Megawati Inaugurates Bung Karno Statue At Oemah Petruk Sleman

Chairman of the Steering Committee of the Pancasila Ideology Development Agency (BPIP) Megawati Soekarnoputri inaugurated the giant Bung Karno statue at the Oemah Petruk/ANTARA/Luqman Hakim Cultural House Complex.

YOGYAKARTA - Chairperson of the Steering Committee of the Pancasila Ideology Development Agency (BPIP) Megawati Soekarnoputri inaugurated the giant Bung Karno statue at the Oemah Petruk Cultural House complex, Hargobinangun Village, Pakem, Sleman, Yogyakarta Special Region.

During the inauguration of the six-meter-high statue, Megawati remembered the creation of a statue of Bung Karno in the courtyard of the Indonesian National Resilience Institute (Lemhannas).

"At that time, the head of Lemhannas said to make a statue of Bung Karno and I am certainly grateful," he said as quoted by ANTARA, Wednesday, August 23.

But the 5th President of the Republic of Indonesia was surprised because the statue was small.

"When we came to open how come it was small, then I told the head of Lemhannas, it's just like this, if I make the money less, I'll 'due'," he said to laughter from the audience.

Apart from being a proclaimer, Megawati said that Bung Karno, who had studied abroad, provided new knowledge for the Indonesian people.

In his first speech, he said, Bung Karno taught about Geopolitical Science, which at that time the Indonesian people had never known at all.

"In his first speech he taught a knowledge that I think might have been known abroad, but at that time in Indonesia it was not yet popular, namely Geopolitical science," he said.

The Soekarno statue with the pose pointing to the Red and White Flag pole in front of it while carrying the book is the work of Dunadi's stakeholders.

During the inauguration which was attended by artists and cultural observers, Megawati was accompanied by BPIP member Romo Benny Susetyo, PDIP Secretary General Hasto Kristiyanto, Central Java Governor who also read PDIP President Gajar Pranowo, as well as a number of party administrators bearing the white-nosed bull symbol.

The speaker, Dunadi said that the statue presented at the Oemah Petroek Complex was one of dozens of Bung Karno statues he had made.

Dunadi was moved to donate the statue of the first President of the Republic of Indonesia in Roemah Petroek because it provided a lot of literature on Pancasila and was often a means for artists, culturalists, and intellectuals to discuss tolerance and diversity.

Bung Karno's figure as the originator of the five basic principles of Pancasila, he said, was then presented through a giant statue with his right hand carrying a book and his left hand pointing.

"The book is actually a concept about Pancasila, then he will warn us that I am leaving the concepts of statehood behind and it must work," he said.

Meanwhile, Father Sindhu, founder of Omah Petroek, said that the Bung Karno Statue was also surrounded by five rock materials from the eruption of Mount Merapi which were resolved so that they represented each of the precepts in Pancasila.

"Pancasila is an endowment and irreversibility. This means that Pancasila existed before even us all existed, as well as Pancasila existed even before we were politically formed into an Indonesian unitary state," he said.