Friday, November 19, 2010

Bhinneka Tunggal Ika

Republic of Indonesia abbreviated RI or Indonesia is a country in Southeast Asia, which is crossed by the equator and located between the continents of Asia and Australia as well as between the Pacific and Indian Ocean. Indonesia is the world's largest archipelagic country consisting of 17,508 islands, therefore he is called also as the Nusantara (Archipelago Between). With a population of 222 million people in 2006,  Indonesia is the fourth most populous nation in the world and the most populous Muslim country in the world, although not officially an Islamic state. Indonesia is a republic, the House of Representatives, Regional Representatives Council and the President who is directly elected. Is the country's capital Jakarta. Indonesia is bordered by Malaysia on Borneo island, with Papua New Guinea on the island of Papua, and Timor Leste in the Timor Island. Other neighboring countries include Singapore, Philippines, Australia, and the unity of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in India.
History of Indonesia heavily influenced by other nations. The Indonesian archipelago became an important trade region since at least the 7th century, when the kingdom of Sriwijaya in Palembang, religion and trade relations with China and India. Hindu kingdoms and Buddhism has grown in the early centuries AD, followed by the traders who brought Islam, and various European powers fought each other to monopolize the spice trade in the Moluccas during the era of ocean exploration. Once under Dutch rule, Indonesia, then called the Dutch East Indies declared its independence at the end of World War II. Furthermore, Indonesia has received a variety of obstacles, threats and challenges of natural disasters, corruption, separatism, a democratization process and the period of rapid economic change.
From Sabang to Merauke, Indonesia consists of distinct ethnic, linguistic and religious differences. The Javanese are the largest ethnic group and most politically dominant. Indonesia's national motto, "Bhinneka Tunggal Ika" ("Different but one"), articulates the diversity that shapes the country. Besides having a dense population and vast territory, Indonesia has a natural area that supports the level of biodiversity in the world's second largest.

Etymology
The word "Indonesia" is derived from the Latin Indus, meaning "Indian" and Nesos Greek word meaning "island". Thus, the Indonesian word meaning Indies islands, or archipelago located in the Indies, which indicates that this name is formed long before Indonesia became a sovereign state. In 1850, George Earl, a British ethnologist, originally proposed the term Indunesia and Malayunesia to the population "Indian Archipelago or the Malay Archipelago." Pupils from Earl, James Richardson Logan, used Indonesia as a synonym of the word Indian Islands. However, Dutch academics writing in the media do not use the word Dutch Indies Indonesia, but the terms Malay Archipelago (Maleische Archipel); Dutch East Indies (Nederlandsch Oost Indiƫ), or Indian (Indiƫ); East (de Oost); and even Insulinde (this term introduced in 1860 in the novel Max Havelaar (1859), written by Multatuli, the criticism of Dutch colonialism).
Since 1900, the name Indonesia became more common in the academic environment outside the Netherlands, and Indonesian nationalist groups adopted it for political expression. Adolf Bastian at the University of Berlin popularize this name through the book Indonesien oder die Inseln des Malayischen Archipels, 1884-1894. Indonesian students who used it first is Suwardi Suryaningrat (Ki Hajar Dewantara), when he founded the Dutch news agency in the name Indonesisch Press Bureau in 1913.


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