for this big multicultural society were suicide bombs
that happened in Bali 2002 and Jakarta 2003/2004, Tentena, Poso, and Central Sulawesi 2005. Hundred innocent victims were
seriously injured and died on those tragedies. The Indonesian Police Department investigated those kind of bad actions still
threaten public security on this republic.
Along 32 years Soeharto’s regime had made uniform Indonesia’s
heterogeneous citizen. He and his government, which also called New Order Regime, had tried to make partitions to limit the
development of democracy, humanism, pluralism and social justice. He did his actions through his policies on politic, education,
law, economic, culture and etc. His militaristic strategy made people understood that diversities on race, religion, language,
gender, culture and political orientation were something to be avoided.
Even though we knew New Order regime had been the main actor on creating the problem
above, we do not blame our past regimes. We recognized to struggle to do our best to provide better future for this country.
One of our efforts is developing and strengthening Multicultural Education on Local District. There are several reasons why
we must develop and strengthen Multicultural Education concept and strategy on local district as following:
1. Why we must strengthen and implement Multicultural Education?
For 32 years, Soeharto’s government controlled education in Indonesia.
All policies must follow undemocratic interest of his regime; hence, education became one of his political tools to extend
his power. Education policy at the time was designed only to produce workers; thus, how to raise students’ attitude
to be a democrat, critic, humanist and pluralist were ignored. This condition slowly but surely becomes one of the causes
of violence, discrimination, chaos and other problems in this country. For example, people are easy to break the law and to
discriminate others who have different cultural background on ethnic, religion, country of origin, language, age, gender,
race, and social-economy class and political orientation. This information shows us the importance of Multicultural Education
that is based on the values of democracy, justice, humanism and pluralism. Indeed, by implementing Multicultural Education
we believe discriminations and conflicts, which are caused by our cultural plurality and diversity, can be reduced and prevented.
2. Why this project will be done on local district?
We do our project on local district because Soeharto’s policies especially
on education were made by central government on Jakarta for 32 years. This centralized
policy system could not accommodate the needs of local society on each district. As a consequence, local cultures became underdeveloped
because they were not included on the curriculum. The top-down policy on education caused people did not accustom how to deal
with their cultural diversity and plurality on their local districts. As a result, they were easy to be lit to fight each
other. Beneficially, together with what’s the people need after the fall of New Order, four new governmental periods
tried to decentralize the system. Regrettably, to build up and realize district autonomy is not
an easy thing like a political speech. The centralized experiences made local government were not ready for the big change.
Because of this reason, this project truly importance to empower local governments to develop democracy, humanism, justice
and pluralism especially through education development program.
3. Why the objects of this project are teachers and schools not lecturers and universities?
The main reason is because only ten percents of Indonesian school
graduate can pursue to higher education program. Another reason is primary and secondary education institutions are effective
places in which the fundamental development of students’ character and mental are shaped on that periods. Indeed, school
graduates will be able to be democrat, humanist, and pluralist in dealing with their cultural diversity and plurality due
to the implementation of Multicultural Education on Primary and Secondary School.
In cooperation with…, CRSD make this project to
develop and implement Multicultural Education on local districts by holding research, seminars, workshops and training. The
general aim of this project is to transform the main values of Multicultural Education such as democracy, justice, humanism
and pluralism through education to prevent and reduce discriminations and conflicts that are caused by their cultural differences
on ethnic, race, language, age, religion, ability, and political and social-economic background. The specific aim of
this project is to make local policy makers especially on education, public and private schools especially their teachers
are able to implement Multicultural Education’s concept, strategy and values.
To realize this project we need cooperation with our partners. CRSD will work
with the local branch offices of National Education and Religious Affairs Department as the highest government institutions
that supervise public and private schools, state and private teachers in local districts and provinces. We also must work with local stakeholders that deeply understood the characteristic
of local peoples and their cultures. This cooperation is very importance to divine effective steps and actions on our programs.
