Much of concerns and debates on national unity have focused on a territorial integrity issue. While it is important, it tends to sideline the most important issue in realizing unity: the unity of people. Facts have shown that achieving a territorial unity does not guarantee a unity of people living under the same territory. The breakdown of the former Yugoslavia, where its territorial unity was superficially imposed under the Tito’s regime, is an example. Another example is the former Soviet Union which was disintegrated in 1991 after experiencing an imposed territorial unity for decades.

In contrast, a unity of people could lead to a territorial unity. As the Berlin Wall was collapsed in 1989, the territorial barrier between the East and the West Germany was crumbled, bringing the people of the two countries together in unity. To a greater extend, it is the sense of unity among the people of Western Europe that has transformed the divided continent into an European Union, not only by tearing down geographical borders but also by bringing the economy of more than 15 nations into one management which is symbolized in one currency - Euro - and the European Monetary Union. They now share a common destiny of a more prosperous Europe. As of today, a number of Eastern European countries such as Poland, Rumania and Latvia are in the process of joining the Union.

A unity among people brings a territorial unity.

For almost 30 years of repressive era of the New Order regime, the Indonesian civil society cannot develop itself properly. The superficially imposed unity during the New Order regime had been unsuccessful in fostering closed inter-relationship among different groups of people without worrying about the issue of SARA (an acronym of ethnicity, religion, race and social classes). Each element of SARA had been seen as a potential cause for a violent conflict that could lead to national disintegration, inducing people to live in a constant anticipation that there might be conflict driven by SARA. As a result, it had failed to transform diversity from a challenge into an opportunity which is a necessary foundation not only in realizing a united nation, but also in building a winning nation.

Indonesia is a very diverse nation. Economically and politically, the nation is still in transition, from crisis to recovery and from authoritative to democracy. Given this reality, the need for unity is even imperative more than ever.  In building unity, the nation needs a new paradigm.  Rather than centered on territorial, the new paradigm must be centered on people. Instead of focusing on money-politics as the mechanism to build unity, the new paradigm must focus on tolerance-based consensus. Instead of emphasizing the use of power in promoting unity, the new paradigm must emphasize the use of conscience and persuasion. And rather than focus on human’s emotion, it must be focus on human’s devotion and affection. We call this a human-centered paradigm. It is driven by a common goal, not an exclusive goal.

This human-centered paradigm will challenge Indonesian people to have a new way of interacting with others, building solid and mutually beneficial communities and developing winning attitudes. It begins by embracing a way of life that views all human beings as our neighbors, a gesture symbolizing closeness with others. Whether people live in the African desert, the Middle Eastern desert, the Latin American jungle, the Kalimantan forest or the crowded New York City, Indonesians should views them as their neighbors, just like themselves. This may sound a trivial challenge but many problems today, either domestically or internationally, are caused by people’s attitude that tends to view different people differently.  Realizing that our neighbors are all people is one thing, understanding who our immediate neighbors are, is quite another. As one nation, our immediate neighbors are all Indonesians.

Since naturally human beings are different from one another, we should not only view others as our neighbors but also develop respect for differences.  Notwithstanding the diversity of the nation, there are core values in each of Indonesian that can unite them. It is the duty and responsibility of all parties in the spectrum of our society to rediscover and enhance our core common values. We call one of them - a long missing vocabulary among Indonesians – as the Indonesian dream. This is our core value that strives for justice, liberty, peace and prosperity for all Indonesians.

Another core value that each Indonesian must rediscover and enhance is a cooperative spirit.  While the Indonesian dream sets the ultimate goals that need to be achieved, provide values that need to be upheld and keeps the fighting spirit in achieving the goals, cooperation is the power needed to achieve the dream. It is the engine that we must build. All has to cooperate for a fundamental reason - realizing the dream. The essence of our dream – harmony and abundance – is cooperation. No wonder, the founding fathers such as Hatta and Soekarno were so keen to promote cooperative spirit. Soekarno once summarized Pancasila, the philosophical basis of the Indonesian State which means five principles, into one principle: Gotong Royong (cooperation).

Our core common values are centered on human’s character, not human’s greed.

Productive unity can only be achieved if the diverse elements joint in the unity are allowed to develop themselves and build constructive interaction with others from different backgrounds.  Certainly some dynamics will occur during the interactions. Nonetheless, when interactions are driven by a common goal and a cooperative spirit, they will always be binded in unity. In order to foster harmonious and mutually respectful interactions, dialog must be encouraged. However, the old paradigm in dialog - by learning about others deeply from their own perspective, we will understand each other better and unite – is no longer much relevant.

This old paradigm demands others first to understand us before engaging in dialogs. But when the prerequisite to a dialog is an understanding about others, what is then the essence of dialog? The new paradigm is: Understand first about humanity and be responsible for it. An understanding about humanity will induce different people to discover their common core values. While the old paradigm focuses on differences, the new one centers on commonality.  Inter-racial, inter-religion or other diversity type dialogs must be aimed at fostering commonality, not amplifying an understanding about differences. Dialogs must tend to produce vote, not veto.

The human-centered paradigm is aimed not only at achieving national unity, but also at building a winning nation. This is due to a simple reason that realizing national unity is not just for the sake of unity, but for a greater purpose: to realize a prosperous nation.

Once Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “Do what you know and perception is converted into character.” Perception, in most cases, is reality. And perception is often the single factor that separates the losers from the winners. When one perceives she will win a game, that perception is transformed into power and subsequently converted into action where action eventually becomes character. So, building winning individuals is essentially building a set of winning characters.

And winning individuals give birth to a winning nation.

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