Page 12 - BUKU A CENTURY OF PARLIAMENTARY LIFE IN INDONESIA
P. 12

PREFACE
















                                                                  Although an understanding of identity is fluid, in
                                                                  the sense that internal and external factors con-
                                                                  tinuously form it, identity can generally be under-
                                                                  stood as the character of a particular communi-
                          The writing of this                     ty. On the conceptual level, every nation has an

                          book is part of an                      identity as the identity is attached to the nation
                                                                  instinctively, as stated by Hegel.
                          effort to facilitate

                             the Indonesian                       As  the  parliamentary  institution  of  a  nation  that
                          people, especially                      gained its independence through a long fight for
                                                                  freedom from colonialism, the People’s Represen-
                               its youth, to                      tative Council of the Republic of Indonesia (DPR-
                        understand the long                       RI) has a long history that can be traced back, at

                         journey this nation                      least to the beginning of the 20th century. Political
                                                                  ethics essentially encouraged the creation of new
                            went through to                       life  in  the  colonized  land  once  called  the  Dutch
                          set up its political                    East Indies.

                               life through                       However, until the end of 2019, no book had com-
                              a respectable                       prehensively covered the history of the Indonesian

                        parliament. Readers                       parliament. Some of the available ones merely of-
                                                                  fered a chronology, episodes, or snippets of the
                          seeking historical                      history. Hence, it is imminent for a country with

                            details can still                     a  long  history,  expansive  territory,  and  diverse
                            find them in the                      peoples  and  cultures  to  reconstruct  its  history,
                                                                  including the journey of its parliament, which, in
                                pentalogy.                        this case, is the legislative body or a people’s rep-
                                                                  resentative council.


                                                                  That  was  why  the  Office  of  the  Secretary-Gen-
                                                                  eral of the Republic of Indonesia commissioned
                                                                  a pentalogy of DPR-RI’s history to celebrate the
                                                                  centenary  of  the  Indonesian  parliament.  The
                                                                  books were written between 2018–2019 — a long
                                                                  writing process indeed.







                    dpr.go.id                                                                                5
   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17