April 11 (Friday) at 2:30 PM – At the VMU Faculty of Social Sciences (Jonavos St. 66-208, Kaunas), Prof. B. Galdikas will give a lecture on Indonesian Culture and meet with VMU social anthropology students.
Traditional Javanese culture (which has been the basis of much of Indonesian world view and cosmology) has been cited as one of the most civilized and sophisticated in the world. The main principles of the culture are based on maintaining harmony and balance within oneself, with society, and with the universe. Despite the fact that the majority of Indonesians are Moslem, the deep context of the cultural background is ancient animism, Hindu and Buddhist even though the more modern stricter versions of Islam are coming to the fore. This culture even today forms the basis of Indonesia’s (fourth largest nation on the planet and the world’s largest majority-Moslem nation)) engagement with the rest of the world. Ironically, many people still consider Indonesia with a population of 278 million people as a „small Asian nation.”