Seminar maart 10 ,2009 Tangerang.

'A Bridge to the Future', JAKARTA EXHIBITION 10-3-09

How an idea can grow, just like a seed in the ground. Increasingly aware of the extraordinary past of the former Dutch -East Indies led some Dutch citizens and some of Dutch-Indonesian descent to an adventure from which both countries are now benefiting and learning. Getting together in the Foundations of " Friends of Linggarjati"and the "Foundation of "Indies" Heritage", and appreciative of the enormous efforts towards reconciliation and mediation that underpinned the creation of the Indonesian state in 1945, they began to look with "new" eyes at their colonial past and discovered a country they assumed they had known but with whose dimensions of governance and statehood they never had had a real encounter.
It all resulted in the idea to create an exhibition about the real story behind Indonesia's nation-building process that had until then not been told in Dutch history books or been discussed in the public domain in the Netherlands. This very exhibition, "Linggarjati - the Bridge to the Future", originally prepared for the Netherlands, is now being leveraged by Indonesians themselves, keen to arrive at a more holistic picture of their complex and rich history. The exhibition is slated to be shown this summer and autumn across a number of locations in the Netherlands.

But even earlier, at the 100th birthday of one of the Indonesian Founding Fathers, in March, Sutan Sjahrir, one of the many seminars and lectures in his honour includes this very exhibition, fully translated into Bahahsa, and named " Linggarjati, jembatan menjuju masa depan". The exibition's opening event on March 10, 2009, will be held at Universitas Pelita Harapan in Tangerang, Banten. Speakers include Ibu Upik Sjahrir, Prof Dr. R. Z. Leirissa, Sabam Siagian ( former Ambassador to Australia and currently Senior Editor of the Jakarta Post), Umar Juoro ( economist from the Indonesian Institute of Science) and Dr. Adrianus Mooy ( former Governor of the Central Bank of Indonesia).

The Universitas Pelita Harapan in Tangerang is a prominent private University near Jakarta. The idea for taking the exhibition's opening to a very visible location of learning came from Pak Umar Hadi, the Director of Public Diplomacy in the Indonesian Foreign Office. They choose Pelita Harapan noting how much universitis specifically, and educational life more generally, are a key bridge for Indonesia to create its future. Cooperation between a government institution ( the Indonesian Department of Foreign Affaires) and a private university reflects Indonesian creativity in including all parts of society in a dialogue that involves the entire country, and may very well be a model for future cooperation between Indonesia and the Netherlands, too. Articles published about the coming events in the newspaper KOMPAS en TEMPO .

For information of the university www.uph.edu

Foundation "Friends of Linggarjati"
February 28-2-2009