Imperial Ambitions

Abstract

The remarkable complexity of Indonesia (17,000 islands, 300 ethnic groups, 600 dialects) embodies a rich variety of cultural influences spreading over geography and through time. In religion the Indonesian people today practise adat (the system of unwritten laws and beliefs rooted in spiritual awareness), animism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam (this last the dominant creed that makes Indonesia the largest Muslim country in the world). Early legends persist, colouring the younger creeds imported through conquest. Thus Loro (Ratu) Kidul, the Goddess of the Southern Seas, remains the most influential goddess of Javanese culture, known especially for her alleged amorous affair with Panembahan Senopati, founder of an ancient kingdom. In Bali the supreme god Sanghyang Widhi manages to coexist with Hindu dominance, while the Javanese are essentially Muslim and the persecuted East Timorese draw succour from Roman Catholicism. It is inevitable that the many competing creeds cause social and cultural tensions, with individual religions carrying their characteristic contradictions (in one useful handbook we learn that the message of the Prophet Mohammed ‘was one of peace’ while in the next paragraph he is raising ‘a powerful army’ in Medina, inflicting military defeat on Mecca and ‘carrying with him victory until his death …’).