History UsefulNotes / Indonesia

* ''VideoGame/SplinterCellPandoraTomorrow'''s story focuses on a fictional conflict between Indonesia and [[UsefulNotes/TimorLeste East Timor]], combining elements from [[RippedFromTheHeadlines the latter's push for independence from Indonesia in 1999]] with that of America's [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror then-recent spate of military interventionism in the Middle East]]. The primary baddies are a pro-Indonesia [[FarEastAsianTerrorists terrorist militia]] called Darah Dan Doa ("Blood and Prayer"), who want to drive the U.S. military presence out of East Timor so the country can be reintegrated into Indonesia and, [[spoiler:with the help of the obligatory CIA RogueAgent]], nearly succeed in forcing the U.S. into retreat by essentially holding America hostage through bioterrorism. Of course, several levels are set in Indonesia, specifically guerilla bases in the jungles of Kundang and Komodo and a DDD-occupied TV station in downtown Jakarta.

* ''VideoGame/SplinterCellPandoraTomorrow'''s setting focuses on a fictional conflict between Indonesia and [[UsefulNotes/TimorLeste East Timor]], [[RippedFromTheHeadlines combining elements from]] the latter's push for independence from Indonesia in 1999 with that of America's [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror then-recent spate of military interventionism in the Middle East]]. The primary baddies are a pro-Indonesia [[FarEastAsianTerrorists terrorist militia]] called Darah Dan Doa ("Blood and Prayer"), who want to drive the U.S. military presence out of East Timor so the country can be reintegrated into Indonesia, and, [[spoiler:with the help of the obligatory CIA RogueAgent]], nearly succeed in forcing the U.S. into retreat by essentially holding America hostage through bioterrorism. Of course, several levels are set in Indonesia, specifically guerilla bases in the jungles of Kundang and Komodo and a DDD-occupied TV station in downtown Jakarta.

* Suhadi Sadono anybody? ''VideoGame/SplinterCell: Pandora Tomorrow''? Yes, he's the one who literally takes all of America hostage with hidden smallpox and crypts to force the US to retreat from East Timor. [[spoiler: He is eventually revealed to be backed by a rogue CIA agent.]]

Most Indonesian films are romance comedies or horror movies. Around TheEighties and TheNineties, Indonesia was known as one of the countries that released ''a lot'' of terrifying horror movies, their styles were based on mystical creatures and ghosts. It also helps that around that era, Indonesia also got their own "Queen of Horrors", Suzzanna, that many horror films starring her as the titular horror provider would go down as local legendary films. Since the end of the New Order, the quality of horrors have gone up and down, reaching their AudienceAlienatingEra in the late 2000s/early 2010s when the market was dominated by [[SexSells sex-selling]], hilariously-titled, B-grade horrors. However, Indonesian horror has experienced a renaissance by 2017, beginning with the release of ''Danur: I Can See Ghosts'', to the point that the current highest-grossing Indonesian film of all time is [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KKN_di_Desa_Penari a horror film]] released in 2022. "Religious romance" is a new genre that surfaced since the late 2000s, with the high-budget ones shot in the Middle East. The genre popularizer for this is ''Ayat-Ayat Cinta'', which tells the life of a man who enters a polygamous marriage and the implication that entails.\\\

The copyrights laws aren't very strong in Indonesia. Singaporean tourists sometimes visit ITC Ambassador, a shopping mall in south Jakarta to buy bootleg [=DVDs=] (which are sold by at least a dozen stands there)[[note]]Mostly movies and TV series, but also video games.[[/note]] and copy the contents into a flash drive to watch at home. Bootleg merchandises of ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants'' and the Malaysian animated series ''Animation/UpinAndIpin'' are commonly sold in the streets. The bootleg DVD situation, however, ended up shaping the video gaming history in Indonesia with Sony ending up building a legacy out of bootleg Playstation 1 & 2 discs, until 3 made it impossible thanks to changing to Blu-Ray format (you won't see bootleg Blu-Ray discs).\\\

Indonesia has a peculiar history when it comes to Video Game Consoles and the gamer generation. The earliest known video game consoles within Indonesia was naturally the UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem from the 80's. Come the late 80's to 90's, UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis and later on UsefulNotes/SuperNintendo took over the console gaming scene and the effects of the first UsefulNotes/ConsoleWars era spread into Indonesia as well. It should be noted that just like other countries, the earlier era of video games was quite harsh for Indonesian gamers, with parents citing that it's a game just for kids and nerds, if you grow up and still play video games at the time, you could get considered very childish. At the very least though, there was no movements to demonize video games just like in other countries. The turning point of video game history was at 1998, when the Trisakti Incident happened. The resulting riot targetted many video game stores (a lot of them ran by Chinese-Indonesians) and resulted one of the most central video game store-containing malls in Jakarta, Glodok Bridge, to be burnt down. This, combined with the decline of Indonesian economy power, forced gamers to think of other ways to get their games, since both Sega and Nintendo game prices ended up very expensive with their cartridges and their main hub (Glodok Bridge) was destroyed. Additionally, both consoles were at their final years, quality games from those would be scarce at that point. Around this time, the medium [=CD=] saw a rise, and with it, [[UsefulNotes/PlayStation Sony PlayStation]] and UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn, where developers flocked to make their new games after departing from SNES and Genesis. Piracy ran amok thanks to how easy the [=CD=] was pirated, and [=PlayStation=] and Saturn were no exception, but Indonesia was in the middle of restructuring thus the government didn't put much attention to piracy laws... and the CD format eventually made these games very cheap and affordable as opposed to the super expensive 16 bit cartridges; and they have a 'general price' system: No games would be more expensive than other games, and there was no region-locking, therefore Japanese language games can also be played just as fine as English language games. Thanks to this, Indonesian gamers decided to embrace piracy and the 32-bit gaming era, with [=PlayStation=] taking the lead (Saturn lost the race, staying as a CultClassic, while the UsefulNotes/Nintendo64 didn't sell that well here due to using cartridges). While Sony did not mind much on this, they were incidentally building a legacy in the heart of video gamers in Indonesia. When DVD rose in the next generation, naturally Indonesian gamers switched onto Playstation 2, there was no other question, since DVD was also easy to pirate. Because of this piracy thing, there's quite [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff a lot of games that would be usually considered niche everywhere else but became fondly remembered as cult classics amongst Indonesian console gamers.]] When Playstation 3 was released, Sony has noted about the rampant piracy within their game console and decided to do something about it: Blu-Ray disc format, firmware updates and internet connection. They also noticed the legacy they accidentally built in Indonesia and capitalized on it by opening their own office branch in Indonesia, and Indonesia has stabilized itself a bit so they finally could push on more original-quality disc. With this, piracy was curbed down, and the generation of gamers in Indonesia realized that they have to get back to the age of expensive original quality games. Luckily for them, at that point, they're at the age where they could make money on its own and no longer needed permission from their parents to get video games. And around the same time, it turned out that those who ran their store at Glodok Bridge successfully made their exodus and reopened their stores in the nearby Mangga Dua district and specializing in original games[[note]]Glodok Bridge was rebuilt, but it was no longer the video game hub it was before.[[/note]]. Thanks to the legacy Sony built from their consoles, the majority of Indonesian gamers stuck with Playstation 3 despite its troubling launch history and it paid off: When Sony finally sorted out the issues in Playstation 3 (around the release of the Slim model), Indonesian gamers have already flocked onto Playstation 3 and matured from depending on piracy into being able to support Sony by buying their products. While there were competitors that still allowed measures of piracy (such as Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii), they still lost to the sheer legacy that Playstation had over Indonesia. Only in the next generation that things began to shake up: While Playstation 4 still had a strong following, Nintendo provided its more capable console: Nintendo Switch, which means that they pose strong competition with Sony within Indonesia. Xbox One gamers existed, but they seem less outspoken compared to Sony and Nintendo gamers within Indonesia. Regardless of Nintendo's rise, it's already clear that as far as Indonesian gamers think of, their choice for legendary console would be the Playstation family.\\\

Indonesia as a concept, curiously enough, has managed to go nigh-unnoticed by many Westerners (at least until the Website/TwitterX era) in spite of its behemoth size and population. When you hear the word "Indonesia", you'll be forgiven for thinking that it's little more than a disaster-prone (true) collection of tiny islands floating alongside Micronesia and Polynesia and their ilk (''definitely'' not true, but understandable, given the shared etymology). [[note]][[UsefulNotes/{{Australia}} Australians]] are an exception to this, as both countries are (rather uneasy) neighbors, and likewise [[UsefulNotes/TheNetherlands the Netherlands']] colonial legacy has left enough Indonesians and Indonesian-born Eurasians (like the Music/VanHalen brothers' mom) in the larger Dutch cities to make a mark.[[/note]] No Indonesian has headed a UsefulNotes/UnitedNations affiliated organization since 1972 (Adam Malik, as [=UNGA=] president), attention from media outside the region is vanishingly rare, and despite having perhaps the most brutal and intense football culture in the world, the last time it made it into the Round of 16 at the World Cup was ''when it was still a colony''. (Indonesia's a sporting juggernaut...at badminton.)

Majapahit's downfall was set in motion thanks to a dispute with Sunda, Majapahit's western neighbor in Java. Hayam Wuruk wanted to make Dyah Pitaloka Citaresmi, a Sundanese princess, his wife, but Gajah Mada wanted to make Sunda a vassal and the princess Hayam Wuruk's concubine instead. Sunda did not take this insult well, [[TheDogBitesBack they ended up fighting]] in a grueling LastStand[=/=]CurbStompBattle that ended with Pitaloka being DrivenToSuicide by their defeat. [[DisappointedInYou Even Hayam Wuruk was not pleased with the result]], so Gajah Mada took the blame, was exiled, and died in obscurity. [[note]]The sudden eagerness of Gajah Mada was also a source of debate. Some say that it just happens like that (or the fact that he was this close to complete the Palapa Oath that he cited to Tribhuwana, so he got a little too gung-ho [[IGaveMyWord to fulfill the oath]], in some sources he did tell Hayam Wuruk about the oath, but Hayam Wuruk had a sudden moment of indecisiveness out of his love to Pitaloka, so Gajah Mada took (a fatal) initiative), or there was a miscommunication between Gajah Mada and the Sunda kingdom, eventually escalating into that battle. There's a reason that this Bubat Incident is often considered a tragedy on ''both'' sides, not just for Sunda.[[/note]] [[note]]This whole thing eventually became the source of tension between Sundanese with Javanese that lasted for generations, with the people of Sunda refusing to name anything within them as something from Majapahit, [[VillainOfAnotherStory viewed Gajah Mada as a dastardly villain when everyone else in the Nusantara considered him a hero]] and forbade any marriages between Sundanese and Javanese out of 'superstition'. By the tail end of the 2010's, however, the descendants of Sunda and Majapahit Kingdoms thankfully agreed to bury the hatchet and made peace with each other.[[/note]][[note]]Curiously, this event is not included in ''Negarakertagama'', although it can be assumed that the author, Mpu Prapanca, wished to appease Hayam Wuruk and showcase the greatness of Majapahit with his book and thought including such tragic incident that painted Majapahit in a bad light would piss Hayam Wuruk off instead, so he chose to omit the incident, and the reason of Gajah Mada's fall from grace became unknown in that version.[[/note]]

After the Dutch relaxed their educational policy (sometimes credited with the rise of the book ''Literature/MaxHavelaar'', written by Dutch satirist Multatuli, gaining late popularity, [[HeelRealization which made the Dutch realize that they might have ran the exploitation to the natives too excessively]]), several native intellectuals popped up and wrote books to teach the younger generation what their nation got from the Dutch, sometimes even including veiled [[TakeThat Take Thats]] against colonial rule. One of the most famous figures that arose during this period was Soewardi Soerjaningrat, later rechristened Ki Hadjar Dewantara, a Javanese nobleman who established the first educational institution for indigenous commoners, and whose famous Javanese proverb regarding his outlook on teachers eventually became the motto of the Indonesian Ministry of Education.[[note]]''Tut wuri handayani'' ("Those behind should give encouragement"). It's the last part of a longer sentence that reads as such, ''Ing ngarso sung tulodo, ing madyo mangun karso, tut wuri handayani'', which roughly translates to "Those in front should set an example, those in the middle should raise the spirit, and those behind should give encouragement."[[/note]] Soewardi was part of the so-called ''Tiga Serangkai'' (Triad), alongside Tjipto Mangoenkoesoemo, another Javanese nobleman with a decidedly more nationalistic and fiery approach regarding Indonesian self-awakening, and Ernest Douwes Dekker, an Indo (mixed Dutch-Indonesian) activist of self-rule for the Dutch East Indies, who also happened to be a great nephew of Multatuli (real name Eduard Douwes Dekker). Soekarno studied under Dr. Cipto, and his ideas wound up influencing his later venture into politics. Another noted figure was Kartini, who, after befriending several Dutch women through letters, lamented the rigid, backward life of native women that she had to experience as a Javanese noblewoman.[[note]]Javanese women were traditionally secluded (''pingit'') in her parents' home when she came of age, and would continue to be secluded until she married. Although the tradition is considered obsolete today, the word ''pingit'' is still used to refer to a custom in Javanese weddings where the bride is forbidden from seeing the groom the night before the wedding day, during which time she is advised by her mother, aunts, and other relatives on how to become a proper wife.[[/note]] She wrote numerous letters championing women's rights, and held classes in her husband's house dedicated to teaching women. Although she died young, giving birth to her son at age 25, she is honored as a National Hero nevertheless, and "Kartini Day" (April 21) serves as the ''de facto'' Women's Day in Indonesia.

Cue UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. The Netherlands, being an Allied nation, got Indonesia involved in the war, only to be driven away by UsefulNotes/{{Japan}}, ostensibly as an "Eastern Brother" coming to liberate the nation. Unfortunately, the takeover from Japan could be considered to be just as harsh, or even worse than life under the Dutch (unpaid, abused workers known as Romusha is one of the ways to show it), so Indonesia was still suffering big time[[note]]Modern Japanese tends to view this as some sort of NecessaryEvil, apologizing for their ancestors' utter cruelty, but from the point of view of the Japanese back then, the Dutch colonization left Indonesian manpower extremely crippled and weak that they had to whip them up to shape ASAP in order to prepare for any cases of unwanted war emergencies. In other words, they wanted to think like they're being a WellIntentionedExtremist to protect Indonesia, but their prediction was off the mark, the Allied forces attack on Indonesia only occurred very late in the war, just months before the end, making them instead look like a NotSoWellIntentionedExtremist with all their Romusha.[[/note]]. On places strategic to war, however, Japan put up a much better treatment to areas they deemed important for war effort, encouraging more education and political sophistication. Educated elites like Soekarno and Mohammad Hatta studied Japanese knowledge and took advantage of UsefulNotes/{{Germany}} and Japan's weakening due to the US dropping [[UsefulNotes/AtomicBombingsOfHiroshimaAndNagasaki nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki]], declaring Indonesia independent on August 17, 1945[[note]]Japan actually considered to finally let Indonesia declare their independence on their accord when they sensed that they might be losing the war in 1944, planning that they could declare independence at August 24th instead, but after Hiroshima and Nagasaki got bombed, their hands were tied enough in coping with their losses and preparing to admit defeat that Soekarno and Hatta (with some pressure from radical youths of Indonesia) beat them to a punch in independence declaration.[[/note]]. The Dutch reestablished their colony afterwards, effectively running the country for four years, but the locals were not in the mind to bow to them again, and by 1949, the UsefulNotes/UnitedNations told them to just cut it out and leave Indonesia alone, though insultingly, the new government is forced to inherit all of the colony's debt, including paying the Dutch recolonization attempt, which only settled decades later in 2003.[[note]]Within Indonesia, 1945 is celebrated as the year of independence, but the international world (and some Indonesian intellectuals) recognize 1949, when the Dutch left the country, to be the actual year of independence. However, in 2005, the Dutch government formally recognized Indonesia's claim of 1945 as the year of independence.[[/note]] Cynically speaking, the decolonisation of Southeast Asia was in fact a containment measure against the Communists, and the leading independence movement was staunchly anti-communist already.\\\

Building the nation was very hard for Indonesia. As noted above, Indonesia inherited very little from Dutch colonization, so everything had to be built from scratch. Upon independence, Indonesia experimented with federalism for a year, but eventually sought a centralized presidential state, with Soekarno at the top. Events during Soekarno's era included an armed conflict with Malaysia (which at the time included modern Singapore and UsefulNotes/{{Brunei}}), which he wanted to annex into Indonesia, citing the basis of Gajah Mada and the Palapa Oath.[[note]]While there were other factors, Indonesia's hostility to Malaysia was pretty much the reason why Brunei and Singapore are now separate countries instead of being states of Malaysia. Indonesia actively provoked the Chinese-Malay split that led to Singapore's expulsion from Malaysia, and it also supported the rebels in the Bruneian jungle, which bothered Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien III of Brunei so much that he decided he wanted nothing to do with Malaysia or its conflict anymore. Also, one of the attacks in the later stages of the war included indiscriminate bombing of Singapore's public facilities. The names of the captured and executed perpetrators were later used for an Indonesian Navy ship in 2014, reopening the old wound[[/note]]. He went as far as leaving the UsefulNotes/UnitedNations when it accepted Malaysia's membership. However, Soekarno's public approval waned as he increasingly turned into an autocrat, declaring himself PresidentForLife and leading Indonesia under so-called "Demokrasi Terpimpin" (Guided Democracy). He became close with the [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn Soviet Union]] and moved to the left, being supported by groups such as the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI, ''Partai Komunis Indonesia''). Chinese medical team was heavily involved in trying to lessen the effect of Soekarno's kidney failure, there were even talks about nuclear technology transfer, alarming the Western intelligence and Indonesian neighbours. Still, Soekarno was also a leading figure of the Third World and a founding father of the Non-Aligned Movement (alongside India's Jawaharlal Nehru and Yugoslavia's Josip Broz Tito). Economic inflation rose to an unprecedented levels, and leaving behind many uncared poor people throughout the nation.\\\

Eventually, 1965 struck. In the early hours of 1 October, the anachronistically-named 30 September Movement moved to do...something. The chronology of what exactly happened is still a subject of passionate debate. The official government story, propagated chiefly by the Army Reserve's head, Major-General Soeharto, is that the PKI attempted a revolution against Soekarno's government and kidnapped six army generals from their homes in Jakarta, as well as Pierre Tendean, an aide to Defense Minister Abdul Haris Nasution who happened to be at Nasution's house, was mistaken for his superior, and heroically fought the barbarous communists off - but not in time to stop them from [[OutlivingOnesOffspring shooting Nasution's 5-year-old daughter, leading to her death a few days later]]. The revolutionaries then hauled their victims to Jakarta's main military airbase, dug a hole, mutilated and killed them as the PKI's women's wing danced around the orgy of violence in the nude, and dumped the bodies down said hole. On the other end of the tall tale spectrum, Soeharto, with CIA help[[note]]initially they were so clueless about the opposition, assuming the military need weapons supply even though the PKI were practically unarmed, instead, Soeharto mostly need modern communication system to arrange the takeover, giving him total control of the situation since most of PKI sympathizers in the outer regions didn't even know what was happening in Jakarta when they were arrested[[/note]], manipulated the coup plotters into removing his superiors so that he could effectively take control of the military and country from them and Soekarno under the pretext of saving both. The most commonly-accepted version by foreign academic circles is that the Movement's leaders - mostly drawn from the Presidential Guard, and not acting on the orders of the PKI leadership - mistakenly thought the eventually-targeted generals to themselves be plotting a coup against Soekarno, escalated matters, and accidentally allowed a mysterious third party to air a supposed narrative of rebellion against the President.

After the fall of Soeharto, with the freedom of press truly freed[[note]]Beforehand, Soeharto had his ways to silence his blatant oppositions, where they would be [[ReassignedToAntarctica 'honorably deported' somewhere else]] and then killed there, or secret snipers would be deployed to kill them on the spot, dubbed 'Penembak Misterius', shortened 'Petrus' (rather ironically, Petrus is the Indonesian translation for (Saint) Peter, the first of Jesus Christ's apostles), and the phenomenon is known as 'Petrus Shooting'. Originally it was meant to be a mean to decrease criminal rate and a lot of troublemaking gangs; while it was accepted at the time and was actually a factor of how Indonesia was stabilized and able to advance greatly in Soeharto's leadership before the financial crisis, it eventually spiraled out of control and the Petrus Shooters became something of a SecretPolice to eliminate threats of Soeharto's rule. This can be considered as a precursor of the Trisakti shooting, whereupon the shooting became the straw that broke the camel's back about the brutality of this shooting. And with Soeharto fallen, everyone is free to express their knowledge and news without fear of being suddenly shot to death.[[/note]], many were eager to research about what Soeharto was doing in all those years. Chief amongst them, though it is still a topic of considerable contention in Indonesia (because discussing it is a criminal offense), the 30 September Movement was a sort of FalseFlagOperation actually conducted by the very military it was supposed to have targeted. In a failed coup, blame was shifted to the communists, leading to the massacre (generally estimated from 500,000 to 1 million dead). Special point was taken to remind the population afterwards that only the communists (and absolutely ''none from the army'') are to blame through the education system. In actuality, the plotters were mostly army officers (and did include some communist officers). And since all the communists were dead anyway, it worked relatively well, in addition to the aforementioned ''Pengkhianatan [=G30S=]/PKI'' film being aired every year, which ended up quite [[{{Hypocrite}} hypocritical]] of Soeharto ([[HypocriteHasAPoint though not without a point, even if it's a smaller scale, the murder method was still very inhuman and gruesome]]). Additionally, despite the history of Indonesia being invaded and colonized by the Dutch, it turned out Soeharto would end up doing the same thing, except towards UsefulNotes/EastTimor, and doing a lot of inhuman things towards them all while parading that East Timor was part of Indonesia's many provinces. And a majority of them were solely for hoarding whatever resources East Timor had instead of anything defensive.\\\

Soeharto's fall marked the beginning of Indonesia's reformation, which has a heavy emphasis on democracy and free speech. The presidency is no longer an office which is held for very long, and is limited to two five-year-terms. Barring the impeachment of President Abdurrahman Wahid in 2001, Indonesian politics have been going relatively smooth, with no major parties dominating the next two decades afterwards. Indonesia began holding free and fair legislative elections in 1999, and presidential elections in 2004. The current president is Joko "Jokowi" Widodo of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P, ''Partai Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan''), the political party headed by Megawati Soekarnoputri, Soekarno's eldest daughter. Soeharto's political party, the Party of Functional Groups, (''Golongan Karya'', often abbreviated to Golkar), has never popularly elected a president since his fall, although they did elect a vice-president in the form of Jusuf Kalla from 2004 to 2009, and then from 2014 to 2019.

Like Malaysia and UsefulNotes/{{Myanmar}} but unlike elsewhere in Southeast Asia, surname is a custom that has not caught on in Indonesia. It is also not unheard of for a person to [[OnlyOneName have just one name]] (e.g., Soekarno, Soeharto), though this is becoming less common these days, and is officially discouraged (but not banned) by the government.[[note]]Reasons for the discouragement include difficulty in disambiguation, as well as potential problems it may cause when that person travels overseas.[[/note]] A typical Indonesian will have either two or three names, all being given ones. A major exception to this rule is the Bataks, who use surnames (called "marga" in the Batak language) in much the same way as Koreans do.[[note]]It is forbidden for people with the same surname to marry. Also, surnames are kept from birth to death, so there's no such thing as a maiden name, although children usually inherit their father's surname.[[/note]] Aside from Bataks, surnames can be found in parts of Eastern Indonesia, as well as among foreigners and their descendants, such as the Chinese and Europeans.

Television reached Indonesia in the 1960s; the oldest established television network in Indonesia, the state-owned TVRI (''Televisi Rakyat Indonesia''), began broadcasting in 1962, in conjunction with the 1962 Asian Games held in Jakarta. For most of the New Order era, TVRI was the country's only television network, and was used to air propaganda related to the regime. In 1987, however, Soeharto's government approved a five-year plan to allow commercial television networks and programming, and TVRI subsequently lost its monopoly. The country's second, and first privately-owned, television network, RCTI (''Rajawali Citra Televisi Indonesia''), started airing nationally in 1989, followed by SCTV (''Surya Citra Televisi'') in 1990. With the advent of Reformation, more and more television networks have popped up, while TVRI's popularity has faded away, now being regarded as a niche channel providing highbrow and educational shows. Aside from RCTI and SCTV, the entertainment television scene is now dominated by Indosiar, MNCTV (''Media Nusantara Citra Televisi''), ANTV (''Andalas Televisi''), GTV (''Global Televisi''), Trans TV, and Trans 7, while the news broadcasting scene is dominated by [=tvOne=] and Metro TV.\\\

Indonesia also has a large community of ethnic Chinese (known officially as ''Tionghoa Indonesia'', and colloquially as ''Cina Indonesia''[[note]]''Cina'' is the older name, but its association with the New Order's policy of assimilation towards ethnic Chinese, coupled with its frequent usage as part of racial slurs, have led the current government to discourage its use. This extends to other words that incorporate ''Cina''; the official Indonesian name for the People's Republic of China is ''Republik Rakyat Tiongkok'', not ''Republik Rakyat Cina''.[[/note]]), with estimates of their population ranging from 2.8 to up to 8 million people. They are stereotyped as being talented in business and good with money, which is, to an extent, TruthInTelevision; according to a 2022 survey, [[https://www.cnbcindonesia.com/market/20221217074006-17-397702/daftar-terbaru-10-orang-terkaya-di-indonesia-siapa-saja seven of the ten richest Indonesians came from the Chinese community]], including the first one (Robert Budi Hartono, co-owner of Indonesian cigarette conglomerate Djarum). Their ancestors mostly came from Fujian and Guangdong; according to a census conducted during the 1980s, Southern Min (e.g., Hokkien and Teochew) was the most widely spoken Chinese language in Indonesia, followed by Hakka and Cantonese. However, the majority of Chinese Indonesians, particularly those in Java, no longer speak Chinese, instead using either fluent Javanese, Sundanese, or Betawi (depending on where they live) in their daily lives. During the New Order period, Soeharto instituted a state-sponsored policy of discrimination against Chinese Indonesians, because he was deeply suspicious of their economic connections to Communist Mainland China. Chinese Indonesians were forbidden from speaking in their native tongues and also had to adopt one of the five official religions at the time, not including Confucianism (which wouldn't be recognized until 2000). Most ethnic Chinese in Java had been Confucian (or rather, folk religions that include Confucianism) at the time, and hundreds of thousands ended up converting to Christianity en masse. Although Chinese Indonesians in Java are predominantly Christian today, the majority outside Java have been Buddhists. Due to Soeharto's policy being targeted more towards people near the capital, non-Javanese Chinese Indonesians also tend to retain their mother languages, and to some respects they are culturally similar to Malaysian and Singaporean Chinese, who are largely Buddhist and Chinese-speaking. In addition, Chinese Indonesians outside Java are much more likely to use their Chinese names openly, whereas those inside Java have largely Indonesianized their names. The discriminatory policy is finally repealed after the fall of Soeharto's regime, but the legacy still lingers. While Christians in general are overrepresented in the military and police force due to Dutch preferential recruitment, there are barely any Chinese Indonesians due to Soeharto-era prohibition. The prohibition extended to all government employee positions, as well, which drove them to the business world that made them economically affluent in the first place.\\\

-->-- '''[[FounderOfTheKingdom Sukarno]]'''

Indonesia as a concept, curiously enough, has managed to go nigh-unnoticed by many Westerners (at least until the Website/{{Twitter}} era) in spite of its behemoth size and population. When you hear the word "Indonesia", you'll be forgiven for thinking that it's little more than a disaster-prone (true) collection of tiny islands floating alongside Micronesia and Polynesia and their ilk (''definitely'' not true, but understandable, given the shared etymology). [[note]][[UsefulNotes/{{Australia}} Australians]] are an exception to this, as both countries are (rather uneasy) neighbors, and likewise [[UsefulNotes/TheNetherlands the Netherlands']] colonial legacy has left enough Indonesians and Indonesian-born Eurasians (like the Music/VanHalen brothers' mom) in the larger Dutch cities to make a mark.[[/note]] No Indonesian has headed a UsefulNotes/UnitedNations affiliated organization since 1972 (Adam Malik, as [=UNGA=] president), attention from media outside the region is vanishingly rare, and despite having perhaps the most brutal and intense football culture in the world, the last time it made it into the Round of 16 at the World Cup was ''when it was still a colony''. (Indonesia's a sporting juggernaut...at [[ExpertInUnderwaterBasketWeaving badminton]].)

Anyway, Kertanagara continued the expansion of Singhasari's borders with his expedition called "Pamalayu Expedition", this time, he expanded to Sumatra islands and conquered whatever remained of the once mighty Srivijaya Empire, erasing their influence and securing the Malaccan straits, establishing Singhasari's influence in Melayu and the trade route over there. The plan was conceived several years before he actually undertook it, as it required a lot of resources. At around the same time, the Mongol horde under Kublai Khan came across the Kingdom and demanded a token of submission. Kertanegara responded by sending back his messenger now humiliated with a missing ear. A pissed off Kublai Khan responded by sending his massive army. Kertanegara was in the middle of wrapping up the Pamalayu Expedition, the plan was to go back and prepare for war against the Mongols. But, the majority of his forces were at Sumatra, leaving him and his capital lacking troops. Duke Jayakatwang of Kediri, still nursing a grudge regarding Singhasari's conquest of his kingdom, pulled a coup d'etat, killed Kertanegara, and restored Kediri.\\\

After the fall of Jayanegara and the rise of his successor, Queen Tribhuwana Wijayatunggadewi, Gajah Mada was appointed as Prime Minister, and gave the famous ''Palapa'' oath: he would taste no spice until all of the archipelago was brought under the reign of the Majapahit. As Indonesian food tends to overflow with spice, it's doubtful that he fulfilled this promise, but he did indeed manage the second part. Under Gajah Mada, the Majapahit Empire started conquering the archipelago one by one[[note]]some experts maintain that this 'conquest' was more a show of force than an out-and-out subjugation; the end result was believed to be a conglomeration of states more akin to the modern USA or European Union[[/note]], and if there's any rebellion from within the Empire, you can be assured that Gajah Mada was first in line to quell the rebellion. With Tribhuwana's successor, Hayam Wuruk, considered a wise and popular king, in tandem with Gajah Mada, Majapahit entered its golden age.\\\

Majapahit's downfall was set in motion thanks to a dispute with Sunda, Majapahit's western neighbor in Java. Hayam Wuruk wanted to make Dyah Pitaloka Citaresmi, a Sundanese princess, his wife, but Gajah Mada wanted to make Sunda a vassal and the princess Hayam Wuruk's concubine instead. Sunda did not take this insult well, [[TheDogBitesBack they ended up fighting]] in a grueling LastStand[=/=]CurbStompBattle that ended with Pitaloka being DrivenToSuicide by their defeat. [[DisappointedInYou Even Hayam Wuruk was not pleased with the result]], so Gajah Mada took the blame, was exiled, and died in obscurity. [[note]]The sudden eagerness of Gajah Mada was also a source of debate. Some say that it just happens like that (or the fact that he was this close to complete his Sumpah Palapa that he cited to Tribhuwana, so he got a little too gung-ho [[IGaveMyWord to fulfill the oath]], in some sources he did tell Hayam Wuruk about the oath, but Hayam Wuruk had a sudden moment of indecisiveness out of his love to Pitaloka, so Gajah Mada took (a fatal) initiative), or there was a miscommunication between Gajah Mada and the Sunda kingdom, eventually escalating into that battle. There's a reason that this Bubat Incident is often considered a tragedy on ''both'' sides, not just for Sunda.[[/note]] [[note]]This whole thing eventually became the source of tension between Sundanese with Javanese that lasted for generations, with the people of Sunda refusing to name anything within them as something from Majapahit, [[VillainOfAnotherStory viewed Gajah Mada as a dastardly villain when everyone else in the Nusantara considered him a hero]] and forbade any marriages between Sundanese and Javanese out of 'superstition'. By the tail end of the 2010's, however, the descendants of Sunda and Majapahit Kingdoms thankfully agreed to bury the hatchet and made peace with each other.[[/note]][[note]]Curiously, this event is not included in ''Negarakertagama'', although it can be assumed that the author, Mpu Prapanca, wished to appease Hayam Wuruk and showcase the greatness of Majapahit with his book and thought including such tragic incident that painted Majapahit in a bad light would piss Hayam Wuruk off instead, so he chose to omit the incident, and the reason of Gajah Mada's fall from grace became unknown in that version.[[/note]]

Despite the loss of Gajah Mada (his massive tasks ended up being delegated to several ministers), Hayam Wuruk was still an influential and most respected king. While Majapahit stopped with expanding, Hayam Wuruk improved the Empire's infrastructure so well that he was well-loved by the people and made Majapahit still a strong Empire. It's only after Hayam Wuruk passed away that everything ''truly'' crashed down, since Hayam Wuruk decided to pass down his throne to his two children, and then they started fighting each other to become the sole ruler of the Empire, which continued for several generations. Naturally, this weakened Majapahit's grip on the archipelago (though not after Hayam Wuruk's son, Wikramawardhana, successfully invaded and conquered UsefulNotes/{{Singapore}}, even if he'd lose it eventually).

After the Dutch relaxed their educational policy (sometimes credited with the rise of the book ''Literature/MaxHavelaar'', written by Dutch satirist Multatuli, gaining late popularity, [[HeelRealization which made the Dutch realize that they might have ran the exploitation to the natives too excessively]]), several native intellectuals popped up and wrote books to teach the younger generation what their nation got from the Dutch, sometimes even including veiled [[TakeThat Take Thats]] against colonial rule. One of the most famous figures that arose during this period was Soewardi Soerjaningrat, later rechristened Ki Hadjar Dewantara, a Javanese nobleman who established the first educational institution for indigenous commoners, and whose famous Javanese proverb regarding his outlook on teachers eventually became the motto of the Indonesian Ministry of Education.[[note]]''Tut wuri handayani'' ("Those behind should give encouragement"). It's the last part of a longer sentence that reads as such, ''Ing ngarso sung tulodo, ing madyo mangun karso, tut wuri handayani'', which roughly translates to "Those in front should set an example, those in the middle should raise the spirit, and those behind should give encouragement."[[/note]] Soewardi was part of the so-called ''Tiga Serangkai'' (Triad), alongside Tjipto Mangoenkoesoemo, another Javanese nobleman with a decidedly more nationalistic and fiery approach regarding Indonesian self-awakening, and Ernest Douwes Dekker, an Indo (mixed Dutch-Indonesian) activist of self-rule for the Dutch East Indies, who also happened to be a great nephew of Multatuli (real name Eduard Douwes Dekker). Sukarno studied under Dr. Tjipto, and his ideas wound up influencing his later venture into politics. Another noted figure was Kartini, who, after befriending several Dutch women through letters, lamented the rigid, backward life of native women that she had to experience as a Javanese noblewoman.[[note]]Javanese women were traditionally secluded (''pingit'') in her parents' home when she came of age, and would continue to be secluded until she married. Although the tradition is considered obsolete today, the word ''pingit'' is still used to refer to a custom in Javanese weddings where the bride is forbidden from seeing the groom the night before the wedding day, during which time she is advised by her mother, aunts, and other relatives on how to become a proper wife.[[/note]] She wrote numerous letters championing women's rights, and held classes in her husband's house dedicated to teaching women. Although she died young, giving birth to her son at age 25, she is honored as a National Hero nevertheless, and "Kartini Day" (April 21) serves as the ''de facto'' Women's Day in Indonesia.

The accepted compromise between the colonial interest and the self-rule activists was a slow & gradual transformation of the colony into a partial self-governing region, with Volksraad (People's Council), a semi-legislative body partly elected by separate groups and partly assigned by the colonial government. While there was still discontent about the compromise, this approach at least convinced the local leaders to navigate the political bureaucracy instead of turning into armed rebellion. With petitions frequently ignored by the Dutch, comes the derisive term 'Volk sekarat', using the Indonesian word for "dying", referring both to the council's impotence and the exacerbated effect of the TheGreatDepression since the colonial government obviously focused the revenue of resource extraction for the Dutch coffer instead of the locals. Still, this means Indonesia finally has a cadre of leaders experienced in politics, and due to their weak position which won't survive any fragmentation, adopts a united front between the various tribes, giving birth to the Indonesian identity.

Cue UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. The Netherlands, being an Allied nation, got Indonesia involved in the war, only to be driven away by UsefulNotes/{{Japan}}, ostensibly as an "Eastern Brother" coming to liberate the nation. Unfortunately, the takeover from Japan could be considered to be just as harsh, or even worse than life under the Dutch (unpaid, abused workers known as Romusha is one of the ways to show it), so Indonesia was still suffering big time[[note]]Modern Japanese tends to view this as some sort of NecessaryEvil, apologizing for their ancestors' utter cruelty, but from the point of view of the Japanese back then, the Dutch colonization left Indonesian manpower extremely crippled and weak that they had to whip them up to shape ASAP in order to prepare for any cases of unwanted war emergencies. In other words, they wanted to think like they're being a WellIntentionedExtremist to protect Indonesia, but their prediction was off the mark, the Allied forces attack on Indonesia only occurred very late in the war, just months before the end, making them instead look like a NotSoWellIntentionedExtremist with all their Romusha.[[/note]]. On places strategic to war, however, Japan put up a much better treatment to areas they deemed important for war effort, encouraging more education and political sophistication. Educated elites like Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta studied Japanese knowledge and took advantage of UsefulNotes/{{Germany}} and Japan's weakening due to the US dropping [[UsefulNotes/AtomicBombingsOfHiroshimaAndNagasaki nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki]], declaring Indonesia independent on August 17, 1945[[note]]Japan actually considered to finally let Indonesia declare their independence on their accord when they sensed that they might be losing the war in 1944, planning that they could declare independence at August 24th instead, but after Hiroshima and Nagasaki got bombed, their hands were tied enough in coping with their losses and preparing to admit defeat that Sukarno and Hatta (with some pressure from radical youths of Indonesia) beat them to a punch in independence declaration.[[/note]]. The Dutch reestablished their colony afterwards, effectively running the country for four years, but the locals were not in the mind to bow to them again, and by 1949, the UsefulNotes/UnitedNations told them to just cut it out and leave Indonesia alone, though insultingly, the new government is forced to inherit all of the colony's debt, including paying the Dutch recolonization attempt, which only settled decades later in 2003.[[note]]Within Indonesia, 1945 is celebrated as the year of independence, but the international world (and some Indonesian intellectuals) recognize 1949, when the Dutch left the country, to be the actual year of independence, until Dutch formal recognition of the 1945 independence in2005.[[/note]] Cynically speaking, the decolonisation of Southeast Asia was in fact a containment measure against the Communists, and the leading independence movement was staunchly anti-communist already.\\\

Building the nation was very hard for Indonesia. As noted above, Indonesia inherited very little from Dutch colonization, so everything had to be built from scratch. Upon independence, Indonesia experimented with federalism for a year, but eventually sought a centralized presidential state, with Sukarno at the top. Events during Sukarno's era included hostilities with Malaysia (which includes modern Singapore and Brunei), which he wanted to annex into Indonesia, citing the basis of Gajah Mada and the Sumpah Palapa[[note]]One of the attacks in the later stage of the conflict included indiscriminate bombing of Singapore's public facilities, the names of captured and executed perpetrators is later used for an Indonesian Navy ship in 2014, reopening the old wound[[/note]]. He went as far as leaving the UsefulNotes/UnitedNations when it accepted Malaysia's membership. However, Sukarno's public approval waned as he increasingly turned into an autocrat, declaring himself PresidentForLife and leading Indonesia under so-called "Demokrasi Terpimpin" (Guided Democracy). He became close with the [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn Soviet Union]] and moved to the left, being supported by groups such as the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI, ''Partai Komunis Indonesia''). Chinese medical team was heavily involved in trying to lessen the effect of Soekarno's kidney failure, there were even talks about nuclear technology transfer, alarming the Western intelligence and Indonesian neighbours. Still, Soekarno was also a leading figure of the Third World and a founding father of the Non-Aligned Movement (alongside India's Jawaharlal Nehru and Yugoslavia's Josip Broz Tito). Economic inflation rose to an unprecedented levels, and leaving behind many uncared poor people throughout the nation.\\\

Eventually, 1965 struck. In the early hours of 1 October, the anachronistically-named 30 September Movement moved to do...something. The chronology of what exactly happened is still a subject of passionate debate. The official government story, propagated chiefly by the Army Reserve's head, Major-General Suharto, is that the PKI attempted a revolution against Sukarno's government and kidnapped six army generals from their homes in Jakarta, as well as Pierre Tendean, an aide to Defense Minister Abdul Haris Nasution who happened to be at Nasution's house, was mistaken for his superior, and heroically fought the barbarous communists off - but not in time to stop them from [[OutlivingOnesOffspring shooting Nasution's 5-year-old daughter, leading to her death a few days later]]. The revolutionaries then hauled their victims to Jakarta's main military airbase, dug a hole, mutilated and killed them as the PKI's women's wing danced around the orgy of violence in the nude, and dumped the bodies down said hole. On the other end of the tall tale spectrum, Suharto, with CIA help[[note]]initially they were so clueless about the opposition, assuming the military need weapons supply even though the PKI were practically unarmed, instead, Soeharto mostly need modern communication system to arrange the takeover, giving him total control of the situation since most of PKI sympathizers in the outer regions didn't even know what was happening in Jakarta when they were arrested[[/note]], manipulated the coup plotters into removing his superiors so that he could effectively take control of the military and country from them and Sukarno under the pretext of saving both. The most commonly-accepted version by foreign academic circles is that the Movement's leaders - mostly drawn from the Presidential Guard, and not acting on the orders of the PKI leadership - mistakenly thought the eventually-targeted generals to themselves be plotting a coup against Sukarno, escalated matters, and accidentally allowed a mysterious third party to air a supposed narrative of rebellion against the President.

But whatever happened, there are many certainties: six generals and a lieutenant were dead by sunrise, Nasution had barely escaped by climbing over a wall into the Iraqi ambassador's house and hid in a bush, and Suharto emerged from the chaos on top. Led by Suharto, the Army pinned the blame on the politically powerful PKI: members, suspected sympathizers, and in some cases their families, were rounded up, jailed, tortured and killed by the hundreds of thousands. Overall, at least 500,000 to as many as three million supposed communists were killed for supposedly aiding and abetting insurrection against Sukarno, despite his being the PKI's primary benefactor. Eventually, with its leaders dead and its members driven underground, the once-millions strong PKI (the largest non-ruling communist party in the world) was banned, and the military narrative of a communist insurrection weaved its way into Indonesian newspapers and history books, where it still remains. However, even without the incident, the Indonesian economy was in the brink of collapsing so they were not out of the danger just yet.

In the aftermath of the PKI coup, Sukarno lost even more support and the nation was on the verge of collapsing. A new president had to be elected and thanks to his achievements for quelling the coup, Suharto was elected. It also helped his case that Suharto was also very close to and trusted by Sukarno himself, so it was natural for him to succeed the ailing president. Suharto protected Sukarno from attempts to court martial him by placing him in house arrest until his death in 1970. The victims of the 30 September Movement were posthumously honored as 'Heroes of Revolution' as they refused to give in to PKI's demands, their loyalty being credited for averting the country's collapse from Sukarno's erratic actions. To further strengthen his anti-Communism stance, Suharto also sanctioned a propaganda movie called ''"Pengkhianatan PKI"'' (''PKI's Betrayal''), to be aired on the only television channel in the nation on September 30th every year until his downfall in 1998.\\\

Suharto dubbed his regime the "New Order" (''Orde Baru''), while Sukarno's regime was redubbed the "Old Order" (''Orde Lama''). Indonesia's face would change that day. While Sukarno was hostile against United Nations and Malaysia, Suharto instead opted for peaceful relationship and mended their relationship, rejoining the UN in 1966.[[note]]Since there was no precedent about countries leaving the UN unilaterally, the organization did not regard Indonesia as having left at all, instead being merely on "hiatus".[[/note]] His economic projects were leering to liberalism and capitalism, with the United States of America as one of Suharto's chosen allies, and one of the most important goals that Suharto aimed for was national stability, and with his chosen allies backing him, he could reach those goals in a short time. Indonesia's economy grew exponentially, enough that that the world was impressed with the formerly colonized nation to grow in such great pace and gave it the moniker 'Tiger of Asia'.\\\

All seemed well for Indonesia until the 1990s, when everything came crashing down. In 1997, Asia was hit with a great financial crisis, which hit Indonesia particularly bad. With poverty rising, people lost their confidence on the president. Demonstrations flared up, and people began to criticize openly against Suharto's autocratic and oligarchic government. People dubbed Suharto's government as a champion of the so-called "KKN": ''Korupsi'' (Corruption), ''Kolusi'' (Collusion), and ''Nepotisme'' (Nepotism). Protesters, including college students, initially demanded Suharto to step down peacefully. Suharto, as most dictators did, responded with force, culminating in the deaths of three college students from the Trisakti University by snipers. The resulting frenzy led to the protests becoming uncontrolled, eventually targeting not just Suharto's government but everyone who were regarded as complicit with him, including, tragically, Chinese Indonesians (general consensus claims to stem from jealousy over how they managed to survive the crisis relatively unscathed, in contrast to most other ethnic groups[[note]]Unlike what some people think, Suharto did not favor the Chinese at all. Several Chinese-Indonesians have claimed that Suharto did not acknowledge them and actually sanctioned several laws that debilitated them. For example, the Chinese New Year wasn't an official holiday season when Suharto was in charge, it was only later during the reign of Gus Dur that it was officialized as a holiday. The Chinese-Indonesians survived the economic crisis because they were simply more experienced in terms of trading and economy despite the lack of support from Suharto.[[/note]]), forcing many of them to flee the country. After realizing how much he lost power and the ensuing chaos that erupted, [[KnowWhenToFoldThem Suharto decided that he truly had to resign, his reign was over.]] Suharto was succeeded by his vice-president, Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie. He lived the rest of his life in retirement, with the media hounding him, but he was never convicted until his natural death by multiple organ failure in 2008.\\\

After the fall of Suharto, with the freedom of press truly freed[[note]]Beforehand, Suharto had his ways to silence his blatant oppositions, where they would be [[ReassignedToAntarctica 'honorably deported' somewhere else]] and then killed there, or secret snipers would be deployed to kill them on the spot, dubbed 'Penembak Misterius', shortened 'Petrus' (rather ironically, Petrus is the Indonesian translation for (Saint) Peter, the first of Jesus Christ's apostles), and the phenomenon is known as 'Petrus Shooting'. Originally it was meant to be a mean to decrease criminal rate and a lot of troublemaking gangs; while it was accepted at the time and was actually a factor of how Indonesia was stabilized and able to advance greatly in Suharto's leadership before the financial crisis, it eventually spiraled out of control and the Petrus Shooters became something of a SecretPolice to eliminate threats of Suharto's rule. This can be considered as a precursor of the Trisakti shooting, whereupon the shooting became the straw that broke the camel's back about the brutality of this shooting. And with Suharto fallen, everyone is free to express their knowledge and news without fear of being suddenly shot to death.[[/note]], many were eager to research about what Suharto was doing in all those years. Chief amongst them, though it is still a topic of considerable contention in Indonesia (because discussing it is a criminal offense), the 30 September Movement was a sort of FalseFlagOperation actually conducted by the very military it was supposed to have targeted. In a failed coup, blame was shifted to the communists, leading to the massacre (generally estimated from 500,000 to 1 million dead). Special point was taken to remind the population afterwards that only the communists (and absolutely ''none from the army'') are to blame through the education system. In actuality, the plotters were mostly army officers (and did include some communist officers). And since all the communists were dead anyway, it worked relatively well, in addition to the aforementioned "Pengkhianatan PKI" film being aired every year, which ended up quite [[{{Hypocrite}} hypocritical]] of Suharto ([[HypocriteHasAPoint though not without a point, even if it's a smaller scale, the murder method was still very inhuman and gruesome]]). Additionally, despite the history of Indonesia being invaded and colonized by the Dutch, it turned out Suharto would end up doing the same thing, except towards UsefulNotes/EastTimor, and doing a lot of inhuman things towards them all while parading that East Timor was part of Indonesia's many provinces. And a majority of them were solely for hoarding whatever resources East Timor had instead of anything defensive.\\\

To this day, even after his death, Suharto remained as one of the most controversial figures of Indonesia. His name would go down in history as one of the worst dictators in the world that ever lived. Like it or not, though, Suharto was responsible for whipping up Indonesia into a regional power and delaying a possible collapse of the nation thanks to Sukarno's latter antics, even if he had to use a weak foundation and becoming a hypocritical dictator later in his age. [[NeverSpeakIllOfTheDead Some Indonesians even still think highly of him]].

Suharto's fall marked the beginning of Indonesia's reformation, which has a heavy emphasis on democracy and free speech. The presidency is no longer an office which is held for very long, and is limited to two five-year-terms. Barring the impeachment of President Abdurrahman Wahid in 2001, Indonesian politics have been going relatively smooth, with no major parties dominating the next two decades afterwards. Indonesia began holding free and fair legislative elections in 1999, and presidential elections in 2004. The current president is Joko "Jokowi" Widodo of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P, ''Partai Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan''), the political party headed by Megawati Sukarnoputri, Sukarno's eldest daughter. Suharto's political party, the Party of Functional Groups, (''Golongan Karya'', often abbreviated to Golkar), has never popularly elected a president since his fall, although they did elect a vice-president in the form of Jusuf Kalla from 2004 to 2009, and then from 2014 to 2019.

The openness of the Reformation era also led to the rise of religious fundamentalism, and specifically Islamism. Having been forced underground for much of the Guided Democracy and New Order eras, Islamism came to the fore as a grassroots movement and became further inspired with the Aceh movement and seeing them as being successful in making their province stable with the strict sharia law. The infamous Bali bombings of 2002 and 2005, killing hundreds of foreign tourists, enforced fears that Islamists would take over the country, but the issue was brushed off by the public until 2016, when then-Governor Basuki Tjahaya "Ahok" Purnama, the first ethnic Chinese Indonesian governor of Jakarta, was impeached and arrested for allegedly insulting Literature/TheQuran. [[note]]In actuality, Ahok merely stated that Muslims should not fear a non-Muslim being elected as their governor just because their holy book says so.[[/note]] The resulting international attention and infamy caused Jokowi's government to begin clamping down on Islamist groups, including the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI, ''Front Pembela Islam''), notorious for advocating for the banning of films deemed un-Islamic and protesting against foreign artists like Music/LadyGaga from performing in Indonesia. To add insult to the Islamists' injury, Jokowi later invited Ahok (upon his release) to head Pertamina, the state-owned oil and gas company.

Despite its turbulent government issues, the Reformation proved to be quite beneficial to Indonesia as applications like Twitter or other social medias became extremely popular and giving Indonesia a lot of international coverage, for good and bad. In addition of this, in 2009, UsefulNotes/BarackObama became the 44th President of the United States of America and his childhood connection with Indonesia became better known, garnering more interest to the nation. It was well deserved (Indonesia has always been a powerful regional player economically, being one of the 20 largest economies in the world, with Jakarta being also the seat of ASEAN) but not enough, and popular culture still pays little heed to the fourth-most populous country in the world.\\\

During the colonial era, Indonesia was known as a producer of spices such as nutmeg, which is endemic to the Maluku islands. Today, Indonesia is a developing country and an important emerging market. It is among the world's 20 largest economies, and thus a member of the G20. While its relevance as a transshipment port has waned with the rise of the Singaporean economy, it makes up for it with its sheer volume of exports, including coal, petroleum oil, natural gases, palm oil, nickel, while it imports machinery and chemicals. Domestic consumption of palm oil, rice (a staple; see the Cuisine folder), and locally-manufactured consumer goods is ravenous. Indonesia was a longtime member of the OPEC, but decreasing oil wealth led to it exiting the bloc in 2008, having failed to meet production quota. Indonesia is well-known for its palm oil production, being the industry's top producer. Unfortunately, clearances for palm plantations have resulted in the rapid depletion of the country's rainforests since the late 20th century. For most of its history, Indonesia's main trade partner is Japan, though by the TurnOfTheMillennium China has been quickly ascending to become a key trade partner; backlash against this by far has to do with perceived transgressions against INdonesian sovereignty. A large chunk of Indonesia's economy is still dominated by the state, who owns several important enterprises, including its oil industry.\\\

As with the rest of Southeast Asia, Indonesia is a tropical rainforest country. The equator crosses the islands of Sumatra, Borneo (the provincial capital city of Pontianak is the largest settlement to be crossed by the equator), Sulawesi, and Halmahera, meaning Indonesia exists in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. The climate is extremely humid, and temperatures are generally within the same range of between 20°C and 35°C in most of Indonesia. Rain falls all year, though some areas receive more rain than the others; Surabaya is rather notorious for its pronounced dry season, while some parts of East Nusa Tenggara are so dry that their environment resembles the African savanna. Many Indonesians find it unbearable to stay outside for very long, and air conditioners are a common household appliance.\\\

UsefulNotes/EastTimor's annexation and subsequent independence is also known internationally. Unlike New Guinea, its independence movement ''did'' get support from the West, as Indonesia, under the dictator Suharto, had blatantly flouted international order by invading and annexing the former Portuguese Timor upon independence. The country was ruled as a province of Indonesia from 1976 to 1999, when provisional president B.J. Habibie, who presided over the remainder of Suharto's five-year term following his fall, allowed a referendum for East Timorese whether to remain in Indonesia (78% rejected it). The country was subsequently governed by a UN mandate until 2002, when it finally gained independence.\\\

Indonesia's railways are operated by the Indonesian Railways Company (''PT Kereta Api Indonesia''). They are inherited from networks built during the Dutch colonial period wholesale, and there have been no major expansions since the country gained independence. Rail transport exists only in Java and parts of Sumatra; there used to be railways in Borneo and Sulawesi, but both were shut down. Urban rail transit in Indonesia currently consists of two light rail transit networks in Palembang (built to coincide with the opening of the 2018 Asian Games) and Jakarta, one mass rapid transit/metro rail in Jakarta, four airport rail links, and several commuter rail lines. Recently Indonesia has also built a high-speed trains in the region, (in fact it's the first high-speed trains in Southeast Asia and the Southern Hemisphere) connecting the capital city of Jakarta to Bandung, called Whoosh (short for Waktu Hemat, Operasi Optimal, Sistem Hebat, lit. 'Time Saving, Optimal Operation, Superior System') is based on China's high-speed trains and is also operated by a Chinese and Indonesian joint venture company, PT. KCIC (Kereta Cepat Indonesia China) It begin operational in 2023.\\\

Being an archipelagic state, aviation is an important industry in Indonesia, with flights being the primary mode of transportation that connects the major islands. Between 2009 to 2014, air passengers grew threefold, and are expected to increase in the coming years. Indonesia's flag carrier and most popular full-service airline is Garuda Indonesia, while its most popular airline overall is the low-cost Lion Air. These two, alongside Garuda Indonesia's low-cost subsidiary Citilink, as well as Lion Air's three subsidiaries Batik Air (its foray to the full-service market), Wings Air (regional airline best known for its all-turboprop fleet), and Super Air Jet (a low-cost airline that targets young adults) form some 80% of Indonesia's market share, with the remaining 20% being in turn dominated by the hybrid airline Sriwijaya Air, its regional subsidiary NAM Air, and Indonesia [=AirAsia=] (which began as the fully domestic Awair; [=AirAsia=] purchased 49% shares of Awair in 2005 and rebranded it as its Indonesian branch). Garuda Indonesia, Citilink, Lion Air, Batik Air, Indonesia [=AirAsia=], and [=TransNusa=] (a former regional airline that was relaunched as a nationwide low-cost airline after the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic) all have international routes, though compared to hubs like Singapore, Indonesia's offerings are rather lacking; with the exception of Garuda Indonesia, which flies to nine countries, these airlines' scheduled international routes are limited to a combination of Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand, essentially acting as feeders for them ([[MyFriendsAndZoidberg plus East Timor]], served by Citilink to and from Denpasar).[[note]]However, Lion Air also has two foreign subsidiaries, Batik Air Malaysia and Thai Lion Air, which offer more international destinations to better compete in their outward-looking home market.[[/note]] Garuda Indonesia used to service major European and North American destinations before the 1997 Asian financial crisis, which forced it to scale back operations, something that it never recovered from (currently, the only European destination it serves nonstop flights to is Amsterdam). Also, Indonesia has a rather notorious reputation in the world for its poor airline safety record, with no less than six plane crashes claiming at least 100 fatalities occurring between 2002 and 2018. The 2007 New Year's Day crash of Adam Air Flight 574, which resulted in the airline [[CreatorKiller ceasing its operation shortly afterwards]], followed by the relatively minor but still deadly crash of Garuda Indonesia Flight 200 later that year, caused the European Union to impose a blanket ban on Indonesian airlines from crossing into its airspace, although the major airlines successfully petitioned to have their individual bans removed, before the law was scrapped completely in 2018.\\\

The Javanese, at 95 million people, make up 42% of the total population. Their language is the most-spoken native language in the country, and is the world's single largest language with no official status. Their native homeland is the provinces of Central Java, East Java, and Yogyakarta, but, owing to their historical dominance (like the Majapahit Empire), they have spread far and wide throughout the archipelago, and their culture is felt across the nation. The Dutch settled hundreds of thousands of Javanese outside Java during the colonial period, a policy continued by the Indonesian government as part of the ''Transmigrasi'' program. All seven Indonesian presidents to date are ethnic Javanese (although three of them: Sukarno, his daughter Megawati, and B.J. Habibie, are only partially-Javanese[[note]]Sukarno had a Balinese mother; Megawati was fathered by Sukarno with a Minang woman from Bengkulu and grew up in Jakarta as the "First Daughter"; while B.J. Habibie was born to a Gorontalo father in South Sulawesi's Bugis-dominated Parepare and mostly identified himself as a Bugis[[/note]]). Among linguists, the Javanese language is considered an odd member of the Malayo-Polynesian family, as it is grammatically and phonetically very different from neighboring languages like Malay, Sundanese, and Balinese, to the point that some have considered it to form an independent branch within Malayo-Polynesian. Javanese has three separate registers that are used depending on situation and formality, and was formerly written in a Brahmic script, but thanks to Dutch colonization, it is now written in the Latin script. The Javanese language heavily impacted modern Balinese and Sundanese languages; both of these contain three registers that are influenced by Javanese (with their "high" register basically replacing their vocabulary with Javanese loanwords), and their traditional scripts are descended from the Javanese Kawi script. Despite the Javanese being majority Muslim, their language has absorbed fewer Arabic loanwords compared to Malay, and their loanwords instead mostly came from Sanskrit. Many Javanese people today still give their children Sanskrit names regardless of their religion.\\\

Aside from the Malays, Sumatra is also home to the Acehnese, the Bataks, the Minangkabau, the Rejang, and the Lampungese. The Acehnese were the first Indonesian ethnic group to convert to Islam, and today (in)famous for imposing Islamic laws in their everyday life. Interestingly, rather than their Sumatran neighbors, the Acehnese language has more in common with the moribund Chamic languages of UsefulNotes/{{Vietnam}} (formerly spoken in Champa, the only Austronesian state in Indochina, it was absorbed by the Vietnamese in the 19th century). The Bataks of North Sumatra are the largest Christian-majority ethnic group in Indonesia, and produce some of the country's best singers, orators, and, lawyers (those ministerial trainings definitely help). Their presence in the military even predates Indonesia, serving in the colonial army and bring their expertise to the nascent Indonesian army. The Bataks are a tribal nation, and divide themselves into six major tribes, two of which are majority Muslim. Their religious divide is largely a result of the Padri War, initiated by the Bataks' southern neighbors, the Minangkabau, under the Wahhabi-influenced Padri movement led by independence fighter Tuanku Imam Bonjol. As for the Minang, they speak a language that is closely related to but not mutually intelligible with Malay (and may have been descended from an archaic form of Malay). They are a matriarchal, scholarly nation, and Minang men are traditionally expected to emigrate to seek higher learning and success elsewhere. One result of this is that Minangkabau cuisine is a common sight in cities, as these emigrants set up shop and opened restaurants known as ''Rumah Makan Padang''. A Minang delicacy, rendang, made headlines when a 2011 [[UsefulNotes/NewsNetworks CNN]] survey voted it the world's most delicious dish. Another result is that Minang people have made disproportionate gains in politics and entertainment relative to their size. A particularly famous Minang politician is one of the country's founding fathers, Vice-President Mohammad Hatta. During the 15th century, waves of Minang emigrants settled the Malay peninsula under the protection of the Malacca Sultanate, and their descendants formed Negeri Sembilan, a federal monarchy that elected rulers (''Yang di-Pertuan Besar'') on a periodical, rotational basis. Their form of government later inspired Tunku Abdul Rahman, the first Prime Minister of Malaysia, to institute Malaysia's current kingship system, which elects a supreme monarch (''Yang di-Pertuan Agong'') on a rotational basis.\\\

Indonesia also has a large community of ethnic Chinese (known officially as ''Tionghoa Indonesia'', and colloquially as ''Cina Indonesia''[[note]]''Cina'' is the older name, but its association with the New Order's policy of assimilation towards ethnic Chinese, coupled with its frequent usage as part of racial slurs, have led the current government to discourage its use. This extends to other words that incorporate ''Cina''; the official Indonesian name for the People's Republic of China is ''Republik Rakyat Tiongkok'', not ''Republik Rakyat Cina''.[[/note]]), with estimates of their population ranging from 2.8 to up to 8 million people. They are stereotyped as being talented in business and good with money, which is, to an extent, TruthInTelevision; according to a 2022 survey, [[https://www.cnbcindonesia.com/market/20221217074006-17-397702/daftar-terbaru-10-orang-terkaya-di-indonesia-siapa-saja seven of the ten richest Indonesians came from the Chinese community]], including the first one (Robert Budi Hartono, co-owner of Indonesian cigarette conglomerate Djarum). Their ancestors mostly came from Fujian and Guangdong; according to a census conducted during the 1980s, Southern Min (e.g., Hokkien and Teochew) was the most widely spoken Chinese language in Indonesia, followed by Hakka and Cantonese. However, the majority of Chinese Indonesians, particularly those in Java, no longer speak Chinese and even use fluent Javanese in their daily lives. During the New Order period, Suharto instituted a state-sponsored policy of discrimination against Chinese Indonesians, because he was deeply suspicious of their economic connections to Communist Mainland China. Chinese Indonesians were forbidden from speaking in their native tongues and also had to adopt one of the five official religions at the time, not including Confucianism (which wouldn't be recognized until 2000). Most ethnic Chinese in Java had been Confucian (or rather, folk religions that include Confucianism) at the time, and hundreds of thousands ended up converting to Christianity en masse. Although Chinese Indonesians in Java are predominantly Christian today, the majority outside Java have been Buddhists. Due to Suharto's policy being targeted more towards people near the capital, non-Javanese Chinese Indonesians also tend to retain their mother languages, and to some respects they are culturally similar to Malaysian and Singaporean Chinese, who are largely Buddhist and Chinese-speaking. In addition, Chinese Indonesians outside Java are much more likely to use their Chinese names openly, whereas those inside Java have largely Indonesianized their names. The discriminatory policy is finally repealed after the fall of Soeharto regime, but the legacy still lingers, while Christians in general are overrepresented in the military and police force due to Dutch preferential recruitment, there are barely any Chinese Indonesians due to Soeharto's era prohibition. The prohibition extended to all government employee positions, which drove them to business, and in turn making it even less likely for Chinese Indonesians to enter the public sector due to the rampant corruption and highly unprofessional culture.\\\

Bahasa Indonesia (lit. ''Indonesian language'', which means calling it ''Indonesian'' is more accurate than ''Bahasa'') is a standardized version of Malay language used as the [[CommonTongue lingua franca]] of the country, influenced by other languages due to historical ties. Indonesian have a lot of loanwords standardized into the standard dialect (''bahasa baku'') from the former colonizers of the islands (Dutch, Portuguese, English) and trade partners and religious sources (Hindi, Chinese, Arabic). It can be said that Indonesian is mostly Dutch-influenced Malay, while Malay used in the neighboring Malaysia, Singapore, and UsefulNotes/{{Brunei}} is mostly English-influenced. Some of Indonesian also made their way as loanwords in English, like ''paddy''[[note]]padi = rice[[/note]], ''gong''[[note]]the big brass percussion[[/note]],''orangutan''[[note]]the great ape; more accurately pronounced as "oh-raang-OO-tan" instead of the uh-RANG-oo-tan more familitar to Westerners[[/note]], as well as ''amok''[[note]]from the word ''amuk'' (= to rage)[[/note]] The archipelago contains around 700 local living languages (which are not dialects of Indonesian because they have significant difference in grammar and vocabulary). It is estimated that 270 of them are spoken in Papua. Javanese is the most spoken local language in the country, as well as the most spoken language. Indonesia hosts the most trilinguals in the worlds, comprising 17,4% of the population. This is because most provinces have Local Content policy that mandates teaching of the local language of the province in primary and secondary schools. Besides that, Indonesian and English is also a mandatory subject from the central government[[note]]alongside another optional foreign language, usually Mandarin Chinese[[/note]], which means that the average kid would learn at least three languages in their formal education. What's interesting is that there are more second-language speakers than native speakers of Indonesian. This is due to Indonesian being spoken mostly alongside the native local language, especially in rural areas, while urban dwellers are more likely to have it as the first language. [[UsefulNotes/IndianLanguages Sanskrit]] (known as Sanskerta) is used a lot like Latin is in Europe, just like in its native India. You'll see it in many government institutions' official motto and award and title names, e.g. the environment conservation award Kalpataru (from the Hindu divine tree), Anumerta (posthumous recognition), Indonesian Army motto ''Kartika Eka Paksi'' ("Unmatchable Bird with Noble Goals") and the country's motto ''Bhinneka Tunggal Ika'' ("Unity in Diversity", though a more literal translation puts it closer to the United States' "''E Pluribus Unum''": "From Many, One").\\\

If you have been speaking Indonesian language for some time, you'd notice that Indonesians [[{{Portmanteau}} love to make portmanteaus of just about anything]], probably related to the aforementioned military influence. Some are even done very much in a tongue-in-cheek way, often referencing multiple things at one time. Fine examples include Jabodetabek = the Jakarta metropolitan area ('''Ja'''karta, '''Bo'''gor, '''De'''pok, '''Ta'''ngerang, and '''Bek'''asi.); Puskesmas = Pusat Kesehatan Masyarakat ("Community Health Center," think of public clinics. Though unlike others below (except Kopaska), this is kind of accepted as an 'official' abbreviation unlike others that mostly would be considered slangs); Kopaska = Kommando Pasukan Katak ("Frog-Diver Command," think Indonesian equivalent to Navy [=SEALs=]); Pamer paha = padat merayap tanpa harapan (The joke goes twofold: Pamer paha means "ShowSomeLeg" (literally "thigh"), but the long form stands for "(traffic) extremely congested, abandon all hope"); Titi DJ = Hati-hati di jalan (Same joke: Titi DJ is the stage name of a famous TV Personality while the expanded form means "be careful in the road"); ABG = Anak Baru Gede, Angkatan Babe Gue, Audisi Band Gelo, Aku Baru Gajian ("insolent teenager", "my dad's generation", "band audition went shitty", and "I just got paid"; all from the same abbreviation, with many other variations not listed.); Anjal = Anak Jalanan ("street kids", nowadays used as a local substitute of the PrecisionFStrike by youths.); Bucin = Budak Cinta (PropertyOfLove).\\\

As a postscript, Dutch has all but died out and this is not considered an official language, nor in its Indonesian form[[note]]linguists in TheThirties and TheForties had observed signs that the form of language spoken here was diverging from the parent tongue, and speculated that given another fifty years or so, it might mutate into something like [[UsefulNotes/SouthAfrica Afrikaans]].[[/note]] as a threatened minority language worthy of preservation. Only a vanishingly small minority of older people, who learned it during the colonial period, would still use or understand it. As an interesting footnote: contact between Dutch colonies in the East Indies and the African Cape brought the word ''baie'' to Afrikaans, meaning "much" or "very".

Indonesia is nominally a secular state but only recognizes six religions: Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism (since 2000). Indigenous belief systems, ironically, are struggling to be legally recognized and its adherents have to identify as one of the aforementioned six or risk not being able to be registered in the system, e.g. having a national ID card or marriage certificate, even though theoretically it is possible to identify as "Others". Minority sects of the six religions are often accused of heresy and persecuted by the more extreme religious organizations, sometimes violently.\\\

Any house of worship must be approved by the neighboring population, which can bring friction when the population of the local majority religion suspects the minorities building "too much" house of worship is an attempt to convert the majority, even though the minorities are from different branches. In a catch-22, regular worship in an "unregistered" facility is illegal too, which can end up very problematic with a lack of cheap and accessible public transport.\\\

Islam, as the dominant religion, is practiced all along the archipelago. It is the majority religion in all provinces except for Bali, North Sulawesi, East Nusa Tenggara, and the six Papuan provinces. Explaining Islam in Indonesia can take up pages upon pages showing how different it is to the "orthodox" Islam practiced elsewhere. General consensus is that it is very, very ''lax'' compared to those practiced in the Middle East and South Asia, because the religion was spread in Indonesia through Indian merchants, who mostly practiced Sufism. This made the religion open to acculturation with other religions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism; it's often said that had the Arab merchants were the ones who preached Islam in Indonesia, it wouldn't be accepted that easily. That said, Muslim Indonesians generally follow basic Islamic teachings like praying and not eating pork, drinking alcohol, or having sex outside marriage. Hijab is observed by an increasing number of women, when it was rather rare during the New Order period (mostly because Suharto restricted hijab-wearing women from working in government, so it came to be seen as a symbol of defiance against his authority). In the mid 2000s, there's a surge of cultural movement called 'Hijrah', where people choose to become more religious in Islam and has sudden drastic changes in the lifestyle, such as dressing more modestly, and studying and preaching Islam harder. There's always a TokenReligiousTeammate in a group of people. The phenomenon has also led to many media to highlight this, such as ''Ayat-Ayat Cinta'' and ''Ketika Cinta Bertasbih''. Music is an even hotter asset, where every year in Ramadan, artists release a "religious song", even when the artists have controversial reputations, with the modest fashion and all. Commerce is no exception, the rise of halal demand made many products want the halal label slapped to them, even for non-edible foods such as clothes and even halal fridge (no, [[https://www.vice.com/en/article/bjpwwm/indonesia-just-got-its-first-halal-fridge-heres-a-list-of-everything-else-that-needs-a-stamp really]]), theres also [[https://evermos.com/ Halal e-commerce]] specifically to cater them.\\\

Hinduism is Indonesia's oldest foreign religion, and today chiefly practiced by the Balinese. Although the Balinese are nominally Hindu, their faith is best described as a syncretic religion that mixes Indian Hinduism with Balinese folk beliefs. Hindus traditionally believe in the existence of many gods who are aspects of the same essence, something that does not mix well with Indonesia's constitution, as it includes belief in one God as part of its principles. Hinduism also derives its diversity from having little in the way of common doctrine amongst its adherents beyond a belief in dharma, which doesn't sit well with a government overwhelmingly dominated by adherents of Abrahamic faiths with clear corpi of religious texts as such is hard to regulate.\\\

As a compromise with Indonesia's founding fathers, Balinese Hindus agreed to be recognized as citizens in exchange for "Acintya" (the Incomprehensible), also known as "Sang Hyang Widhi Wasa" (the Divine Order), being upgraded from merely an already novel blend of the Indian Hindu Brahman (universal principle) with the Javanese-Balinese monolatric entity "Hyang" to being the sole God, of which all other deities are merely a manifestation. Other than the Balinese, ''Orang Hindu'' is used as a catch-all term for people who adopt folk religions that do not fit the more rigid concepts of Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism. These include the Tenggerese (a remnant of Hindu Javanese who hold onto their beliefs after Majapahit was destroyed), the Baduy (the Sundanese equivalent of the Tenggerese, though they are more well-known for being [[HiddenElfVillage isolationists who reject modern conveniences]], akin to the Amish), and the Dayaks.\\\

Buddhism, alongside Hinduism, is one of Indonesia's first foreign religions. Buddhism was the religion of the Malay archipelago's first superpower, Srivijaya, and many Buddhist terms survive in local languages long after the religion itself declined (e.g., ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saṃsāra sengsara]]'', ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duḥkha duka]]'', ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Āgama_(Buddhism) agama]]'', ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upaya upaya]]''). Unlike Hinduism, Buddhism went extinct when Indonesia became Muslim, and would not be reintroduced to the country until the colonial period, with the arrival of Chinese immigrants.\\\

The consequence of this is that, despite the role it played in Indonesia's past, it is seen as a "foreign" religion, in the same vein as Confucianism; this is much like how Christianity was viewed in China after the Church of the East lost its relevance and Jesuit missionaries reintroduced it. Buddhism thus winds up sharing a role with Confucianism as a catch-all for all religions chiefly practiced by the Chinese, like Taoism or simply Chinese folk traditions. As with Hindus, Indonesian Buddhists experienced the same problem while trying to fit their theology to Indonesia's constitution, only this time, rather than believing in too many gods, Buddhists believe in too few; Buddhists are, religiously speaking, atheists, as they either do not believe in a supreme God, or indeed any god, responsible for the creation of the universe or simply find the concept of "gods" irrelevant; the faith instead emphasizes on the achievement of human self-awakening and enlightenment. Buddhists made a similar compromise to get themselves recognized as citizens by including belief in "Sang Hyang Adi Buddha", the seed of Buddhahood that exists in every living being.\\\

Thanks to the government designating six religions as official, 11 religious holidays are designated national holidays in Indonesia (Islamic New Year, Mawlid/Muhammad's birthday, Isra Mi'raj, Eid al-Fitr, Eid al-Adha, Good Friday, Ascension of Jesus (for decades officially named "Kenaikan Isa Almasih", the Islamic name for their penultimate prophet, until changed to "Kenaikan Yesus Kristus" in 2023), Christmas, Nyepi, Vesak, and Chinese New Year). Most of these holidays are immediately recognizable, aside from Nyepi, a uniquely Balinese Hindu holiday that celebrates the New Year. That said, Nyepi is well-known internationally, as the highly touristic island of Bali (including the airport) shuts down in its entirety while the Balinese observe the New Year in silence (''nyepi'' means "go silent" in Balinese).\\\

Since the fall of the New Order, presidents, politicians, and high-ranking figures precede their speech with a long greeting honoring the country's six religions: ''Assalamualaikum, salam sejahtera bagi kita semua, shalom, om swastiastu, namo buddhaya, salam kebajikan''. The tradition originated during the presidency of Abdurrahman Wahid, who sometimes began his speech with ''assalamualaikum'' ("peace be upon you", Muslim greeting), ''salam sejahtera bagi kita semua'' ("good upon us all", Catholic greeting), ''shalom'' ("peace"; Protestant greeting). Megawati Sukarnoputri added ''om swastiastu'' ("I wish good upon you", Hindu greeting), and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono completed it with ''namo buddhaya'' ("praise be to all Buddhas", Buddhist greeting), ''salam kebajikan'' ("greetings of virtue", Confucian greeting).\\\

Worth noting are the local version of FootballHooligans. These guys come in several flavors depending on the team, like "Bonek" ("bondho nekat", meaning "reckless guys"), The Jak, and [[NameToRunAwayFromReallyFast The Viking]], and they're notorious for yelling ridiculously bad [[MadnessMantra jingles]], causing hellish traffic jams and riots whenever their favorite team loses, or wins, or sometimes for no reason at all, as Music/KellyClarkson could attest to. Indeed, when one team lost a home match against its main rivals for the first time ever in 2022, a riot by the former's supporters and a subsequent heavy-handed police response led to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanjuruhan_Stadium_disaster the second-worst soccer-related disaster in history]]. That said, Indonesia has become a runner-up for the AFF Cup six times. Related to about soccer, English football club Manchester United once planned to visit Indonesia and play with the national team as part of the Asian tour, but had to cancel the visit when the hotel they were planning to stay (Ritz Carlton) was bombed. Recently, though, when Italian club Inter Milan attempted to do the same, there's no bombing and the visit was a success.\\\

Just like many other Southeast Asian countries, another sport that has becoming really popular in Indonesia after the turn of the century is [=MotoGP=]. The popularity of [=MotoGP=] here far, ''far'' outweighs the popularity of ''UsefulNotes/FormulaOne'' even though Formula One briefly had an Indonesian driver in Rio Haryanto in 2016 whilst [=MotoGP=] hasn't had an Indonesian rider that competed in the [=MotoGP=] class yet. [=MotoGP=]'s popularity is so huge here that if you compared the search numbers of [=MotoGP=] and Formula One on Google Trends, Indonesia is the only major country where the search results for [=MotoGP=] outnumbers Formula One.[[note]]For the last ''twelve'' years, in fact[[/note]] Also according to the Google Trends, it is the ''second'' most popular type of sport in the country, with soccer/football being the only type of sport that managed to beat [=MotoGP=]'s search numbers on the internet. That's just how immense [=MotoGP=] is to the general public of Indonesia. The country has hosted a championship race in 1996 and 1997 in the purpose-built Sentul International Circuit, and returned in the calendar for the 2022 season with a street circuit[[note]]Actually a purpose built circuit that is integrated to the resort area itself. The reason why its labeled as a "street" circuit is because the circuit perimeters are planned to be converted to road usage in normal days, similar to how Albert Park and Circuit Gilles Villeneuve operates in Formula One[[/note]] in the currently work-in-progress Mandalika resort area in Lombok island. There has been several reasons that explains why [=MotoGP=] is incredibly popular in Indonesia: Indonesia's status as one of the biggest motorcycle markets in the world, Valentino Rossi's immense popularity (him appearing in ads featuring Indonesian celebrities [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTmbVLq0Z3Y like this]] in the 2000's certainly helps), and the fact that Indonesia is one of the very few countries to have all of the races aired live on free television is often cited as the biggest factors. If you live in the cities and you overheard people talking about "Rossi", "Marquez", "Lorenzo", "Pedrosa", or "Stoner", chances are they will be talking about Valentino Rossi, Marc Márquez, Jorge Lorenzo, Dani Pedrosa, and Casey Stoner respectively. Unfortunately, unlike the soccer case, the popularity of [=MotoGP=] did not translate into video games, as Indonesian gamers are too preoccupied with soccer games. However, the influence can still be seen in the latter era of arcade games: Practically every arcade hubs are required to have a racing simulation game (Take your pick between ''[[VideoGame/DaytonaUSA Daytona]]'' series, ''Manga/InitialD'' games, and other racing titles, or even ''VideoGame/MarioKart''). It helps that racing simulation makes for an 'out there' arcade experience compared to the console-based, joystick-operated soccer simulation.\\\

Jakarta is also committed to hosting the Formula E championship race until the 2025-2026 season, but its highly politicized background related to one of the presidential candidates means an extension of the contract might depend on the 2024 election and how the winning coalition considers the promotion of electric vehicle through the race.

Indonesia has produced a number of {{Memetic Mutation}}s. These include a vid between popular musician Ariel and some other woman, a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKP1t3gQ_o0 dangdut]] lipsync, a policeman [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-m4SxEvnXA here]] who dances and sings to the song "Chaiya Chaiya" from ''Film/DilSe'' [[note]]Said policeman got arrested for apparently 'not doing his job well enough', but received enough backing from the net to be eventually pardoned and considered just trying to cheer his friends up in the middle of hectic work[[/note]], a comedian who did the same thing [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzy8ojE15Ig&feature=related here]] (Indonesians sure love Bollywood), a man whose explosive criticism towards another [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5DPxV2pvxM went viral]], [[MemeticBadass Mad Dog]] from ''Film/TheRaid'', [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWpKVORhIm4 a commercial]] for a mangosteen peel's extract, a Twitter post featuring Ahok which utilized that certain meme from ''Film/ThreeHundred'', young people shouting at passing busses, and plans to turn the popular instant noodle brand Indomie into Indonesia's seventh religion. [[http://www.kaskus.co.id/thread/517b1f4d5b2acfb377000009/10tokoh-asli-indonesia-yang-sering-dijadikan-meme-rage-face-dan-photosop-ngakak Here's a compilation of Indonesia's own memetic figures]]. Also, blaming and criticizing the government is usually one thing, (the Orde Baru era saw many medias and arts subtly criticizing the Orde Baru regime without being caught by Suharto), but once the democracy got set in with many freedom of speech implemented and compounded with the rise of social media, 'blaming the government' got turned into a meme used by young people to complain on just anything that goes wrong, in a similar manner of 'blaming capitalism / MegaCorp' in bigger countries. While they are not without a point that corruption is still a big problem Indonesia is tackling and there are a few that expressed this eloquently, sometimes the amount and way of their complaining got to the level of hilarity that just couldn't be taken seriously.\\\

The fact that Indonesia is almost unknown to the rest of the world besides the popular tourist destination island of Bali (which many outsiders would think is a country or part of another country) is not lost on Indonesians. Due to the relatively quick proliferation of Internet recently, on several occasions that the country is mentioned, however briefly, you can be sure that more than several people will be commenting with "[[PatrioticFervor Proud to be Indonesian!]]"/"Hey, that's my country you know!". Due to how embarrassing this can be if said in RealLife, and the fact that comments can fill almost all of the comment section of a post rather quickly and obnoxiously, it's dubbed "Overproud Indonesians". It's widespread from {{Website/Twitter}} to Website/YouTube and SFW Image Boards like [=9GAG=], but kind of limited in sites blocked by Indonesian Government like {{Website/Reddit}} or {{Website/Tumblr}}.\\\

Indonesians have been throwing insults at anything Malaysian for quite a while after they patented several Indonesian cultural items, such as batik (the technique of forming patterns on fabric by scribbling hot liquid wax, dying it, and boiling off the wax) or gamelan (a style of music centered around mallet-struck metallophones). Since the Minangkabau of West Sumatra are held by most academics to be the cultural precursors to Malays and their language that of Malay, Indonesians tend to have a stronger claim to them than their brethren over the Bornean border, but have also been much less civilized about it; cultural flare-ups are often marked by riots outside the Malaysian embassy in Jakarta. Between the "culture stealing", Sukarno's support for the communist guerrillas during the Emergency, and Malaysia being one of the few countries that can stand up to Indonesia at the one sport it's good at, Indonesia doesn't like Malaysia very much.

Television reached Indonesia in the 1960s; the oldest established television network in Indonesia, the state-owned TVRI (''Televisi Rakyat Indonesia''), began broadcasting in 1962, in conjunction with the 1962 Asian Games held in Jakarta. For most of the New Order era, TVRI was the country's only television network, and was used to air propaganda related to the regime. In 1987, however, Suharto's government approved a five-year plan to allow commercial television networks and programming, and TVRI subsequently lost its monopoly. The country's second, and first privately-owned, television network, RCTI (''Rajawali Citra Televisi Indonesia''), started airing nationally in 1989, followed by SCTV (''Surya Citra Televisi'') in 1990. With the advent of Reformation, more and more television networks have popped up, while TVRI's popularity has faded away, now being regarded as a niche channel providing highbrow and educational shows. Aside from RCTI and SCTV, the entertainment television scene is now dominated by Indosiar, MNCTV (''Media Nusantara Citra Televisi''), ANTV (''Andalas Televisi''), GTV (''Global Televisi''), Trans TV, and Trans 7, while the news broadcasting scene is dominated by [=tvOne=] and Metro TV.\\\

What Indonesians eat differs from one place to the other; from how people prefer it sweet and spicy in one place, while the other likes it plain [[FireBreathingDiner SPICY]] to where in one place people have dogs for dinner while in another people eat caterpillars. Rice is considered staple food item for most areas especially on the western side; to the east, expect sago and yam. One thing most (native) Indonesians agree not to eat is pork, since a large number of them are Muslim. If a restaurant serves pork as a dish, the government requires that they use separate utensils for cooking the food, and they also need to pass a qualification to show that they serve halal food. Outside of non-Muslim enclaves, it's not uncommon for restaurants to forego pork servings from their menu altogether, including for Chinese dumpling and Japanese ramen shops whose dishes are otherwise famous for their intensive use of pork. Places where non-Muslims are the majority tend to forgo these laws, including Bali, where pork is the most widely consumed meat, on account of the Hindus' taboo regarding eating cattle meat. It's also quite prevalent in the eastern parts of Indonesia, where it ranges from soup-based to roasted crispy, as well as in Medan with its high population of Chinese and Bataks. And Java does have pork, too, though since it's rather taboo there (the mere Indonesian word for "pork" is the equivalent of the S-word in some places in Java), the best way to find it is to go to a Chinese/Batak/Balinese restaurant and ask about B2.\\\

Instant noodles have a special place in the public consciousness, being cheap, tasty, while still easy enough to cook with minimal skill and equipment. The most popular instant noodle brand in Indonesia is Indomie, which also happens to be the only one to gain significant international exposure, as it has been exported to over 90 countries, including the United States, though it is especially popular in African countries. In Indonesia, there are entire cafes whose menu specializes on Indomie instant noodles, known as "Warmindo" (short for ''Warung Makan Indomie''). There is also a meme deifying Indomie for its crucial contribution to producing the country's educated elites, namely, the claim that Indonesian college students survive on nothing but Indomie instant noodles, particularly on their last semesters, as they labor on their theses.\\\

Western fast food joints like KFC, UsefulNotes/McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy's, and A&W are quite popular. Interestingly, Western fast food joints in Indonesia are guaranteed to sell a fried chicken-and-rice combo, no matter how nonsensical the idea sounds in their original country. [=McDonald's=] is actually more well-known among Indonesians for selling fried chickens, and it's almost a ComingOfAgeStory for Indonesians who travel overseas only to learn, to their shock, that the Golden Arches' real specialty is hamburgers. Jokes have it that KFC, whose specialty actually ''is'' fried chicken, is a candidate for the country's seventh religion, and there are countless [[ShoddyKnockoffProduct knockoffs]] that sell similar-tasted, and in some cases even [[BlandNameProduct similar-named]], fried chickens with much more affordable prices. The most popular of these "KFC alternatives" is [[https://www.cfcindonesia.com/home California Fried Chicken]] (CFC), which, oddly enough, began its life as a franchisee of a Western fast food joint, specifically, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_Chicken Pioneer Chicken]] (its founders were Indonesians who fell in love with the joint while studying abroad in California, and wanted to bring it back home). CFC cut its ties with Pioneer Chicken in 1989, however, and evolved into something of an Indonesian [[UsefulNotes/{{Philippines}} Jollibee]], successfully opening hundreds of stores on its own. It is noted that burgers are generally more expensive than chickens, thus limiting their appeal to the lower-middle class that Indonesians mostly belong to, while many western restaurants add rice to their menu because it's a surefire way to have customers, since the majority of Indonesians have rice as a staple of their diet. Burger King, however, had a story where they just simply vanished from Indonesian stores (somewhere before the Trisakti Incident, although the incident had nothing to do with the vanishing), only for it to reopen years later and has since reclaimed its place as Indonesia's most popular fast food joints.\\\

LGBT rights are also something that have become a hotly-contested issue. Although Indonesia - where "LGBT" is often used as an uncountable noun instead of as an adjective - does not explicitly ban gay sex, it does not recognize same-sex unions, and there is no law that protects gays and lesbians from being attacked or discriminated against. The 2006 Law Against Pornography and Pornoaction explicitly includes a statement that forbids the dissemination of materials suggesting same-sex relationships, which is the reason why Indonesia routinely bans or edits out gay scenes from foreign films and televisions, though censors can often miss less well-understood references like pride flags.\\\

Although supporters exist, acceptance towards same-sex relationships remains middling to negative for most of the population. It speaks volumes that when dangdut singer Saipul Jamil was arrested and imprisoned for sex offences in 2016, the media seems obsessed in pointing out that [[SkewedPriorities the victim was male instead of the fact that he was a minor]] (Saipul was officially convicted for pedophilia, though). And when [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynhard_Sinaga Reynhard Sinaga]], an Indonesian student in Manchester, was convicted of 136 rapes of other men by a British court, the mayor of his hometown of Depok used it as cover to send the police after the city's gay community on the grounds of "strengthening families", without even using the sexual assault component of Sinaga's crimes as an excuse.\\\

By contrast, trans people have had a relatively easier time being accepted by the population and government. Unlike its attitudes towards homosexuality, the government actually ''does'' have laws that protect transgenders and transsexuals from harassment, and trans people are more likely to out themselves compared to gays and lesbians. There have been a couple of trans figures in entertainment, most notably the late Dorce Gamalama, a talk show host who also happened to be a devout Muslim (her hajj trip was widely documented, and she started wearing hijab in the 2000s). The only place where there are clear laws regarding LGBT rights is Aceh, where [[HeteronormativeCrusader anything and everything related to it is forbidden]]; people accused of LGBT acts are routinely arrested and caned by the religious police.\\\

However, human rights groups agree that things will deteriorate nationwide when Indonesia's first wholly domestic Criminal Code (its predecessor being Dutch-derived) comes into effect at the start of 2026. A sweeping legal package in the making since 1968, its bans on non-marital sex, domestic partner relationships, and cohabitation have alarmed casual onlookers and tourism commentators, though human rights advocates express concerns less about the fresh crackdown on philandery while on holiday in Bali and more about the general implications for privacy; with same-sex marriages not recognized, the Code also amounts to an implicit ban on homosexual relationships.\\\

It will also punish internet trolling and "hoaxes" with six years' imprisonment - a very real problem in a country with almost 200 million social media users, but also a deeply sticky one what with the government itself spreading disinformation about the 1965 politicides and underreporting [[UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic COVID]] statistics to "prevent panic" - and will also punish anyone who "attacks the personal dignity and honor of the sitting president and vice president" with three and a half years. Bizarrely, it also bans claiming to be able to practice magic and witchcraft.

* Gajah Mada, 14th century military leader from the Majapahit Empire. Proclaimed the famous ''Palapa'' oath, which affirmed his plan to conquer the Malay archipelago.
* Raden Saleh Sjarif Boestaman, the first modern artist and painter from the Dutch East Indies. Traveled to Europe and received many royal orders to create portraits.

* Wahjoe Sardono, Kasino Hadiwibowo, and Indrodjojo Kusumonegoro, better known as Dono, Kasino, and Indro, the most known members of the comedy group ''Creator/WarkopDKI'', Indonesia's answer to ''Film/TheThreeStooges'' and considered legends in Indonesian old comedy shows. Kasino and Dono passed away in 1997 and 2001, respectively, leaving Indro the sole survivor of the group.

* Nadira, a housekeeper in ''Manga/KakushigotoMyDadsSecretAmbition'', is Indonesian. She apparently is intimate enough with Javanese spirit-calling and name-changing practices[[labelnote:note]]The Javanese has a practice where someone, usually a child, undergoes a name-changing ritual to change their luck and health condition. The most famous example being the first president Soekarno, who was born Kusno Sosrodihardjo, and seventh president Jokowi, who was born Mulyono[[/labelnote]].

* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4GunsOfThePatriots'': Raging Beauty is Indonesian, we kid you not. While the other B&B corps members are described as being from "Europe", "Africa", or "South America", Raging Beauty is specifically identified as being from Aceh. Aceh has been the source of many tough rebellions, from the colonial period against the Dutch (one of the National Heroes, Teuku Umar, pulled off an ingenious [[ThePlan plan]] and it took the Dutch nothing short of inserting a culturalist to understand and defeat them), until almost recently. During the Suharto regime, an Acehnese rebel group called GAM (''Gerakan Aceh Merdeka'', lit. Free Aceh Movement) started their rebellion. Of course, the Suharto regime, being very paranoid against dissent, slapped Aceh with the "DOM" label (''Daerah Operasi Militer'', lit. Military Operations Zone), which meant that the military was given free reign to do whatever they damn well pleased, and the situation [[FromBadToWorse took a turn for the worse]]. Their resistance continued even after the 1998 turmoil and it took nothing short of a RealLife DeusExMachina (the Boxing Day Tsunami) to put an end to the fighting. It wiped out both the government and the rebel military and actually enabled them to meet for one last negotiation, brokered by famous Finnish diplomat Martti Ahtisaari. Now, Aceh is an autonomous special region [[TheTheocracy with free reign to practice Islam as fundamentally as they wish]], and rebellion is a thing of the past. Hopefully.

Indonesia's railways are operated by the Indonesian Railways Company (''PT Kereta Api Indonesia''). They are inherited from networks built during the Dutch colonial period wholesale, and there have been no major expansions since the country gained independence. Rail transport exists only in Java and parts of Sumatra; there used to be railways in Borneo and Sulawesi, but both were shut down. Urban rail transit in Indonesia currently consists of two light rail transit networks in Palembang (built to coincide with the opening of the 2018 Asian Games) and Jakarta, one mass rapid transit/metro rail in Jakarta, four airport rail links, and several commuter rail lines. Governments have occasionally flirted with the idea of constructing high-speed trains, whose plans mostly fall through due to budgetary reasons.\\\

The Javanese, at 95 million people, make up 42% of the total population. Their language is the most-spoken native language in the country, and is the world's single largest language with no official status. Their native homeland is the provinces of Central Java, East Java, and Yogyakarta, but, owing to their historical dominance (like the Majapahit Empire), they have spread far and wide throughout the archipelago, and their culture is felt across the nation. The Dutch settled hundreds of thousands of Javanese outside Java during the colonial period, a policy continued by the Indonesian government as part of the ''Transmigrasi'' program. All seven Indonesian presidents to date are ethnic Javanese (although three of them: Sukarno, his daughter Megawati, and B.J. Habibie, are only partially-Javanese[[note]]Sukarno had a Balinese mother; Megawati was fathered by Sukarno with a Minang woman from Bengkulu and grew up in Jakarta as the "First Daughter"; while B.J. Habibie was born to a Gorontalo father in South Sulawesi's Bugis-dominated Parepare and mostly identified himself as a Bugis[[/note]]). Among linguists, the Javanese language is considered an odd member of the Malayo-Polynesian family, as it is grammatically and phonetically very different from neighboring languages like Malay, Sundanese, and Balinese, to the point that some have considered it to form an independent branch within Malayo-Polynesian. Javanese has three separate registers that are used depending on situation and formality, and was formerly written in a Brahmic script, but thanks to Dutch colonization, it is now written in the Latin script. The Javanese language heavily impacted modern Balinese and Sundanese languages; both of these contain three registers that are influenced by Javanese (with their "high" register basically replacing their vocabulary with Javanese loanwords), and their traditional scripts are descended from the Javanese Kawi script. Despite the Javanese being majority Muslim, their language has absorbed fewer Arabic loanwords compared to Malay, and their loanwords instead mostly came from Sanskrit. Many Javanese people today still give their children Sanskrit names.\\\

Aside from the Malays, Sumatra is also home to the Acehnese, the Bataks, the Minangkabau, the Rejang, and the Lampungese. The Acehnese were the first Indonesian ethnic group to convert to Islam, and today (in)famous for imposing Islamic laws in their everyday life. Interestingly, rather than their Sumatran neighbors, the Acehnese language has more in common with the moribund Chamic languages of UsefulNotes/{{Vietnam}} (formerly spoken in Champa, the only Austronesian state in Indochina, it was absorbed by the Vietnamese in the 19th century). The Bataks of North Sumatra are the largest Christian-majority ethnic group in Indonesia, and produce some of the country's best singers, orators, and, lawyers (those ministerial trainings definitely help). The Bataks are a tribal nation, and divide themselves into six major tribes, two of which are majority Muslim. Their religious divide is largely a result of the Padri War, initiated by the Bataks' southern neighbors, the Minangkabau, under the Wahhabi-influenced Padri movement led by independence fighter Tuanku Imam Bonjol. As for the Minang, they speak a language that is closely related to but not mutually intelligible with Malay (and may have been descended from an archaic form of Malay). They are a matriarchal, scholarly nation, and Minang men are traditionally expected to emigrate to seek higher learning and success elsewhere. One result of this is that Minangkabau cuisine is a common sight in cities, as these emigrants set up shop and opened restaurants known as ''Rumah Makan Padang''. A Minang delicacy, rendang, made headlines when a 2011 [[UsefulNotes/NewsNetworks CNN]] survey voted it the world's most delicious dish. Another result is that Minang people have made disproportionate gains in politics and entertainment relative to their size. A particularly famous Minang politician is one of the country's founding fathers, Vice-President Mohammad Hatta. During the 15th century, waves of Minang emigrants settled the Malay peninsula under the protection of the Malacca Sultanate, and their descendants formed Negeri Sembilan, a federal monarchy that elected rulers (''Yang di-Pertuan Besar'') on a periodical, rotational basis. Their form of government later inspired Tunku Abdul Rahman, the first Prime Minister of Malaysia, to institute Malaysia's current kingship system, which elects a supreme monarch (''Yang di-Pertuan Agong'') on a rotational basis.\\\

Indonesia also has a large community of ethnic Chinese (known officially as ''Tionghoa Indonesia'', and colloquially as ''Cina Indonesia''[[note]]''Cina'' is the older name, but its association with the New Order's policy of assimilation towards ethnic Chinese, coupled with its frequent usage as part of racial slurs, have led the current government to discourage its use. This extends to other words that incorporate ''Cina''; the official Indonesian name for the People's Republic of China is ''Republik Rakyat Tiongkok'', not ''Republik Rakyat Cina''.[[/note]]), with estimates of their population ranging from 2.8 to up to 8 million people. They are stereotyped as being talented in business and good with money, which is, to an extent, TruthInTelevision; according to a 2022 survey, [[https://www.cnbcindonesia.com/market/20221217074006-17-397702/daftar-terbaru-10-orang-terkaya-di-indonesia-siapa-saja seven of the ten richest Indonesians came from the Chinese community]], including the first one (Robert Budi Hartono, co-owner of Indonesian cigarette conglomerate Djarum). Their ancestors mostly came from Fujian and Guangdong; according to a census conducted during the 1980s, Southern Min (e.g., Hokkien and Teochew) was the most widely spoken Chinese language in Indonesia, followed by Hakka and Cantonese. However, the majority of Chinese Indonesians, particularly those in Java, no longer speak Chinese. During the New Order period, Suharto instituted a state-sponsored policy of discrimination against Chinese Indonesians, because he was deeply suspicious of their economic connections to Communist Mainland China. Chinese Indonesians were forbidden from speaking in their native tongues, and also had to adopt one of the five official religions at the time, not including Confucianism (which wouldn't be recognized until 2000). Most ethnic Chinese in Java had been Confucian (or rather, folk religions that include Confucianism) at the time, and hundreds of thousands ended up converting to Christianity en masse. Although Chinese Indonesians in Java are predominantly Christian today, the majority outside Java have been Buddhists. Due to Suharto's policy being targeted more towards people near the capital, non-Javanese Chinese Indonesians also tend to retain their mother languages, and to some respects they are culturally similar to Malaysian and Singaporean Chinese, who are largely Buddhist and Chinese-speaking. In addition, Chinese Indonesians outside Java are much more likely to use their Chinese names openly, whereas those inside Java have largely Indonesianized their names.\\\

Cue UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. The Netherlands, being an Allied nation, got Indonesia involved in the war, only to be driven away by UsefulNotes/{{Japan}}, ostensibly as an "Eastern Brother" coming to liberate the nation. Unfortunately, the takeover from Japan could be considered to be just as harsh, or even worse than life under the Dutch (unpaid, abused workers known as Romusha is one of the ways to show it), so Indonesia was still suffering big time[[note]]Modern Japanese tends to view this as some sort of NecessaryEvil, apologizing for their ancestors' utter cruelty, but from the point of view of the Japanese back then, the Dutch colonization left Indonesian manpower extremely crippled and weak that they had to whip them up to shape ASAP in order to prepare for any cases of unwanted war emergencies. In other words, they wanted to think like they're being a WellIntentionedExtremist to protect Indonesia, but their prediction was off the mark, the Allied forces never tried to attack Indonesia, making them instead look like a NotSoWellIntentionedExtremist with all their Romusha.[[/note]]. On places strategic to war, however, Japan put up a much better treatment to areas they deemed important for war effort, encouraging more education and political sophistication. Educated elites like Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta studied Japanese knowledge and took advantage of UsefulNotes/{{Germany}} and Japan's weakening due to the US dropping [[UsefulNotes/AtomicBombingsOfHiroshimaAndNagasaki nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki]], declaring Indonesia independent on August 17, 1945[[note]]Japan actually considered to finally let Indonesia declare their independence on their accord when they sensed that they might be losing the war in 1944, planning that they could declare independence at August 24th instead, but after Hiroshima and Nagasaki got bombed, their hands were tied enough in coping with their losses and preparing to admit defeat that Sukarno and Hatta (with some pressure from radical youths of Indonesia) beat them to a punch in independence declaration.[[/note]]. The Dutch reestablished their colony afterwards, effectively running the country for four years, but the locals were not in the mind to bow to them again, and by 1949, the UsefulNotes/UnitedNations told them to just cut it out and leave Indonesia alone.[[note]]Within Indonesia, 1945 is celebrated as the year of independence, but the international world (and some Indonesian intellectuals) recognize 1949, when the Dutch left the country, to be the actual year of independence.[[/note]] Cynically speaking, the decolonisation of Southeast Asia was in fact a containment measure against the Communists, and the leading independence movement was staunchly anti-communist already.\\\

Building the nation was very hard for Indonesia. As noted above, Indonesia inherited very little from Dutch colonization, so everything had to be built from scratch. Upon independence, Indonesia experimented with federalism for a year, but eventually sought a centralized presidential state, with Sukarno at the top. Events during Sukarno's era included hostilities with Malaysia, which he wanted to annex into Indonesia, citing the basis of Gajah Mada and the Sumpah Palapa. He went as far as leaving the UsefulNotes/UnitedNations when it accepted Malaysia's membership. However, Sukarno's public approval waned as he increasingly turned into an autocrat, declaring himself PresidentForLife and leading Indonesia under so-called "Demokrasi Terpimpin" (Guided Democracy). He became close with the [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn Soviet Union]] and moved to the left, being supported by groups such as the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI, ''Partai Komunis Indonesia''), though he was also a leading figure of the Third World and a founding father of the Non-Aligned Movement (alongside India's Jawaharlal Nehru and Yugoslavia's Josip Broz Tito). Economic inflation rose to an unprecedented levels, and leaving behind many uncared poor people throughout the nation.\\\

Eventually, 1965 struck. In the early hours of 1 October, the anachronistically-named 30 September Movement moved to do...something. The chronology of what exactly happened is still a subject of passionate debate. The official government story, propagated chiefly by the Army Reserve's head, Major-General Suharto, is that the PKI attempted a revolution against Sukarno's government and kidnapped six army generals from their homes in Jakarta, as well as Pierre Tendean, an aide to Defense Minister Abdul Haris Nasution who happened to be at Nasution's house, was mistaken for his superior, and heroically fought the barbarous communists off - but not in time to stop them from [[OutlivingOnesOffspring shooting Nasution's 5-year-old daughter, leading to her death a few days later]]. The revolutionaries then hauled their victims to Jakarta's main military airbase, dug a hole, mutilated and killed them as the PKI's women's wing danced around the orgy of violence in the nude, and dumped the bodies down said hole. On the other end of the tall tale spectrum, Suharto, with CIA help, manipulated the coup plotters into removing his superiors so that he could effectively take control of the military and country from them and Sukarno under the pretext of saving both. The most commonly-accepted version by foreign academic circles is that the Movement's leaders - mostly drawn from the Presidential Guard, and not acting on the orders of the PKI leadership - mistakenly thought the eventually-targeted generals to themselves be plotting a coup against Sukarno, escalated matters, and accidentally allowed a mysterious third party to air a supposed narrative of rebellion against the President.

But whatever happened, there are many certainties: six generals and a lieutenant were dead by sunrise, Nasution had barely escaped by climbing over a wall into the Iraqi ambassador's house and hid in a bush, and Suharto emerged from the chaos on top. Led by Suharto, the Army pinned the blame on the politically powerful PKI: members, suspected sympathizers, and in some cases their families, were rounded up, jailed, tortured and killed by the hundreds of thousands. Overall, at least 500,000 to as many as three million supposed communists were killed for supposedly aiding and abetting insurrection against Sukarno, despite his being the PKI's primary benefactor. Eventually, with its leaders dead and its members driven underground, the once-millions strong PKI was banned, and the military narrative of a communist insurrection weaved its way into Indonesian newspapers and history books, where it still remains. However, even without the incident, the Indonesian economy was in the brink of collapsing so they were not out of the danger just yet.

Indonesia is nominally a secular state but only recognizes six religions: Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism (since 2000). Indigenous belief systems, ironically, are struggling to be legally recognized and its adherents have to identify as one of the aforementioned six or risk not being able to be registered in the system, e.g. having a national ID card or marriage certificate, even though theoretically it is possible to identify as "Others". Also, minority sects of the six religions are often accused of heresy and persecuted by the more extreme religious organizations.\\\

Christianity is the largest minority religion in Indonesia, and is dominant in North Sulawesi, East Nusa Tenggara, and Papua. Many provinces like North Sumatra (which actually has the largest Christian population in the country at 4.9 million people), Maluku, and West Kalimantan also have substantial Christian populations. Christianity was brought into Indonesia by the Europeans, and the faith was accepted by natives who formerly practiced tribal religions. Since the Protestant Dutch were the colonial power, Protestantism is considered the "default" Christian branch. When you hear Indonesians say about "Kristen", they're referring to Protestants (Catholics, by contrast, are referred to as "Katolik"). Interestingly, Indonesian Christians will sometimes call their God "Allah". The tradition of Indonesian Christians calling God "Allah" is rooted in historical Malay translations of the Bible, which tend to utilize Arabic to translate phrases that were seen as being close enough to Muslim concepts (as Malays are traditionally Muslims, and Christian Malays are mostly descended from ex-Muslims). Indonesia actually has a couple of different ways to call God; other than "Allah", they have the Austronesian-rooted "Tuhan" (basically the native synonym of the monotheistic God), as well as "Dewa/Dewi", a term that may refer to the universal God but mostly used to refer to polytheistic gods or spirits (the term is derived from the Sanskrit word ''deva/devi''). Aside from Allah, Christians also use Arabic phrases like "Alkitab" (the Bible) and "khutbah" (sermons). As the most prominent non-Muslims, Christians and Muslims are usually the opposing parties in modern interreligious violence and disputes such as in Maluku and Kalimantan, though for the most part the two get along, especially in the most cosmopolitan areas.\\\

Thanks to the government designating six religions as official, 11 religious holidays are designated national holidays in Indonesia (Islamic New Year, Mawlid/Muhammad's birthday, Isra Mi'raj, Eid al-Fitr, Eid al-Adha, Good Friday, Ascension of Jesus, Christmas, Nyepi, Vesak, and Chinese New Year). Most of these holidays are immediately recognizable, aside from Nyepi, a uniquely Balinese Hindu holiday that celebrates the New Year. That said, Nyepi is well-known internationally, as the highly touristic island of Bali (including the airport) shuts down in its entirety while the Balinese observe the New Year in silence (''nyepi'' means "go silent" in Balinese).\\\

Due to the country's dark past with communism, which is frequently equated with atheism, atheists have a poor standing in Indonesian society. Those who deem themselves atheists will do good not to let their beliefs known publicly, as many Indonesians can and do discriminate against them.\\\

There are also public schools catering to religions other than Islam, though they are much fewer and less well-known than the Islamic ones. Protestant and Catholic public high schools are called ''Sekolah Menengah Teologi Kristen'' (SMTK) and ''Sekolah Menengah Agama Katolik'' (SMAK), respectively. In addition, there are 8 Protestant, 1 Catholic, 11 Hindu, and and 2 Buddhist public universities. It should be noted that as religion is considered important in Indonesia, compulsory religious education exists, from elementary school all the way to college (although non-religious universities usually only mandate students to take a semester of religious study), and there are religion-based extracurricular clubs in pretty much every school.\\\

[[SchoolUniformsAreTheNewBlack School uniforms are the norm]] in Indonesia, with public schools requiring students to wear at least three different uniforms each week. The standard uniform for elementary to senior high consists of a white shirt and either red, dark blue, or grey pants/skirt for elementary, junior high, and senior/vocational high schools, respectively. In two specific days of the week (never Monday, as it's considered the ceremonial flag-raising day and thus the standard school uniform is required to be worn), students wear the predominantly brown-colored Scouting uniform to honor the country's strong Scouting culture (Indonesia has the world's largest Scout membership), as well as a custom batik-inspired uniform, which ''really'' comes in handy when students from different schools mass together in big events like sporting matches.

The internet subscription cost and speed are also relatively expensive compared to the average salary especially outside the larger cities in Java, partly due to the large swath of land with low density population separated by body of water. This means the opinion you find on the internet from Indonesians are heavily biased on particular demographics and might not represent the general population. Some political campaigns and product research forgot about this (even when they should've known better). English proficiency isn't given, so even though the censorship itself is easily thwarted, Indonesia is under-represented in English-speaking forums, even compared to her much less populated neighbors.

Indonesian tea is usually served plain or with sugar. Tea with milk is rarely served outside of some restaurants. Iced tea is sold in bottles, mostly by the tea company Sosro, leading to the famous slogan "Apapun makanannya, minumnya Teh Botol Sosro!" (Whatever you're eating, drink Sosro bottled tea!)[[note]][[http://ketawa.com/humor-lucu-det-2254-sumanto_jadi_bintang_iklan.html A common way of spoofing it is by putting the slogan on a picture of Sumanto, a convicted cannibal.]][[/note]]. Bottled iced tea is incredibly popular thanks to the hot tropical climate, and is recommended by Croatian pianist Maxim. As for coffee, there's a great variety of coffee beans in Indonesia, their aromas and taste varying by region. Most foreigners are familiar with Java beans, but there are many more, from Toraja, Aceh, Mandailing, Bali, and more, each with their own palate. You can get coffee that tastes ''really'' sour from Bali, ''really'' bitter from Mandailing, and some variations that are even ''spicy'', as in, ''hot''. Preparation also differs from region to region, with some adding ''butter'' to it.\\\

Although most Indonesians are averse to alcohol, it is not forbidden, and is widely accessible and available. Local beers include Bintang, Anker, and Bali Hai; Heineken and Paulaner maintain breweries in-country; and there's active experimentation with wine. That said, the Indonesian government applies hefty taxes on alcohol purchases (18% tax on local brews and upwards of 150% on imports), there has been campaigns by some Muslim groups to prohibit alcohol sale, and it is totally illegal in Aceh province.\\\

Living together with the Javanese in the Javan region are the Sundanese and the Madurese. The former are Indonesia's second largest ethnic group, and mostly live in West Java and Banten, though like the Javanese, many have migrated out of the island as part of ''Transmigrasi''. The Sundanese are ancient neighbors and [[ArchEnemy historical rivals]] of the Javanese; an old saying is that a marriage involving a Javanese and a Sundanese will always end in tragedy, which is rooted from the Bubat Incident during the Majapahit era (see the above folder). However, near the end of the 2010's, both sides have agreed to bury the hatchet. The Sundanese are the original inhabitants of the land that became Jakarta today, and many toponyms in Jakarta are clearly rooted in the Sundanese language. Meanwhile, the Madurese live in Madura, located off the coast of Surabaya in East Java. Historically, they were noted for their warlike culture, but are best known today for producing a ''lot'' of barbers who proudly advertise their business as ''Potong Rambut Madura'' (Madurese barbershop), and, less glowingly, for being the centerpiece of an ethnic conflict in Borneo during the early 2000s.\\\

The Indonesian rupiah is infamous for its [[RidiculousExchangeRates steep official exchange rate]] (1 USD = 15,100 IDR as of July 2023). This was the result of the hyperinflation the country experienced during the 1997 Asian financial crisis, when the currency was floated and ended up depreciating ten times its previous value. Although it has recovered and become stable in recent years, the currency stays around the same range. Do note, however, that the rate is deceptive and no way an indication of living costs, which are generally on the same level as other middle income countries and have risen much more steadily; the rupiah today takes you over a fifth as far as it did pre-crisis, which is fairly reasonable. Nevertheless, the rupiah is frequently the butt of jokes among Asian media for this reason (only the UsefulNotes/{{Vietnam}}ese dong suffers more, since it has an even steeper rate than the rupiah). The last time it was under five digits against the dollar was when the United States faced an economic slump in 2015.

Having internet is kind of hard in Indonesia. So don't be surprised if you have to handle with the censorship rule called "Internet Positif" which blocks any websites Indonesian Government deemed 'too against their culture', which may include pornography, piracy, some image/video-hosting sites (even Reddit and Imgur, as those sites is allegedly the ones with the most porn and pirated stuff). Unsurprisingly, the country has one of the highest percentage of VPN users. At the very least, some netizens has taken advantage of this and created its AnthropomorphicPersonification in form of [[http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ipo-chan Ipo-chan]], which is surprisingly popular.\\\

Much like Latin America, most of Europe, and much of the World, Indonesians are huge [[UsefulNotes/AssociationFootball soccer]] nuts. Worth noting, however, despite their huge enthusiasm to soccer, the national team holds a record in [[UsefulNotes/TheWorldCup FIFA World Cup]] for the ''fewest'' matches played. One match, to be precise, in the 1938 as the Dutch East Indies, where they were the first Asian team to ever play at the World Cup. The Indonesian team didn't have much of a chance of since, as they would refuse to play against Israel, and falling behind many other Asian national teams in quality. Worth noting are the local version of FootballHooligans. These guys come in several flavors depending on the team, like "Bonek" ("bondho nekat", meaning "reckless guys"), The Jak, and [[NameToRunAwayFromReallyFast The Viking]], and they're notorious for yelling ridiculously bad [[MadnessMantra jingles]], causing hellish traffic jams and riots whenever their favorite team loses, or wins, or sometimes for no reason at all, as Music/KellyClarkson could attest to. That said, Indonesia has become a runner-up for the AFF Cup six times. Related to about soccer, English football club Manchester United once planned to visit Indonesia and play with the national team as part of the Asian tour, but had to cancel the visit when the hotel they were planning to stay (Ritz Carlton) was bombed. Recently, though, when Italian club Inter Milan attempted to do the same, there's no bombing and the visit was a success. Due to this, [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff Indonesians love Football-based video games and manga/anime series]], such as football simulation video game series such as ''FIFA Soccer'' and ''Winning Eleven/Pro Evolution Soccer'' (by Creator/ElectronicArts and Creator/{{Konami}} respectively), which continue to headline most physical gaming stores you visit in Indonesia. And if there's a video game rental place (usually to provide those on the lower economic scale the joys of video games), or when an office provides a game console for its workers to play during break times, you can bet that it'll have either of those two, depending on the latest installment. On the PC-simulation side, ''VideoGame/FootballManager'' is the running champion, with people running games since ''Football Manager 2005''. ''Manga/CaptainTsubasa'' is also a bonafide favorite anime/manga for sports goers. There were times that Indonesia aired some obscure soccer anime, but it's only ''Captain Tsubasa'' that became a sensation, even older workers that still like soccer enjoy this series.\\\

Indonesia actually fares better in badminton competitions, winning the Olympic gold medal five times in a row, earning the most titles in the prestigious Thomas Cup, placing third in terms of titles in the Uber Cup, and earning the most medals in badminton by a large margin (100 medals out of 171) in the SEA Games. These achievements somehow get overshadowed by the antics of the above soccer nuts, however, as well as how badminton as an international sensation tends to get overshadowed by soccer or even basketball.\\\

During the colonial era, Indonesia was known as a producer of spices such as nutmeg, which is endemic to the Maluku islands. Today, Indonesia is a developing country and an important emerging market. It is among the world's 20 largest economies, and thus a member of the G20. Its exports include coal, petroleum oil and gases, and palm oil, while it imports machinery and chemicals. Indonesia was a longtime member of the OPEC, but decreasing oil wealth led to it exiting the bloc in 2008, having failed to meet production quota. Indonesia is well-known for its palm oil production, being the industry's top producer. Unfortunately, clearances for palm plantations have resulted in the rapid depletion of the country's rainforests since the late 20th century. For most of its history, Indonesia's main trade partner is Japan, though by the TurnOfTheMillennium China has been quickly ascending to become a key trade partner. A large chunk of Indonesia's economy is still dominated by the state, who owns several important enterprises, including its oil industry.\\\

The Indonesian rupiah is infamous for its [[RidiculousExchangeRates steep official exchange rate]] (1 USD = 15,100 IDR as of July 2023), at least on face value. This was the result of the hyperinflation the country experienced during the 1997 Asian financial crisis, when the currency was floated and ended up depreciating ten times its previous value. Although it has recovered and become stable in recent years, the currency stays around the same range. Do note, however, that the rate is deceptive and no way an indication of living costs, which are generally on the same level as other middle income countries. Nevertheless, the rupiah is frequently the butt of jokes among Asian media for this reason (only the UsefulNotes/{{Vietnam}}ese dong suffers more, since it has an even steeper rate than the rupiah).

Christianity is the largest minority religion in Indonesia, and is dominant in North Sulawesi, East Nusa Tenggara, and Papua. Many provinces like North Sumatra (which actually has the largest Christian population in the country at 4.9 million people), Maluku, and West Kalimantan also have substantial Christian populations. Christianity was brought into Indonesia by the Europeans, and the faith was accepted by natives who formerly practiced tribal religions. Since the Protestant Dutch were the colonial power, Protestantism is considered the "default" Christian branch. When you hear Indonesians say about "Kristen", they're referring to Protestants (Catholics, by contrast, are referred to as "Katolik"). Interestingly, Indonesian Christians will sometimes call their God "Allah". The tradition of Indonesian Christians calling God "Allah" is rooted in historical Malay translations of the Bible, which tend to utilize Arabic to translate phrases that were seen as being close enough to Muslim concepts (as Malays are traditionally Muslims, and Christian Malays are mostly descended from ex-Muslims). Indonesia actually has a couple of different ways to call God; other than "Allah", they have the Austronesian-rooted "Tuhan" (basically the native synonym of the monotheistic God), as well as "Dewa/Dewi", a term that may refer to the universal God but mostly used to refer to polytheistic gods or spirits (the term is derived from the Sanskrit word ''deva/devi''). Aside from Allah, Christians also use Arabic phrases like "Alkitab" (the Bible) and "khutbah" (sermons).\\\

Hinduism is Indonesia's oldest foreign religion, and today chiefly practiced by the Balinese. Although the Balinese are nominally Hindu, their faith is best described as a syncretic religion that mixes Indian Hinduism with Balinese folk beliefs. Hindus traditionally believe in the existence of many gods who are aspects of the same essence, something that does not mix well with Indonesia's constitution, as it includes belief in one God as part of its principles. Hinduism also derives its diversity from having little in the way of common doctrine amongst its adherents beyond a belief in dharma, which doesn't sit well with a government overwhelmingly dominated by adherents of Abrahamic faiths with clear corpi of religious texts as such is hard to regulate. As a compromise with Indonesia's founding fathers, Balinese Hindus agreed to be recognized as citizens in exchange for "Acintya" (the Incomprehensible), also known as "Sang Hyang Widhi Wasa" (the Divine Order), being upgraded from merely a blend of the Indian Hindu Brahman (universal principle) with the Javanese-Balinese monolatric entity "Hyang" to the sole God, of which all other deities are merely a manifestation. Other than the Balinese, ''Orang Hindu'' is used as a catch-all term for people who adopt folk religions that do not fit the more rigid concepts of Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism. These include the Tenggerese (a remnant of Hindu Javanese who hold onto their beliefs after Majapahit was destroyed), the Baduy (the Sundanese equivalent of the Tenggerese, though they are more well-known for being [[HiddenElfVillage isolationists who reject modern conveniences]], akin to the Amish), and the Dayaks.\\\

Buddhism, alongside Hinduism, is one of Indonesia's first foreign religions. Buddhism was the religion of the Malay archipelago's first superpower, Srivijaya, and many Buddhist terms survive in local languages long after the religion itself declined (e.g., ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saṃsāra sengsara]]'', ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duḥkha duka]]'', ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Āgama_(Buddhism) agama]]'', ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upaya upaya]]''). Unlike Hinduism, Buddhism went extinct when Indonesia became Muslim, and would not be reintroduced to the country until the colonial period, with the arrival of Chinese immigrants. The consequence of this is that, despite the role it played in Indonesia's past, it is seen as a "foreign" religion, in the same vein as Confucianism; it thus winds up sharing a role with Confucianism as a catch-all for all religions chiefly practiced by the Chinese, like Taoism or simply Chinese folk traditions. As with Hindus, Indonesian Buddhists experienced the same problem while trying to fit their theology to Indonesia's constitution, only this time, rather than believing in too many gods, Buddhists believe in too few; Buddhists are, religiously speaking, atheists, as they either do not believe in a supreme God, or indeed any god, responsible for the creation of the universe or simply find the concept of "gods" irrelevant; the faith instead emphasizes on the achievement of human self-awakening and enlightenment. Buddhists made a similar compromise to get themselves recognized as citizens by including belief in "Sang Hyang Adi Buddha", the seed of Buddhahood that exists in every living being.\\\

Bahasa Indonesia (lit. ''Indonesian language'', which means calling it ''Indonesian'' is more accurate than ''Bahasa'') is a standardized version of Malay language used as the [[CommonTongue lingua franca]] of the country, influenced by other languages due to historical ties. Indonesian have a lot of loanwords standardized into the standard dialect (''bahasa baku'') from the former colonizers of the islands (Dutch, Portuguese, English) and trade partners and religious sources (Hindi, Chinese, Arabic). It can be said that Indonesian is mostly Dutch-influenced Malay, while Malay used in the neighboring Malaysia, Singapore, and UsefulNotes/{{Brunei}} is mostly English-influenced. Some of Indonesian also made their way as loanwords in English, like ''paddy''[[note]]padi = rice[[/note]], ''gong''[[note]]the big brass percussion[[/note]],''orangutan''[[note]]the great ape; more accurately pronounced as "oh-raang-OO-tan" instead of the uh-RANG-oo-tan more familitar to Westerners[[/note]], as well as ''amok''[[note]]from the word ''amuk'' (= to rage)[[/note]] The archipelago contains around 700 local living languages (which are not dialects of Indonesian because they have significant difference in grammar and vocabulary). It is estimated that 270 of them are spoken in Papua. Javanese is the most spoken local language in the country, as well as the most spoken language. Indonesia hosts the most trilinguals in the worlds, comprising 17,4% of the population. This is because most provinces have Local Content policy that mandates teaching of the local language of the province in primary and secondary schools. Besides that, Indonesian and English is also a mandatory subject from the central government[[note]]alongside another optional foreign language, usually Mandarin Chinese[[/note]], which means that the average kid would learn at least three languages in their formal education. What's interesting is that there are more second-language speakers than native speakers of Indonesian. This is due to Indonesian being spoken mostly alongside the native local language, especially in rural areas, while urban dwellers are more likely to have it as the first language. [[UsefulNotes/IndianLanguages Sanskrit]] (known as Sanskerta) is used a lot like Latin is in Europe, just like in its native India. You'll see it in many government institutions' official motto and award and title names, e.g. the environment conservation award Kalpataru (from the Hindu divine tree), Anumerta (posthumous recognition), Indonesian Army motto Kartika Eka Paksi ("Unmatchable Bird with Noble Goals") and the country's motto Bhinneka Tunggal Ika ("Unity in Diversity").\\\

Islam, as the dominant religion, is practiced all along the archipelago. It is the majority religion in all provinces except for Bali, North Sulawesi, East Nusa Tenggara, and the six Papuan provinces. Explaining Islam in Indonesia can take up pages upon pages showing how different it is to the "orthodox" Islam practiced elsewhere. General consensus is that it is very, very ''lax'' compared to those practiced in the Middle East and South Asia, because the religion was spread in Indonesia through Indian merchants, who mostly practiced Sufism. This made the religion open to acculturation with other religions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism; it's often said that had the Arab merchants were the ones who preached Islam in Indonesia, it wouldn't be accepted that easily. That said, Muslim Indonesians generally follow basic Islamic teachings like praying and not eating pork, drinking alcohol, and having sex outside marriage. Hijab is observed by an increasing number of women, when it was rather rare during the New Order period (mostly because Suharto restricted hijab-wearing women from working in government, so it came to be seen as a symbol of defiance against his authority). In the mid 2000s, there's a surge of cultural movement called 'Hijrah', where people choose to become more religious in Islam and has sudden drastic changes in the lifestyle, such as dressing more modestly, and studying and preaching Islam harder. There's always a TokenReligiousTeammate in a group of people. The phenomenon has also led to many media to highlight this, such as ''Ayat-Ayat Cinta'' and ''Ketika Cinta Bertasbih''. Music is an even hotter asset, where every year in Ramadan, artists release a "religious song", even when the artists have controversial reputations, with the modest fashion and all. Commerce is no exception, the rise of halal demand made many products want the halal label slapped to them, even for non-edible foods such as clothes and even halal fridge (no, [[https://www.vice.com/en/article/bjpwwm/indonesia-just-got-its-first-halal-fridge-heres-a-list-of-everything-else-that-needs-a-stamp really]]), theres also [[https://evermos.com/ Halal e-commerce]] specifically to cater them.\\\

Christianity is the largest minority religion in Indonesia, and is dominant in North Sulawesi, East Nusa Tenggara, and Papua. Many provinces like North Sumatra (which actually has the largest Christian population in the country at 4.9 million people), Maluku, and West Kalimantan also have substantial Christian populations. Christianity was brought into Indonesia by the Europeans, and the faith was accepted by natives who formerly practiced tribal religions. Since the Protestant Dutch were the colonial power, Protestantism is considered the "default" Christian branch. When you hear Indonesians say about "Kristen", they're referring to Protestants (Catholics, by contrast, are referred to as "Katolik"). Interestingly, Indonesian Christians call their God "Allah". The tradition of Indonesian Christians calling God "Allah" is rooted in historical Malay translations of the Bible, which tend to utilize Arabic to translate phrases that were seen as being close enough to Muslim concepts (as Malays are traditionally Muslims, and Christian Malays are mostly descended from ex-Muslims). Indonesia actually has a couple of different ways to call God; other than "Allah", they have the Austronesian-rooted "Tuhan" (basically the native synonym of the monotheistic God), as well as "Dewa/Dewi", a term that may refer to the universal God but mostly used to refer to polytheistic gods or spirits (the term is derived from the Sanskrit word ''deva/devi''). Aside from Allah, Christians also use Arabic phrases like "Alkitab" (the Bible) and "khutbah" (sermons).\\\

Hinduism is Indonesia's oldest foreign religion, and today chiefly practiced by the Balinese. Although the Balinese are nominally Hindu, their faith is best described as a syncretic religion that mixes Indian Hinduism with Balinese folk beliefs. Hindus traditionally believe in the existence of many gods who are aspects of the same essence, something that does not mix well with Indonesia's constitution, as it includes belief in one God as part of its principles. As a compromise with Indonesia's founding fathers, Balinese Hindus agreed to be recognized as citizens in favor of stressing their belief in "Sang Hyang Widhi Wasa" (the God Almighty), a vaguely supreme presence that all gods are subordinate to. Other than the Balinese, ''Orang Hindu'' is used as a catch-all term for people who adopt folk religions that do not fit the more rigid concepts of Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism. These include the Tenggerese (a remnant of Hindu Javanese who hold onto their beliefs after Majapahit was destroyed), the Baduy (the Sundanese equivalent of the Tenggerese, though they are more well-known for being [[HiddenElfVillage isolationists who reject modern conveniences]], akin to the Amish), and the Dayaks.\\\

Buddhism, alongside Hinduism, is one of Indonesia's first foreign religions. Buddhism was the religion of the Malay archipelago's first superpower, Srivijaya, and many Buddhist terms survive in local languages long after the religion itself declined (e.g., ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saṃsāra sengsara]]'', ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duḥkha duka]]'', ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Āgama_(Buddhism) agama]]'', ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upaya upaya]]''). Unlike Hinduism, Buddhism went extinct when Indonesia became Muslim, and would not be reintroduced to the country until the colonial period, with the arrival of Chinese immigrants. The consequence of this is that, despite the role it played in Indonesia's past, it is seen as a "foreign" religion, in the same vein as Confucianism. As with Hindus, Indonesian Buddhists experienced the same problem while trying to fit their theology to Indonesia's constitution, only this time, rather than believing in too many gods, Buddhists believe in too few; Buddhists are, religiously speaking, atheists, as they do not believe in a supreme God, or indeed any god, responsible for the creation of the universe, and the faith instead emphasizes on the achievement of human self-awakening and enlightenment. Buddhists made a similar compromise to get themselves recognized as citizens by including belief in "Sang Hyang Adi Buddha", the seed of Buddhahood that exists in every living being.\\\

Indonesia's military force is called the TNI (''Tentara Nasional Indonesia'', Indonesia National Army). The branches are TNI Angkatan Darat (Army), TNI Angkatan Laut (Navy) and TNI Angkatan Udara (Air Force). They have several spec ops groups, most notably Kopassus (Komando Pasukan Khusus). Aside from doing things the government isn't comfortable to admitting in Timor Leste, Malaysia and Aceh, they've also participated in the UNPROFOR. They also have a marine corps, which is attached to the Navy. They're pretty well-equipped, operating BTR-80 APCs and PT-76 amphibious tanks, however they're relatively unheard of compared to the other branches.\\\

However, human rights groups agree that things will deteriorate nationwide when Indonesia's first wholly domestic Criminal Code (its predecessor being Dutch-derived) comes into effect at the start of 2026. A sweeping legal package in the making since 1968, its bans on non-marital sex, domestic partner relationships, and cohabitation have alarmed casual onlookers and tourism commentators, though human rights advocates express concerns less about the fresh crackdown on philandery while on holiday in Bali and more about the general implications for privacy; with same-sex marriages not recognized, the Code also amounts to an implicit ban on homosexual relationships.

LGBT rights are also something that have become a hotly-contested issue. Although Indonesia does not ban gay sex, it does not recognize same-sex unions, and there is no law that protects gays and lesbians from being attacked or discriminated against. Furthermore, the 2006 Law Against Pornography and Pornoaction explicitly includes a statement that forbids the dissemination of materials suggesting same-sex relationships, which is the reason why Indonesia routinely bans or edits out gay scenes from foreign films and televisions. Although supporters exist, acceptance towards same-sex relationships remains middling to negative for most of the population. It speaks volumes that when dangdut singer Saipul Jamil was arrested and imprisoned for sex offences in 2016, the media seems obsessed in pointing out that [[SkewedPriorities the victim was male instead of the fact that he was a minor]] (Saipul was officially convicted for pedophilia, though). By contrast, trans people have had a relatively easier time being accepted by the population and government. Unlike its attitudes towards homosexuality, the government actually ''does'' have laws that protect transgenders and transsexuals from harassment, and trans people are more likely to out themselves compared to gays and lesbians. There have been a couple of trans figures in entertainment, most notably the late Dorce Gamalama, a talk show host who also happened to be a devout Muslim (her hajj trip was widely documented, and she started wearing hijab in the 2000s). The only place where there are clear laws regarding LGBT rights is Aceh, where [[HeteronormativeCrusader anything and everything related to it is forbidden]]; people accused of LGBT acts are routinely arrested and caned by the religious police.\\\