 |
| The First President of Indonesia proclamate the independence of Indonesia in 17 August 1945 |
Nation is an ethnic community which
has a language, culture, religion, history and territory.
We all know that in the last 2 centuries there
are a lot of new nations are created, and largely these nations are created
after suffering the wars, especially after the first world war and the second
world war, only after the second world war between 1945-1990 around 100 new
countries has been created. If we look carefully in the year 1960 and 1991; only
in 1960 there are 18 countries which have gained their independence, and most
of those countries are African countries. In the same way, in 1991 there are
about 16 new countries established their self-government and become an independent
country. However, in this time most of the countries are from soviet and Balkans
countries. In a consequence, we can imply that there must be something
important happened in both 1960 and 1991 which lead to the independence of 34
countries in the same year. Moreover, in the last 7 year there are 2 more
countries gained their independence; Kosovo in 2008, and South Sudan in 2011.
And there are a lot of potential that in the upcoming year there will be some
new countries more as a result of recent occurrences such as; Arab Spring and
ISIS crisis in Syria and Iraq also a Kurdish crisis in Iraq and Turkey.
In fact, not
all the countries in the world are created in the last 2 centuries, there are
some countries which were created for 10 centuries ago, such as France, Austria
and Hungaria. There are also some countries which was created around 600 years
before the common era (BCE) such as Japan and China. Those old countries
normally were a kingdom or a dynasty which can still protect themselves and
survive until today. However, most of the countries exist today were created in
the last 2 centuries, and most of those countries where a single big nation and
some of those countries are from some small state and come together become a nation.
The country which were a big state is; the Middle East and the North African
countries, they were all in one nation under the rule of the Ottoman Empire.
And one of the country which were created from several small states is Indonesia.
There were several Islamic and Buddhist Kingdom in Indonesia before, but, after
the Dutch colonized their archipelago they pulled together against the Dutch
until in 1945 the gained their Independence and become a single country. Even
though Indonesia is created from several smaller states, the reality is today’s
European and Non-Islamic countries are also created from several smaller
states, and this fact contradicts with the Middle East and Islamic countries,
they were a single big nation or empire which later it divided into several new
countries. Or in the other word, Non-Islamic states being one single country,
however one Islamic Empire are divided into several countries.
After
observing the examples above, I can imply that there are two factors that
contribute to the formation of a nation; the first factor is the problem in the
country such as economical problem and unequal justice within the country. While
the other factor is colonialism, being ruled by another nation, they deserve to
make their own government, this kind of factors are leading most African and
Asian countries gained their independence.
To illustrate the first factor we can
have the Ottoman Empire as an example, Ottoman Empire was a single big country
which ruled whole middle east and north africa, and inevitable it was a
powerful country, however, even though they were a powerful country, they have
a lot of problem inside the country from ethnical problem, economical problem,
especially after they joint the first world war, it became very hard for the
caliph to control all those area, and also plus the international power who
always provoke the small states to build their own government and gain their
independence from the central government, the creation of new small nations has
become inevitable, and by this process the new countries are created.
The second factor was, colonialism
and the deserve to create their own government. To illustrate this factor we
can see to most of African, Latin American and South Asian countries, the
country like England, France, Portugese, Spain and Netherland were invade their
land, and make the local people live under their order, not only that, these
colonizer countries were employing the local people unfairly and took their
natural resources for their own interest. And all these factors lead the local
people to go against the colonizer and build their own government, because
there are no one desire to being ruled in their own land. In this way the new
small countries are created.
In short, there are two kinds of
formation of a nation in the recent years, the formation of several small
nation from one big nation (disunity) and the other one is the formation of a
nation from several mini-states or tribes (unity). And there are two main
factor of the creation of a nation; the first is the factor which is came from
inside the country such as economical problem and unequal justice within the
country, while the other factor is came from colonialism.
Altunizade, 17 November 2014
Muhammad Haykal
Altunizade, 17 November 2014
Muhammad Haykal
