I agree with Lilian Darmono"s point that "Pancasila is now a collection of empty words." The so called Indonesian state ideology is basically not an ideology at all, or at least not a well-defined one. The meaning of Pancasila evolves over time. In 1945 when it was first discussed by our founding fathers (during BPUPKI meetings), the formulation of its five principles was meant to be some kind of a gentlemen"s agreement among Nationalist, Islamist, and socialist elements of the independence movement. It is too far fetched to think that Pancasila is purely and originally Indonesian because in fact it receives considerable influence from Sun Yat Sen"s San Min Chu-i, Franco-German socio-legal philosophy (of Leon Duguit and Hegel: organic statism), Otto Bauer/Austro Marxism, Islamism, and Javanese traditional philosophy. We can see those ideas were coming from the educational backgrounds of our founding fathers. Some of them were educated in Holland (mainly Leiden and Rotterdam);some were graduates of local universities in Jakarta, Bandung, and Surabaya which were also Dutch colonial establishments but more indigenous in their intellectual traditions; some were trained in Middle Eastern countries (such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia); and a handful of them were self-educated. This gave Pancasila its very synchretic overtones, sounding like a combination between occidental and oriental ideas as well as individual and communitarian values. It was essentially a statement of political consensus rather than an ideology.
Post independence in 1960s Soekarno attempted to redefine it as a single unifying nation building program according to his own interpretation of Nationalism, Religion, and Communism (Nasakom) and Manipol Usdek. Soekarno"s policy created polarization of political movements into those three streams of ideology that counterbalanced each other, which he seemed to think could form an equilibrium. However, the reality of Soekarno"s Old Order ideological politics actually favored the Leftist over the others and in turn made Pancasila to be understood as Indonesian style of Marxism.
After the fall of Soekarno, a new regime led by Soeharto rose to power. Given his army background Soeharto was more keen to follow the corporatist path. Pancasila was formalized as the only state ideology and Indonesia became a "negara gotong royong" (mutual self-help state). The society was treated as an organ of the state directed under a military dominated government to materialize the "noble goals" of national development. The New Order was the only regime which provided a clear and systematic guidance on the definition and application of Pancasila through education and other forms of indoctrination. Freedom of speech was restricted and political oppositions were suppressed but in exchange of stabilty and rapid economic growth. During that era Pancasila was used to legitimize Indonesian style of organicism and statism.
Nowadays, under a regime that prides itself as "reformist", Pancasila has been redefined again. Sometimes it is used to represent pluralism, while at some other times Pancasila could mean secularism and liberalism. If someone wants to take a closer look on how it is currently defined, he or she can read the new version of State Constitution 1945, which has been ammended four times since 1998. By reading the constitution every able-minded person may recognize that Pancasila"s new interpretation is now very close to American-style of liberalism. Dominant views constantly propagated by the media, academicians, and government officials clearly reflect this. Even worse, most of contemporary Indonesian academicians refuse to accept any single definition and interpretation of Pancasila. They want it to be an "open ideology" which I personally think as ideosyncratic, anti-ideological, and odd. Why? Because when something means "everything" it definitely means "nothing" at all. There would be no restiction on its definition so the communists, the Islamists, the Liberals, the Nationalists, or whatever group can make their own interpretation of Pancasila. Indonesia has a very weak ideological resilience nowadays. And In the end we will ask ourselves again: what is exactly Pancasila?
Maybe nothing.
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