Pancasila: The Indonesian State Ideology According to the New Order Government

OVER THE PAST two years, Indonesia has witnessed the implementation of an extraordinary government policy that is all the more unusual because it has aroused little attention on the part of political analysts. In accordance with a 1978 decision of the People's Consultative Assembly (nominally the highest political body under the present Indonesian constitution), a series of workshops or upgrading courses have been organized throughout the archipelago. Under this program all civil servants below the rank of cabinet minister are required to attend two-week upgrading courses whose sole preoccupation is Pancasila, the Indonesian state ideology. More recently other groups of citizens have found it advisable or prudent to organize their own Pancasila courses, and the government has made it known that it intends to extend the courses to diverse functional and political groups of the society.' What is remarkable about these courses is first and foremost the sheer cost involved. Called P4 courses (a contraction of the full Indonesian name, which can be translated as Upgrading Course on the Directives for the Realization and Implementation of Pancasila), these two-week seminars have been noticeably disruptive to the normal flow of government business. The courses first involved the most senior of civil servants. At one point in the past year it seemed as if virtually all government business in Jakarta came to a standstill. Because of P4, key figures were often absent from their offices and unable to make required decisions. Where more than one ministry or department was involved,