Dear reader, I must be honest with you. I’ve been a bit deceptive in my descriptions of Yogyakarta, relying on the imagination rather than fact. When I wrote that Yogyakarta is unique in Indonesia in that it still has a monarch, a sultan, and that the city centers around his palace complex, called the kraton, I wrote the truth. But when I read those words, I imagine something from myth: gilded domes, brightly painted pillars, courtyards and steps of marble, and a dignified man sitting on a rug, sipping tea, with bodyguards and the smell of exotic spices. The reality is a bit less interesting: a wall, painted white, some streets, mostly western style buildings, and a thin, older gentleman whose father really liked photography. So much more similar to the king of Thailand than what at least my imagination conjures.

Much like the King of Thailand, the Sultan of Yogyakarta is loved by his people. Yogyakarta remains a monarchy because, when Indonesia sought independence in 1948-9, and different regions began to discuss the idea of forming one nation, the Sultan of Yogyakarta was strongly supportive and wanted to join the effort. Yogyakarta was the capital for a short period of time. Because the sultanate was so instrumental to the formation of the nascent nation, it received special dispensation to remain a monarchy. Recently the region had democratic elections, as part of a slow process of modernization: the people elected the sultan with an overwhelming majority,

In the United States, our war for independence was hundreds of years ago. The country has evolved and grown since, but the moment of national birth was before the industrial revolution. For Indonesia, however, this moment was just over sixty years ago, when politicians engaged with other countries, such as the U.S., and students took to the streets to fight the British and Dutch. Indonesia’s war of independence when my father was 9 years old – it still exists in living memory.

One wrinkle to this very recent birth and slow formation of a national character is how geographically and culturally diverse the country is. It is 70,000 islands, from Sumatra in the west to Papua in the east. It encompasses the funeral culture of Tana Toraja, the animistic Hinduism of Bali, the Dani of Papua who first met white people in 1938, and the bustling metropolis of Jakarta. Forging a national identity out of this patchwork of hundreds of previously independent cultural groups is a challenge – the closest analogy I can think of is India, except imagine if India’s regions were islands, and consider the greater isolation that brings.

Our next destination, Singapore, provides an interesting contrast to the path of building a national identity. Singapore was originally part of Malaysia. While there were significant cultural, religious, and political differences between it and the rest of the country, the belief was that seeking individual independence wasn’t feasible for political and economic reasons. But irreconcilable differences emerged very quickly, especially on questions of preferentially treating certain ethnic and racial groups. And so, more like China and less like Indonesia, Malaysia pursued a national identity in part defined along ethnic lines, leading Singapore and the rest of the country to part ways.

But unlike the tenor this idea takes in Europe and the U.S., where discriminatory policies are typically conservative (seeking to maintain the status quo), in Malaysia they are intended to change the status quo and build a Malaysian middle class to stand along side the wealthy other ethnic groups (e.g., Chinese). So more similar to some of the policies in Latin America.

These thoughts are jumbled and incoherent, mostly because I need to read more – these are based on impressions and observations whose supporting facts might be incomplete or incorrect. The world is more stable than it was just after World War II, but many nations are still figuring out a place and identity since their birth and creation, whether it be Indonesia, India, or Israel. An example I should look at is Italy and Garibaldi – something which I will most definitely do when visiting The Medieval Scholar in Siena this June.

— The Professor