See About Indonesia

Republic of Indonesia (RI) or Indonesia archipelago is a country in Southeast Asia, which crossed the equator and located between Asia and Australia and between the Pacific and Indian Ocean. Indonesia is the world's largest archipelago consisting of 17,508 islands; Indonesia is therefore called the Nusantara (Archipelago Between). With a population of 222 million people in 2006, Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world and the country's largest Muslim population in the world, though not an Islamic state. Form of government of Indonesia is a republic, the House of Representatives, the Regional Representative Council and the President directly elected through general elections. Capital of Indonesia is Jakarta. Indonesia is bordered by Malaysia on Borneo Island, with Papua New Guinea on the island of Papua and East Timor on the island of Timor. Other neighboring countries include Singapore, Philippines, Australia, and the union territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in India.

Indonesian history has been influenced by other nations. Indonesian archipelago became an important trade region since the 7th century, when the Srivijaya Kingdom religious relations and trade with the kingdom of China and India. Kingdoms of Hinduism and Buddhism have developed in the early centuries AD, followed by the traders who brought Islam, and some European karajaan fought each other to monopolize the spice trade in the Moluccas during the era of ocean exploration. At the time of Dutch rule, Indonesia declared independence at the end of World War II. Indonesia in the days after independence to face obstacles, threats and challenges of natural disasters, corruption, separatism, the process of democratization and economic transformation period. From Sabang to Merauke, Indonesia consists of various ethnic, linguistic and religious differences. The Javanese are the largest ethnic group and most politically dominant. Indonesia's national motto is Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (“Diversity remains one"), which means that the diversity that shapes the country. In addition to dense population and vast territory, Indonesia has a natural territory that supports the level of biodiversity in the worlds second largest

Etymology

The word Indonesia comes from the Latin word (Indus) which means Indies and the word in Greek nesos which means archipelago. So, the word Indonesia means the territory of the Indian archipelago, or archipelago in the Indies, which means the name, is formed long before Indonesia became a sovereign nation. In 1850, George Earl, a British ethnologist, originally proposed the term Indunesia and Malayunesia for residents of the Indian Archipelago or Malayan Archipelago. George Earl’s students James Richardson Logan used Indonesia as a synonym for the word of the Indian Archipelago. However, Dutch academics writing in the media of the Dutch East Indies do not use the word Indonesia, but use the terms Malay Archipelago (Maleische Archipel); Dutch East Indies (Nederlandsch Oost Indië), or the Indies (Indie); East (de Oost); and even Insulinde (this term was introduced in 1860 in the novel Max Havelaar (1859), written by Multatuli, which contains criticism of Dutch colonialism).

Since 1900, the name Indonesia became more common in academic circles outside the Netherlands, and Indonesian nationalist groups adopted it for political expression. Adolf Bastian from the University of Berlin popularizes this name through the book Australien oder die Inseln des Malayischen Archipels, 1884-1894. Indonesian students who first used this name is Suwardi Suryaningrat (Ki Hajar Dewantara), when he founded the Dutch news agency called Englisch Press Bureau in the year 1913.

History

Fossilized remains of Homo erectus, which the anthropologist is called Java Man, it is estimated that Indonesia began to uninhabited islands about two million to 500,000 years ago. Austronesian people, who represent the majority of the population at this time, migrated to Southeast Asia from Taiwan. They arrived around 2000 BC, and cause the native Melanesian driven into the eastern regions of the archipelago. Ideal conditions for the area of agriculture, and the mastery of rice cultivation at least since the 8th century BC, this led to many villages, towns, and small kingdoms in the first century AD. In addition, Indonesia is located in the international sea trade routes and inter-islands; this archipelago has become a new sea route between India and China for several centuries. Indonesian history has been influenced more by the trading activities.

Under the influence of Hinduism and Buddhism, several kingdoms formed on the island of Kalimantan, Sumatra, and Java since the 4th century until the 14th century. Kutai was the oldest kingdom in the archipelago that stands in the 4th century in the upper Mahakam River, East Kalimantan. In the western region of Java Island, in the 4th century until the 7th century AD stand Tarumanegara kingdom. Tarumanagara Kingdom followed by the Sundanese kingdom from the year 669 AD to 1579 AD. I n the 7th century stand Malay kingdom which centered in Jambi, Sumatra. Srivijaya kingdom beat Malayu and emerged as a maritime empire of the most powerful Nusantara. This empire includes Sumatra, Java, Peninsular Malays, as well as control of trade in the Malacca Strait, Sunda Strait, and South China Sea. Under the influence of Srivijaya Empire, between the 8th and the 10th century Sailendra and Sanjaya dynasty managed to develop the kingdoms based agriculture, with historic relics such as Borobudur and Prambanan temples. In the late 13th century, the Majapahit kingdom stands in eastern Java. Under the leadership of mahapatih Gajah Mada, this kingdom's territory extends over much of Indonesia; and is often called Golden Age in the history of Indonesia.

The arrival of Arab traders and Persian through Gujarat, India, and brought the religion of Islam. In addition, China's sailors, led by Admiral Cheng Ho (Zheng He) are Muslim, has also been sailing in this area in the early 15th century. The traders are also spread the Islamic religion in some Nusantara areas. Samudra Pasai Kingdom which was established in 1267 is the first Islamic kingdom in Indonesia.

When the Europeans arrived in the early 16th century, they found several kingdoms which they can easily conquer an attempt to dominate the spice trade. Portuguese first landed in two ports of the Kingdom of Sunda, Banten and Sunda Kelapa, but can be evicted and moved to the east and over the Moluccas. In the 17th century, the Dutch emerged as the strongest among the other European countries, defeating Great Britain and Portugal (except for their colony, Portuguese Timor). Since then the Christian religion spread to Indonesia as one of the old imperialist mission is known as 3G, which is Gold, Glory, and Gospel. Dutch control of Indonesia as a colony until World War II, initially through the VOC, and then controlled directly by the Dutch government since the early 19th century.

Under the system of cultuurstelsel (Investment Systems) in the 19th century, large plantations and forced cultivation carried out in Java, which brings benefits to the Netherlands that can not be produced by the VOC. After 1901 the Dutch introduced the Ethical Policy, which included limited political reform and greater investment in the Dutch East Indies.

During World War II, when the Dutch colonized by the Germans, the Japanese master in 1942. Japan saw that the Indonesian nation is a cooperative trade partner and willing to deploy troops if necessary. Sukarno, Mohammad Hatta, KH. Mas Mansur, and Ki Hajar Dewantara awarded by the Emperor of Japan in 1943.

In March 1945 the Japanese formed a committee for Indonesian independence. After the Pacific war ended in 1945, under pressure from the youth organization "Soekarno-Hatta" proclaimed Indonesian independence on August 17, 1945. After independence, the three founders of Sukarno, Mohammad Hatta, and Sutan Sjahrir each served as president, vice presidents, and prime minister. In an attempt to control Indonesia, the Dutch sent their troops.

Bloody efforts to quell the struggle to defend the independence of the Indonesian nation was then known by the Dutch as police action (Politionele Actie), or known by the people of Indonesia as a military aggression. Dutch finally recognized Indonesia as an independent country on December 27, 1949 as a federal state called the United States of Indonesia after coming under pressure the international community, especially the United States. Integral Natsir Motion on August 17, 1950, proposed the return of the unitary state of Indonesia and dissolves the United States of Indonesia. Sukarno became president again with Mohammad Hatta as vice president and Mohammad Natsir as prime minister.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the government of Sukarno began to follow and pioneered the non-aligned movement, which later became closer to socialist bloc, for instance China and Yugoslavia. In the 1960’s the military confrontation against neighboring countries, Malaysia then in 1965 there G30S event that caused the death of the 6 generals and a number of other high officers. As a result of this incident, a new power emerged that call themselves New Order which accused the PKI (Communist Party of Indonesia) as the responsible parties behind it and intend to overthrow the government and replace national ideology into socialist-communist. This accusation was also a reason to overthrow the government of President Sukarno.

General Suharto became president in 1967 to replace President Sukarno (the reasons for securing the country from the threat of communism). After Suharto was in power, hundreds of thousands of Indonesian citizens suspected of involvement communist parties were killed, while many more citizens of Indonesia who are abroad, do not dare return to his country, which in turn by the Indonesian government revoked their citizenship. Thirty-two years of the Suharto government called the New Order, while the reign of Sukarno called Old Order.
Suharto apply"neoliberal economic policies and managed to bring in foreign investment and generate high economic growth, though uneven. At the beginning of the New Order regime of Indonesia's economic policy was developed by a group of economic experts’ graduates of Economics Department, University of Berkeley California, called the Berkeley Mafia. However, Suharto enriched himself and his family through the practice of KKN (corruption, collusion and nepotism). Suharto was finally forced to resign after the student demonstrations. At that time the state of socio-political and economic deteriorated in 1998 and is often remembered as the tragedy of May 1998.

Indonesia is currently experiencing economic problems, political and religious strife, besides that some areas trying to get independence, especially Papua. East Timor finally officially separate from Indonesia in 1999 after 24 years joined with Indonesia and 3 years under UN administration to be nation of East Timor.

In December 2004 and March 2005, the Aceh and Nias hit by two major earthquakes which totals hundreds of thousands of people killed. This incident was followed by an earthquake in Yogyakarta and tsunami in Pangandaran Beach and its surrounding areas, and flood mud in Sidoarjo in 2006 who did not visit unresolved.