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"Achinese Icon 1"
WHAT IS: ACEH, ACHEH, ACHIN, ACHINICA, ACZIN, ATCHIN, ATJEH, ...?
About the Terminology:
 TERM: popularly pronounced as Ah-chay, located on the northern tip of the island of Sumatra. Global spellings of its name include: Aceh (Officially used by the Indonesian), Acheh (used by Achinese government in exil), Atjeh (used by the colonial power), Achin (used by the anglo-european academicians), Atchin (used by the old european archives), Achinica (Latin terminology), Aczin (used in Poland/Eastern Hemisphere), etc.
Achinese Sumatra is a diverse region occupied by several ethnic groups of Southeast Asian archipelago (Javanese, Buginese, Malays, etc.) with a substantial pupulation of Arab, Chinese, Indian & Persian descent. Cosmospolitanism was part of the Achinese Golden Age: The Jewish community present can be traced in Peucut Distric Area and the Turkish community around Bitai Distric Area of the capital city of Banda Aceh or Kampung Cina (Chinese villages) around North Achinese Regency. There is a small group of West-European descendants who live in Lamno: many of them have blond hair, white skin and blue eyes. They are believed to be the Islamized descendants of Portuguese soldiers. Achinese playground was a cosmopolitan stage for international cultures! The decline of Achinese Commonwealth (Darussalam), Egalitarian spirit (al-Adil) and the 30 years of colonial war plus 30 years of post colonial Achinese conflict, destructed the cosmopolitanism spirit (Rahmat-ul-alamin).
Today, after the long time of isolationism, it seems that Achinese spirit is now on the crossroads between the uniformal tendency of the cultural orthodoxy and the renaissance tendency of the cultural heterodoxy of the "cosmospolitan Golden Age": to be part of the global open society?
Which way?
Here is a small homage to the peoples of the world who support promoting Achinese Sumatran legacy to be part of the universal world heritage ...
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