is Indonesia a modern day empire pretending to be a country?

[Bootes Void]

Indonesia is a archipelagos of over 17 thousand island with hundreds of ethnic groups and languages with a strong central government in the island of Java. would you consider Indonesia a modern day empire seen as a nation-state?

[Blue3]

Is India?

Is Papua New Guinea?

Is any multicultural country with a strong central government?

[mileslunn]

Not really, no more so than India or Philippines who have multiple languages and ethnic groups.  Not every country is divided exclusively along ethno-linguistic lines, there are other factors.  If anything more a left over of European colonization as Indonesia I believe is largely based on boundaries of Dutch East Indies.  Off course with exception of Irian Jaya, most languages and cultures part of Austronesian family.  And it is predominately Muslim although Bali mostly Hindu and seem eastern islands predominately Christian.

[Lord Halifax]

Not really, no more so than India or Philippines who have multiple languages and ethnic groups.  

Is India?

Is Papua New Guinea?

Is any multicultural country with a strong central government?

Indonesia has settled millions of Javanese settlers on other (thinly populated) islands, which arguably amounts to internal colonization. Neither India, the Philippines nor PNG have done that.

China would be a better comparison, since they've actively settled Han Chinese in ethnic minority dominated regions.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Not really, no more so than India or Philippines who have multiple languages and ethnic groups.  

Is India?

Is Papua New Guinea?

Is any multicultural country with a strong central government?

Indonesia has settled millions of Javanese settlers on other (thinly populated) islands, which arguably amounts to internal colonization. Neither India, the Philippines nor PNG have done that.

China would be a better comparison, since they've actively settled Han Chinese in ethnic minority dominated regions.

Apples and oranges. China and Indonesia's actions are driven by fundamentally different histories and the cultural fault lines are significantly different. Population demography is also sizably different. (There are no places in China as singularly dominant with such small a slice of the broader land area as Java is in Indonesia, and Javanese are not that much more 1/3 of the overall Indonesian population - a far cry from the overwhelming Han Chinese majority in China. Han Chinese is also more purely a cultural grouping than an ethnic category tbh)

[Lord Halifax]

Not really, no more so than India or Philippines who have multiple languages and ethnic groups.  

Is India?

Is Papua New Guinea?

Is any multicultural country with a strong central government?

Indonesia has settled millions of Javanese settlers on other (thinly populated) islands, which arguably amounts to internal colonization. Neither India, the Philippines nor PNG have done that.

China would be a better comparison, since they've actively settled Han Chinese in ethnic minority dominated regions.

Apples and oranges. China and Indonesia's actions are driven by fundamentally different histories and the cultural fault lines are significantly different. Population demography is also sizably different. (There are no places in China as singularly dominant with such small a slice of the broader land area as Java is in Indonesia, and Javanese are not that much more 1/3 of the overall Indonesian population - a far cry from the overwhelming Han Chinese majority in China. Han Chinese is also more purely a cultural grouping than an ethnic category tbh)

The point was not that the situation was identical, but that it was a better comparison than to India, the Philippines or the other countries mentioned since China has actively engaged in internal colonization while they haven't.

The extent of countries like China and Russia is the result of internal colonization so it's not an "apples to oranges" comparison despite all the differences. Indonesia is at times called a "Javanese Empire" because its development since independence has some similarities to other big countries based on one ethnic group expanding outwards from a core area and creating an empire like Russia and China (or for that matter Persia and Ethiopia, though they're both more "oranges" in this context due to less settlement). That's the whole basis for the concept.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

'Pretending to be a country' is an odd way of putting it, but it's certainly more of an Empire than a nation state.

Is India?

India is literally the former Raj with the Muslim majority provinces hived off, elections with consequences and Brahmins rather than British in senior administrative posts. So... er...

[CumbrianLefty]

My answer is overall a no, but I do see where the OP is coming from.

[Beet]

Speaking of countries with many ethnic groups and languages that have engaged in internal colonization, the one this forum is about is no wimp either.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Brazil is certainly not a nation state.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Empires are a type of country.

We do need a word other than "nation-state" for countries like Indonesia, India, etc. Monolithic national identity is illusory in almost every country bigger than, say, the Nordics (as well as in many that are smaller!), but it's an especially useless and misleading way to look at the great post-colonial states of tropical Asia.