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Ideally, multiculturalism is good cultural integration model for Indonesia, the largest archipelago country in the world with a population of about 250 million, but realistically, today's world in which it exists has been hegemonized by power relations in political, economical and practical terms. The five letters-POWER-has disturbed and hurt its cultural integration creating social conflicts among some ethnics and/or religious groups in the country, especially in the fifteen years of decentralization and regional autonomy policy implementation. Action approaches, \-vithin which power is the central dominant, open up new challenges since it embodies power relations and contestation. Neoliberal capitalistic economy is recognized and preferred in the world by any measure while capital networking becomes more relevant and important in our present era as those who do not belong to any network '"'ill be in a disadvantaged position. This paper would elaborate that Indonesia has been coping with the socio-cultural impacts of the faster changes locally, nationally and globally. Its cultures respond differently to the changes and this increases new plurality of social life, but at the same time, unfortunately, its national or state laws have developed not as fast, and it is quite often they are left behind. Multiculturalism has hardly contested with global materialistic-capitalistic domination which is brought about by power hegemony. |
