URGENCY OF THE APPLICATION OF NATIONAL STANDARDS OF QUALITY EDUCATION GRADUATES

AT VOCATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL

By Setiawan Daris Wibisono

Education is an investment in human resources in the future, which began on humans from birth till his death. The quality of human resources development capital. Therefore, the development progress in education is important. Various terms related to the development of education as one aspect of improving the quality of human resources need to be prepared so that the window of opportunity (Window of Opportunity) can be best utilized.

Advancement of education development is also demonstrated by the high and low quality of graduates who are heavily influenced by the quality of teachers. Not only teachers but also the suitability of qualification of expertise being taught. Various obstacles encountered in achieving progress with the development of education is increasing the qualifications of educators or teachers who still considered low. Some teachers even teach outside their fields of expertise. The low quality of teachers will have an impact on the low quality of graduates produced. In addition, the system of assessment and testing and accreditation, coupled with the curriculum also determine the quality of students.
Government policies in education such as one that has appeared in Law No. 20 of 2003 on National Education System, in which includes the base and goals, including the implementation of compulsory education, the quality assurance of education and community participation in the national education system. The policy is designed to produce a good education Indonesia and high quality graduates in the education sector. To support this first determine which standards should be the reference implementation of educational activities, it became the government issued Government Regulation No. 19 Year 2005 on National Education Standards (SNP), which later also formed the National Education Standards Agency (BNSP) as the agency determines 8 (eight) standards and criteria implementation educational attainment.

The standards are the basis for the organization of education as provided for in Article 2 of Regulation No. 19 of 2005, namely: 1) Content Standards, 2) Standard Process, 3) Graduates Competency Standards, 4) Personnel Standards and Education, 5 ) Infrastructure Standards, 6) Standard Management, 7) Funding Standard and, 8) Assessment of Education Standards. However, in this paper is to subject the writer is content standards (curriculum), Standards and Education Educators (teachers) and the standard of facilities and infrastructure, which is applied by the Vocational School (SMK).

Vocational education as one part of the National Education system plays a strategic role for the realization of the national labor force is skilled. Because every vocational school graduates are taken to be a human resources ready to use, in the sense that when they have completed a vocational school graduates can apply the knowledge that they can while at school. Challenges of the current era of globalization requires a readiness to have a qualified workforce that is different from previous state. With a large labor force, expected to be able to adjust in order to have a competitive advantage.

Circumstances that exist today, our education system still emphasizes its function as a supplier of educated labor than as producers of propulsion development (driving force). The resulting labor have not been able to reform and the creation of new ideas in order to create and expand employment. Our graduates are more likely to ask for a job (job seekers) rather than creating jobs or initiate new activities (job creators). To that end, the government continues to seek an increase in the number of vocational students to achieve the ratio of 70% and 30% were vocational school students. Therefore, the curriculum outlined in the Vocational School is a subject that will be useful to find a job. Should prefer the vocational curriculum subjects related to jobs and employment or who is often referred to as Model Link and Match is choosing subjects and majors that can support the work.

To produce graduates of vocational school in accordance with the needs of the business (du) and industry (in), which continues to grow significantly over time, then the vocational curriculum should be designed and implemented to suit the emerging competencies, especially in the era of free market .

According Tilaar (2006: 167), in the process of learning and teaching a curriculum that has been established, although nice to determine the content of a high standard, but if not available then the purpose of teacher professional curriculum will be in vain, as well as adequate facilities and infrastructure but teachers are not professional, it will be futile as well. In addition to the curriculum, teachers are also very involved at all in creating quality graduates that are required in a teaching professional. Professionalism of teachers is needed because of declining quality of education due to the presence of teachers nationwide who are not professional. For the academic qualifications of a teacher must be in accordance with the standards set, for how could a teacher teach science that is not mastered. Often we see the emergence of new teachers who actually lives and talents rather than as an educator. However, because the demands of the times and the difficulty of finding employment there is no choice but to become a teacher as a job, because this profession is greater than the chances of other professions. If this condition happens how a teacher might be able to work professionally, because the ability of vocational school teachers are required to have competencies that are not only master the theoretical material, but also must be skilled in the practice in the field.

According Kunandar (2007: 55), teacher competence is a set of mastering capabilities that must exist in order to realize the performance of teachers appropriately and effectively. Teacher competency in question here is competence in accordance with Government Regulation Number 19 Year 2005 on National Education Standards set forth in Article 28 paragraph (3), include: 1) pedagogical competence, 2) personal competence, 3) professional competence and; 4 ) social competence. These four competencies are integrated in the performance of teachers and described in detail in Permendiknas No. 16 of 2007 on the Standards of Academic Qualification and Competency.

Other factors that also determine the quality of vocational school graduates are the facilities and infrastructure such as buildings and other facilities to support learning and teaching as learning tools and practices, laboratories, training centers (BLK) as a place of work practices are needed for vocational school students. If standards are not met how the students can practice or training to apply the knowledge they have gained from the teacher. For that effort, especially the development of vocational facilities at the laboratory facility work practices up to date and expected the school to develop cooperation with business / industry as well as expanding the access and facilities for vocational students.

URGENCY IN EDUCATION SOCIAL STUDIES

AT VOCATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL

Setiawan Daris Wibisono

Education is a lifelong requirement. Every human being requires education, to when and where it resides. Education is very important, because no human being would be difficult to develop education and even going backward. Education is the conscious effort and aims to develop quality. Law Number 20 Year 2003 on National Education System, mandates that the national education serves to develop skills and form the character and civilization of the nation's dignity in the context of the intellectual life of the nation. Education carried out to develop the potential of learners in order to become a man who is faithful and devoted to God Almighty, noble, healthy, knowledgeable, skilled, creative, independent, and become citizens of a democratic and responsible.
In the era of the world without a bulkhead (globalization) is filled with clutter, this turned out to have a major impact on patterns of human behavior. Where, humans prefer to live in solitude and take off the mutual help-an, human more like a "Superman" and reluctant to collaborate to be "super team". Portrait of the students are always integrated as "true lover" Laptop and Modem with very lightly ignore their surroundings, ignoring parents encouraged bathing, eating, worshiping and so on. Reality is what causes the social sensitivity to very low, making man selfish, and trend is very difficult to share with others.

According to Nana Sudjana, learning in social studies education is still there were complaints that the passive attitude shown by the students in following lessons. This happens because one factor because teachers are less creative in learning. Very rarely do teachers integrate social studies teaching methods, learning models with a variety of media. In fact, to get maximum results in the classroom, there are two main components that need to be considered by the teacher is teaching methods and media. Both components are interrelated and inseparable.

Social studies in vocational learning is more likely to be theoretical and teachers tesk just based on the book that became the primary literature. The social studies teacher uses only the lecture method, students dictate, and rote methods that allow students to become passive. In the following each learning social studies. These realities also makes student learning in following social studies saturated so the impact on the attitude of lazy learning social studies. The passivity of students in conventional learning by the teacher will of course have an impact on the successful mastery of the concept is not so of course social studies educational goals are not achieved.

Learning processes in vocational conventional social studies and continues from year to year made the social studies as a marginalized subject matter in addition to other disciplines. Social studies in vocational learning during this expression has not given the space to hone students' social sensitivity that occurs in the surrounding community as the application of Social Sciences. As a result, one of the ultimate goal of social studies education is that students have the ability to solve problems of social issues surrounding each will be very difficult to achieve.

Social realities that exist in society and continues to exist today, such as juvenile delinquency, drugs, student brawls, wild race, and other negative behaviors must be recognized is the result of the inability of humans in problem solving in a wise and prudent. At least, if properly implemented social studies learning and engage students actively with approaches, methods and models appropriate learning, each student will be able to do problem solving in a positive way.

Social studies at vocational education level organized in a systematic, comprehensive, and integrated in the learning process toward maturity and success in life in society. With this approach learners will be expected to gain a broader understanding and deeper in the related fields of science. In addition, social studies education in vocational education is necessary for students to understand the social knowledge that is useful for their future, social skills and social awareness is very high so be prepared to work and full responsibilities.

Social studies learning paradigm shift must be done at all levels of the educational unit. Social studies in vocational learning tend to use Behavioristic view, how to learn to just be interpreted as the acquisition of knowledge, while the teaching is to transfer knowledge to the learner should be changed with the constructivist paradigm.

According Pror. Dr. I Nyoman Sudana Degeng, in the constructivist view, learning is a compilation of knowledge from concrete experience, collaborative activities, and reflection and interpretation. Teaching is arranged so that the learning environment motivated to explore the meaning and value uncertainty.
Revolutionary steps to restore the essence of education is a demanding teacher competence social studies in order to provide appropriate learning objectives. According to Kosasih, education social studies discuss the relationship between humans and their environment. Community environment in which students grow and develop as part of the community, faced with various problems that exist and occur in the surrounding environment. Social studies education also helps students in solving problems faced so that will make them more interesting to know and understand the social community.

Furthermore, the teacher must thoroughly understand and implement the objectives of social studies education in accordance with the standards of competence and basic competences in Education Unit Level Curriculum 2006, which aims to make the students have the following capabilities:

1. Familiar with concepts related to community life and the environment.
2. Have the basic ability to think logically and critically, curiosity, inquiry, problem solving and social skills in life.
3. Commitment and awareness of social values ​​and humanity.
4. Having the ability to communicate, cooperate and compete in a pluralistic society, locally, nationally and globally.

BE FULL OF LOVE TEACHER

Setiawan Daris Wibisono

This paper is the result of a reflection to see so many cases of Violence in School, in which teacher education shifts the sacred places and sacred to be an unequal battle. The last case is still very warm tragedy Rafi Yudha Ramadana and Elga Nisawiaga, two students of SDN Landungsari two poor districts that get kicked up in the circle of fire that is burning hot and with the director and the principal executor. Even more ironically, when two students of the tiny cry for help, the teachers at school can only be silent, pretending not to know or feel sorry for are only stored in the liver. A small proportion of the number of teachers who feel sorry, just crying without tears because they know very well that the principal is never wrong and have little tangible to be king in the royal education.

This incident stems from the "creativity" and Elga Niswiaga Yudha Ramadana who was forced to skip classes because it is locked by the windows of her classmates. Innocence of the students who have a passion for learning as you play and play while learning turns out to be disastrous early black cloud hanging over the SDN Landungsari 2 Malang Regency. Principals in error (not to clarify the reasons why creative leap Yudha and Elga window class) may not realize that what these students are part of the right brain intelligence (figure it out quickly locked into a class because of fear of being late and not be afraid of appreciate a teacher who comes first).

Education is a teaching-learning process is done with deliberate, conscious and planned to familiarize the citizens as early as possible to explore, recognize, understand, realize, control, appreciate and practice the values ​​that are mutually agreed upon as commendable, desirable and useful for life and personal development community, nation and state.

In the 1945 Constitution stated that the purpose of development is to promote the general welfare, the intellectual life of the nation, lasting peace and social justice. Therefore, in the development of education plays an important role for the intellectual life of nations and governments have an obligation to implement any policy taken education to the achievement of national education, so that the direction of educational policy to be part of the effort in implementing the mandate contained in the 1945 Constitution.

According Roestiyah, (1982: 182) in the Pick (2005: 6):. Teacher is a person WHO Causes a person to know or be Able to do something or give a person knowladge or skill. According Sutadipura (1983:54) in the Pick (2005: 6), that: The teacher is a decent person digugu and imitated. Based on such understanding, we can conclude that a teacher is not just the giver of knowledge to his students in front of the class, but is someone who has professionalism in carrying out its role as a teacher who can make the students able to plan, analyze and conclude the problems encountered.

The first step to loving teacher is to learn and continue learning to understand, implement, and not just memorize it for a teacher competency standards. According Kunandar (2007:55), teachers' competence is a set of mastering the ability to obtain for themselves teachers to realize their performance appropriately and effectively. Teacher competency in question here include: 1) pedagogical competence, 2) professional competence, 3) personality and competence, 4) social competence.

Without having to abandon pedagogic competence and professional competence, in this paper the authors ask the teacher to observe and reflect a little more personal competence and social competence. In the competence of personality, a teacher charged with possess a good personality. Well-spoken and polite in the attitude. Because teachers are role model examples of the school and community environments that figure be a role model and replicable, reliable and be role models. In addition a teacher must also have a fun personality so that students are taught to feel interested in the personality. Meanwhile, the social competence necessary for a person who has the profession as a teacher because interactions to the local community is good with people in your neighborhood, school and with parents. Therefore, a teacher must be able to adapt to the social environment as it is a figure that imitated, but it is social contacts to parents is also necessary to know the progress of student learning at home.

Teachers should know that True love is like a flower that is easy to wilt. Must be maintained and preserved to maintain it. Love can go away ... if there is no time for romance, when teachers and students forget how to speak the language of love for one another. In addition, teachers in each learning will be more meaningful if you can surf in the world so that the teachers thought their students would understand exactly what is needed by the students. Because, the further into the world of student teachers, the further influence of the teacher can give to the students.

Learning fun and exciting, of course, would indirectly motivate students to continue to want to learn the feeling of pleasure and without pressure. Thus, this condition will make students addicted and always looking for teachers who have been "missed" if the teacher is just a few seconds too late from the schedule. To achieve this learning, teachers must be able to create a fun learning activities and encourage the following:

1. Looking for an interesting side topic, make a first impression of student learning is fun, then after that it becomes easier
2. Linking learning with a hobby that makes the students really enjoy learning
3. Finding the source of students' learning as you wish, to seek their own learning resources, it ensures that students really want to learn
4. Finding a new alternative place to learn, because learning is not only monotonous in the classroom, but can use the environment, markets, government offices, tourist attractions and other public facilities as a fun learning laboratory.
5. Make the learning process as a way of reaching the goals of students will be pleased and excited to follow
6. Applying the model of learning. Learning model can be a solution for a fun active learning so as to make the students do not get bored in following lessons.

School as a place of learning for students will become "addicted" if the teacher carry out learning in a loving way. Teachers also need to understand about the law of human relations, including the in teacher relationship with students. The formula is as follows;

Law + Regulation - relationship = hatred + rebellion
Thus, it can be concluded from the above formula that the punishment will only cause resentment. Thus, a teacher who wants to make the revolution of style / behavior / learning techniques would be more beautiful if you have a shared commitment, that;
Perfect law of liberty is the law
Hopefully this becomes a message from heaven for all actors in education, especially the teachers to always do the loving way so that learning can be a new positive energy education in Indonesia.

Japanese Propaganda on Indonesia 2

Japanese propaganda on indonesia part I

Design

the design of vocational teachers NU Bondowoso
East java-Indonesia
dedicated to Mom Ayuyao

World War II in Europe - By Setiawan Daris Wibisono

World War II in Europe

By Setiawan Daris Wibisono
The Holocaust took place in the broader context of World War II. Still reeling from Germany's defeat in World War I, Hitler's government envisioned a vast, new empire of "living space" (Lebensraum) in eastern Europe. The realization of German dominance in Europe, its leaders calculated, would require war.
1939
After securing the neutrality of the Soviet Union (through the August 1939 German-Soviet Pact of nonaggression), Germany started World War II by invading Poland on September 1, 1939. Britain and France responded by declaring war on Germany on September 3. Within a month, Poland was defeated by a combination of German and Soviet forces and was partitioned between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
1940
The relative lull in fighting which followed the defeat of Poland ended on April 9, 1940, when German forces invaded Norway and Denmark. On May 10, 1940, Germany began its assault on western Europe by invading the Low Countries (Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg), which had taken neutral positions in the war, as well as France. On June 22, 1940, France signed an armistice with Germany, which provided for the German occupation of the northern half of the country and permitted the establishment of a collaborationist regime in the south with its seat in the city of Vichy.
With German encouragement, the Soviet Union occupied the Baltic states in June 1940 and formally annexed them in August 1940. Italy, a member of the Axis (countries allied with Germany), joined the war on June 10, 1940. From July 10 to October 31, 1940, the Nazis waged, and ultimately lost, an air war over England, known as the Battle of Britain.
1941
After securing the Balkan region by invading Yugoslavia and Greece on April 6, 1941, the Germans and their allies invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, in direct violation of the German-Soviet Pact. In June and July 1941, the Germans also occupied the Baltic states. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin then became a major wartime Allied leader, in opposition to Nazi Germany and its Axis allies. During the summer and autumn of 1941, German troops advanced deep into the Soviet Union, but stiffening Red Army resistance prevented the Germans from capturing the key cities of Leningrad and Moscow. On December 6, 1941, Soviet troops launched a significant counteroffensive that drove German forces permanently from the outskirts of Moscow. One day later, on December 7, 1941, Japan (one of the Axis powers) bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The United States immediately declared war on Japan. On December 11, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States as the military conflict widened.
1942-1943
In May 1942, the British Royal Air Force carried out a raid on the German city of Cologne with a thousand bombers, for the first time bringing war home to Germany. For the next three years, Allied air forces systematically bombed industrial plants and cities all over the Reich, reducing much of urban Germany to rubble by 1945. In late 1942 and early 1943, the Allied forces achieved a series of significant military triumphs in North Africa. The failure of French armed forces to prevent Allied occupation of Morocco and Algeria triggered a German occupation of collaborationist Vichy France on November 11, 1942. Axis military units in Africa, approximately 150,000 troops in all, surrendered in May 1943.
On the eastern front, during the summer of 1942, the Germans and their Axis allies renewed their offensive in the Soviet Union, aiming to capture Stalingrad on the Volga River, as well as the city of Baku and the Caucasian oil fields. The German offensive stalled on both fronts in the late summer of 1942. In November, Soviet troops launched a counteroffensive at Stalingrad and on February 2, 1943, the German Sixth Army surrendered to the Soviets. The Germans mounted one more offensive at Kursk in July 1943, the biggest tank battle in history, but Soviet troops blunted the attack and assumed a military predominance that they would not again relinquish during the course of the war.
In July 1943, the Allies landed in Sicily and in September went ashore on the Italian mainland. After the Italian Fascist Party's Grand Council deposed Italian premier Benito Mussolini (an ally of Hitler), the Italian military took over and negotiated a surrender to Anglo-American forces on September 8. German troops stationed in Italy seized control of the northern half of the peninsula, and continued to resist. Mussolini, who had been arrested by Italian military authorities, was rescued by German SS commandos in September and established (under German supervision) a neo-Fascist puppet regime in northern Italy. German troops continued to hold northern Italy until surrendering on May 2, 1945.
1944
On June 6, 1944 (D-Day), as part of a massive military operation, over 150,000 Allied soldiers landed in France, which was liberated by the end of August. On September 11, 1944, the first US troops crossed into Germany, one month after Soviet troops crossed the eastern border. In mid-December the Germans launched an unsuccessful counterattack in Belgium and northern France, known as the Battle of the Bulge. Allied air forces attacked Nazi industrial plants, such as the one at the Auschwitz camp (though the gas chambers were never targeted).
1945
The Soviets began an offensive on January 12, 1945, liberating western Poland and forcing Hungary (an Axis ally) to surrender. In mid-February 1945, the Allies bombed the German city of Dresden, killing approximately 35,000 civilians. American troops crossed the Rhine River on March 7, 1945. A final Soviet offensive on April 16, 1945, enabled Soviet forces to encircle the German capital, Berlin. As Soviet troops fought their way towards the Reich Chancellery, Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945. On May 7, 1945, Germany surrendered unconditionally to the Western Allies at Reims and on May 9 to the Soviets in Berlin. In August, the war in the Pacific ended soon after the US dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing 120,000 civilians. Japan formally surrendered on September 2.
World War II resulted in an estimated 55 million deaths worldwide. It was the largest and most destructive conflict in history.
Further Reading
Berthon, Simon, and Joanna Potts. Warlords: An Extraordinary Re-Creation of World War II Through the Eyes and Minds of Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2006.
Bess, Michael. Choices Under Fire: Moral Dimensions of World War II. New York: A.A. Knopf, 2006.
Chickering, Roger, Stig Fo¨rster, and Bernd Greiner. A World at Total War: Global Conflict and the Politics of Destruction, 1937-1945. Washington, DC: German Historical Institute, 2005.
Plowright, John. The Causes, Course, and Outcomes of World War Two. England: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Weinberg, Gerhard L. Hitler's Foreign Policy: The Road to World War II, 1933-1939. New York: Enigma, 2005.

The History of Education in America - By Setiawan Daris Wibisono

The History of Education in America

By Setiawan Daris Wibisono

The history of education in America is long and varied.  For the most part, education in the colonial days as well as the first years of the United States was primarily done at the home.  Parents taught their children to read and writer and perform basic calculations. Boys were traditionally taught more academic subjects, while a woman’s education, beyond basic reading, writing, and math, was limited to learning how to run a household.  Indeed, even well-heeled girls in private schools were rarely educated in academic subjects beyond a basic level required to function as a society lady. 

As the country became more densely populated, schools became more common, but the level of education remained the same and actual schools were all private affairs catering to the wealthy.  This was the case in 1840, when reformers from Massachusetts and Connecticut started pushing for mandatory state-funded schooling.  The efforts took hold relatively quickly in Massachusetts, which passed the first bill requiring all children to attend elementary school in 1852.  New York followed with a similar bill in 1853.  By 1918 every state in the Union had a law requiring that all children be required to attend school.

Not everyone was happy with this idea.  Catholics, for example, were not too pleased with the idea of sending their children to public school.  In a 1925 case, Pierce V. Society of Sisters, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that while a state could compel a parent to send his or her child to school, it could not force children to attend public schools, private schools would also do. 

As for high school, the progress has been a little bit slower.  In many cases, high school attendance is still not mandatory for those 16 and older.  Throughout the 20th century, as jobs moved from the field to the factory and eventually to the office, the demand for a more highly educated workforce took root.  This led to a massive increase in the number of high school graduates and people going to college. Over the course of the 20th century, we went from having about 6% of the population graduating from high school to over 85% of students graduating from high school. Similarly, college attendance has jumped from about 2% of 18-24 year olds to about 60% of 18-24 year olds taking some sort of post high-school course, either at a four year college or a two year community college.

Today, we live in a contentious society, with public schools often at the center of furious debates over culture, spending, economics, and religion as well as the future and direction of our country.  Tests, standards, bilingual schools, school choice, all these debates that everyone thinks are so new are old news.  People have been debating all these issues since the institution of mandatory publicly funded education. Having a country as big and varied as the United States with a cookie-cutter style education has created many problems, but people forget that it has solved many problems as well. For example, the fact that we have free schooling through high school means that the workforce is more highly educated and can handle the more technical jobs of a technology-based economy.  Schools were one of the first places to be integrated, leading to increased rights for minorities and a more egalitarian society.  

The Japanese Occupation, 1942-45 - By Setiawan Daris Wibisono

The Japanese Occupation, 1942-45

By Setiawan Daris Wibisono

The Japanese occupied the archipelago in order, like their Portuguese and Dutch predecessors, to secure its rich natural resources. Japan's invasion of North China, which had begun in July 1937, by the end of the decade had become bogged down in the face of stubborn Chinese resistance. To feed Japan's war machine, large amounts of petroleum, scrap iron, and other raw materials had to be imported from foreign sources. Most oil--about 55 percent--came from the United States, but Indonesia supplied a critical 25 percent. From Tokyo's perspective, the increasingly critical attitude of the "ABCD powers" (America, Britain, China, and the Dutch) toward Japan's invasion of China reflected their desire to throttle its legitimate aspirations in Asia. German occupation of the Netherlands in May 1940 led to Japan's demand that the Netherlands Indies government supply it with fixed quantities of vital natural resources, especially oil. Further demands were made for some form of economic and financial integration of the Indies with Japan. Negotiations continued through mid-1941. The Indies government, realizing its extremely weak position, played for time. But in summer 1941, it followed the United States in freezing Japanese assets and imposing an embargo on oil and other exports. Because Japan could not continue its China war without these resources, the military-dominated government in Tokyo gave assent to an "advance south" policy. French Indochina was already effectively under Japanese control. A nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union in April 1941 freed Japan to wage war against the United States and the European colonial powers. The Japanese experienced spectacular early victories in the Southeast Asian war. Singapore, Britain's fortress in the east, fell on February 15, 1941, despite British numerical superiority and the strength of its seaward defenses. The Battle of the Java Sea resulted in the Japanese defeat of a combined British, Dutch, Australian, and United States fleet. On March 9, 1942, the Netherlands Indies government surrendered without offering resistance on land. Although their motives were largely acquisitive, the Japanese justified their occupation in terms of Japan's role as, in the words of a 1942 slogan, "The leader of Asia, the protector of Asia, the light of Asia." Tokyo's Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, encompassing both Northeast and Southeast Asia, with Japan as the focal point, was to be a nonexploitative economic and cultural community of Asians. Given Indonesian resentment of Dutch rule, this approach was appealing and harmonized remarkably well with local legends that a two-century-long non-Javanese rule would be followed by era of peace and prosperity. The Japanese divided the Indies into three jurisdictions: Java and Madura were placed under the control of the Sixteenth Army; Sumatra, for a time, joined with Malaya under the Twenty-fifth Army; and the eastern archipelago was placed under naval command. In Sumatra and the east, the overriding concern of the occupiers was maintenance of law and order and extraction of needed resources. Java's economic value with respect to the war effort lay in its huge labor force and relatively developed infrastructure. The Sixteenth Army was tolerant, within limits, of political activities carried out by nationalists and Muslims. This tolerance grew as the momentum of Japanese expansion was halted in mid-1942 and the Allies began counteroffensives. In the closing months of the war, Japanese commanders promoted the independence movement as a means of frustrating an Allied reoccupation. The occupation was not gentle. Japanese troops often acted harshly against local populations. The Japanese military police were especially feared. Food and other vital necessities were confiscated by the occupiers, causing widespread misery and starvation by the end of the war. The worst abuse, however, was the forced mobilization of some 4 million--although some estimates are as high as 10 million--romusha (manual laborers), most of whom were put to work on economic development and defense construction projects in Java. About 270,000 romusha were sent to the Outer Islands and Japanese-held territories in Southeast Asia, where they joined other Asians in performing wartime construction projects. At the end of the war, only 52,000 were repatriated to Java. The Japanese occupation was a watershed in Indonesian history. It shattered the myth of Dutch superiority, as Batavia gave up its empire without a fight. There was little resistance as Japanese forces fanned out through the islands to occupy former centers of Dutch power. The relatively tolerant policies of the Sixteenth Army on Java also confirmed the island's leading role in Indonesian national life after 1945: Java was far more developed politically and militarily than the other islands. In addition, there were profound cultural implications from the Japanese invasion of Java. In administration, business, and cultural life, the Dutch language was discarded in favor of Malay and Japanese. Committees were organized to standardize Bahasa Indonesia and make it a truly national language. Modern Indonesian literature, which got its start with language unification efforts in 1928 and underwent considerable development before the war, received further impetus under Japanese auspices. Revolutionary (or traditional) Indonesian themes were employed in drama, films, and art, and hated symbols of Dutch imperial control were swept away. For example, the Japanese allowed a huge rally in Batavia (renamed Jakarta) to celebrate by tearing down a statue of Jan Pieterszoon Coen, the seventeenthcentury governor general. Although the occupiers propagated the message of Japanese leadership of Asia, they did not attempt, as they did in their Korean colony, to coercively promote Japanese culture on a large scale. According to historian Anthony Reid, the occupiers believed that Indonesians, as fellow Asians, were essentially like themselves but had been corrupted by three centuries of Western colonialism. What was needed was a dose of Japanese-style seishin (spirit; semangat in Indonesian). Many members of the elite responded positively to an inculcation of samurai valtes. The most significant legacy of the occupation, however, was the opportunities it gave for Javanese and other Indonesians to participate in politics, administration, and the military. Soon after the Dutch surrender, European officials, businessmen, military personnel, and others, totaling around 170,000, were interned (the harsh conditions of their confinement caused a high death rate, at least in camps for male military prisoners, which embittered Dutch-Japanese relations even in the early 1990s). While Japanese military officers occupied the highest posts, the personnel vacuum on the lower levels was filled with Indonesians. Like the Dutch, however, the Japanese relied on local indigenous elites, such as the priyayi on Java and the Acehnese uleebalang, to administer the countryside. Because of the harshly exploitative Japanese policies in the closing years of the war, after the Japanese surrender collaborators in some areas were killed in a wave of local resentment. Sukarno and Hatta agreed in 1942 to cooperate with the Japanese, as this seemed to be the best opportunity to secure independence. The occupiers were particularly impressed by Sukarno's mass following, and he became increasingly valuable to them as the need to mobilize the population for the war effort grew between 1943 and 1945. His reputation, however, was tarnished by his role in recruiting romusha. Japanese attempts to coopt Muslims met with limited success. Muslim leaders opposed the practice of bowing toward the emperor (a divine ruler in Japanese official mythology) in Tokyo as a form of idolatry and refused to declare Japan's war against the Allies a "holy war" because both sides were nonbelievers. In October 1943, however, the Japanese organized the Consultative Council of Indonesian Muslims (Masyumi), designed to create a united front of orthodox and modernist believers. Nahdatul Ulama was given a prominent role in Masyumi, as were a large number of kyai (religious leaders), whom the Dutch had largely ignored, who were brought to Jakarta for training and indoctrination. As the fortunes of war turned, the occupiers began organizing Indonesians into military and paramilitary units whose numbers were added by the Japanese to romusha statistics. These included the heiho (auxiliaries), paramilitary units recruited by the Japanese in mid-1943, and the Defenders of the Fatherland (Peta) in 1943. Peta was a military force designed to assist the Japanese forces by forestalling the initial Allied invasion. By the end of the war, it had 37,000 men in Java and 20,000 in Sumatra (where it was commonly known by the Japanese name Giyugun). In December 1944, a Muslim armed force, the Army of God, or Barisan Hizbullah, was attached to Masyumi.