As 71 years of continual struggle have flown by since Indonesia made its first appearance on the global political map on August 17th 1945.
The country has a host of long lasting traditions to commemorate the day when it was finally liberated from both the Dutch and Japanese colonizations : from the ceremony at the State Palace in which the specially selected 68 Indonesian senior high students wave the national red-and-white flag before the eyes of President Joko Widodo and his full cabinet along with the ambassadors, to the public fiestas where everyone gets to join the competition of eating kerupuk (traditional crackers) with their hands tied back and the kerupuk dangling loosely inches above their heads.
If it wasn’t for the first president Soekarno and the many years of his rigorous attempts for independence, things might be different today. Let’s find out the true meaning of independence to Indonesians, then and now.
