Beautiful Indonesia

Human migration to the Indonesian islands has been traced back to 3,000–500 BC. These first migrants appear to be from the Mongolian region of Asia. They introduced new Stone, Bronze, and Iron Age cultures and influenced local languages throughout these islands.

Indonesia came under the influence of a mighty Indian civilization through the gradual influx of Indian traders in the first century, when great Hindu and Buddhist empires emerged. The Buddhist Sriwijaya was centered in Sumatra, while the Hindu Mataram located its capital on Java. The Mataram Empire ruled for two centuries and built many monuments across Java, including the Prambanan temples near Yogyakarta, the Panataran temples in East Java, as well as the temples on the Dieng Plateau. The rich architectural and cultural legacy that remains from that time forms the basis for Indonesia’s national identity.

By the seventh century, the powerful Buddhist kingdom of Sriwijaya was expanding. Many historians believe that the spectacular Borobudur Buddhist sanctuary was built in Central Java during this period.

In the thirteenth century, the Hindu Majapahit of Java faced a strong challenge from Muslim forces, which spread south from the Malay Peninsula. Slowly losing ground, the Hindus retreated to Bali, where they remain today. Arab traders and merchants laid the foundations for the gradual spread of Islam to the region, which did not replace Hinduism and Buddhism as the dominant religions until the end of the sixteenth century. Small Muslim kingdoms developed and grew, but none anticipated the strength and persistence of subsequent European invasions. Marco Polo was one of the first known Europeans to visit the islands, in 1292. The Portuguese arrived a few centuries later, in pursuit of spices. In 1509, the Portuguese established trading posts in the strategic commercial center of Malacca on the Malaysian peninsula. These strongholds allowed them to control important trade routes in the area.

Although the Portuguese broke the Islamic hold on Indonesia, the Dutch displaced them with settlements of their own in 1602. The new occupants called the area the Dutch East Indies. The new Dutch colony fell under British rule for a short period during the Napoleonic Wars of 1811–1816. A revolt led by Javanese prince Diponegoro in 1825 also threatened Holland’s empire. Despite these distractions, Dutch rule continued and bloody clashes between the Indonesian people and the Dutch colonial government escalated.

World War II halted the friction between the Dutch and the Indonesians because the Japanese military controlled most of Indonesia. Most of the islanders welcomed the Japanese as a potential force of liberation. However, the surrender of the Japanese in 1945, signaling the end of World War II, served as a turning point in Indonesia’s quest for independence. The Indonesian revolutionary nationalist movement helped the country win its independence from the Netherlands. The Dutch returned to reclaim Indonesia but encountered renewed resistance from Indonesian nationalists, who embarked on a bloody war of independence against Dutch rule. Although the war dragged on from 1945 to 1949, the independence movement prevailed. Indonesia declared its independence on August 17, 1945, but it wasn’t until December 9, 1949, that a formal independence agreement was reached with the help of the United Nations. From that point forward the world acknowledged Indonesia as an independent country. The revolution was led by a young Javanese man named Sukarno. He became the nation’s first president and served from 1945 to 1967, presiding with mixed success over the country’s turbulent transition to independence. Turmoil characterized the first decade of Indonesian independence until 1957, when Sukarno unified his power over the Indonesian archipelago. An attempted communist coup against Sukarno in 1965 brought renewed turmoil. However, General Suharto’s army restored order, which paved the way for him to ease Sukarno out of the presidency and assume office himself. Haji Mohammad Soeharto, more commonly referred to as simply Soeharto (he was known as Suharto in the English-speaking world), was a former Indonesian military and political leader. He served as a military officer in the Indonesian War of Independence but is better known as the long-reigning second president of Indonesia, holding the office from 1967 to 1998. Over the three decades of his authoritarian regime, Suharto constructed a powerful central government with strong military ties. An ability to maintain stability and an avowedly anti-Communist stance won him the economic and diplomatic support of several Western governments in the era of the Cold War. For most of his three-decade rule, Indonesia experienced significant economic growth and industrialization. His rule, however, caused the political purge and deaths of millions of Indonesian “Communists” and Chinese Indonesians and the enactment of legislation outlawing communist parties and ethnic Chinese. By the 1990s, however, his administration’s authoritarian and increasingly corrupt practices became a source of much discontent. Suharto’s unquestioned authority over Indonesian affairs slipped dramatically when the Asian financial crisis lowered Indonesians’ standard of living and fractured his support among the nation’s military, political, and civil society institutions. After internal unrest and diplomatic isolation began to drain his support in the mid to late 1990s, Suharto was forced to resign from the presidency in May 1998 following mass demonstrations.

After serving as the public face of Indonesia for more than thirty years, Suharto lived his post-presidential years in seclusion until he passed away in 2008. Attempts to prosecute him on charges of genocide failed due to his declining health. His legacy remains hotly debated and contested both in Indonesia and in foreign-policy debates in the West.

Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie was the third president of Indonesia, holding office from 1998 to 1999. He rose to power after modernizing and expanding Indonesia’s aviation industry. Abdurrahman Wahid was the president of Indonesia from 1999 to 2001 and founder of the National Awakening Party (PKB). He is a former Islamic cleric who guided the country for two years, despite virtual blindness. Diah Permata Megawati Setiawati Sukarnoputri was president of Indonesia from 2001 to 2004. She was the country’s first female president and is the daughter of Indonesia’s first president, Sukarno. In 2004, she was ranked number eight on Forbes magazine’s list of the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women. General Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is a retired Indonesian military general and statesman and the sixth president of Indonesia. He is the first to be elected directly by voters. Yudhoyono
won the presidency in September 2004 in the second round of the Indonesian presidential election, in which he defeated incumbent president Megawati Sukarnoputri. Javanese do not have surnames in the Western sense. For example, the president’s name Yudhoyono was not inherited either from his father or his mother. While he uses Yudhoyono in naming his children, it is not a descended family surname. In Indonesia, he is referred to in some media as Susilo and is widely known in Indonesia as SBY. Abroad, he is referred to as Yud-hoyono, a name that he chose for his military nametag, while in formal meetings and functions he is addressed as Dr. Yudhoyono.