Yogyakarta is both a province and a city in Indonesia. The province is one of two provinces in Indonesia with special status (the other being Aceh for various reasons relating to locals wanting control over recently-discovered natural resource wealth). Yogyakarta is often considered the cultural and educational heart of this country, despite disparate cultures, religions, and languages in the country as a whole.
The story of why it is a special area is an interesting one: when Indonesia declared independence at the best of Sukarno on August 17th, 1945, Jakarta served as capital, but was quickly overrun by the Dutch in the War for Independence. The fledgling government fled to “Yogya,” which served as capital from 1946-1950. It is in central Java, in between the country’s two largest cities, Jakarta and Surabaya. At the time, Indonesia was comprised of several Sultanates, remnants of centuries past. Some Sultanates supported independence, but a great many supported return to Dutch control. Although they had several interests in this political alliance, one was that under Sukarno, the Sultans realized that such a nationalist movement borne of secularity could only lead to diminishing power. However, the Sultanate of Yogya sided with the people– and freedom.
Its main university, Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM), is its largest and best university, although not for engineering, for which a university in Bandung is better known. The story goes that the government often resided at UGM but that the gates remained open, in the tradition of a true and free university. The people of Yogya thereby dared the Dutch to enter the grounds of this free place and seize their government.
After independence, Jakarta rewarded Yogya by allowing it to maintain its status as a Sultanate with a Sultan appointed for life. The Sultan in Yogya is very highly-regarded. Now it is a large city full of universities, motorbikes, and most of all, people. But that’s the case in most of Java. Yogya is completely and authentically Muslim, though, and that leads me to Part II.
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