The Youth Pledge Revisited: It's Time to Bury the Hatchet

E PLURIBUS UNUM. The experience from my high school times has redefined my view of nationalism, with my Chinese-Indonesian friends acting as the unlikely teachers who taught me the true meaning of Unity in Diversity.

Could anyone be able to mention any nation in earth whose diversity is greater than Indonesia?

No one could. With more than 17,000 islands scattering across the archipelago, in where around 300 local tribes roaming around with each of whom speaking their own local languages; the diversity of Indonesia is definitely unrivaled.

Indonesia’s vast diversity, however, is a two-edge sword and sometimes becomes the major constraint for its citizens to unite and have a mindset as one nation. Since the arrival of the first colonialist –that was the Portuguese in 1512–, it took more than 400 years for Indonesia’s massively-diverse citizens to unite as one nation and declare its independence from the colonialists.

Certainly, the key to our unification was the declaration of Sumpah Pemuda (the Youth Pledge) on October 28 1928, where jongs or youths from various ethnic and cultural backgrounds (Jong Sumatranese, Javanese, Bataknese, Ambonese, and even Chinese) gathered together and vowed to eliminate the great divide of their racial barriers and all declare themselves as Indonesians.

It is the oath that became a keystone in uniting Indonesia’s massively-diverse citizens and later proved to be pivotal for Indonesia to finally unshackle itself from colonialism.

Fast forward eighty two years, it is worth reflecting the values of Sumpah Pemuda once again when we look upon the situation of Indonesia at present.

Violence on behalf of the interest of specific religion and racial groups erupts in many parts of the region, with hatreds and resentments toward each other eclipse the aphorism of “unity in diversity” that is tightly gripped by the Garuda bird as one important part of Indonesia’s national symbol.

While in the past Jong Ambonese worked hand-to-hand with other Indonesians regardless of which part of Indonesia they came from, today there seemed to be no love lost between the Ambonese and Flores people at the street of Ampera when they exchanged blows and spilled each other’s blood.

And while in Merah Putih movie we can watch how a Moslem school teacher fought the Dutch colonialist shoulder-to-shoulder with a Christian farmer and an obedient Hindu soldier, today the religion intolerance in this country can only grow larger than ever following the stab of two church leaders at Bekasi, allegedly did by Moslems who opposed the presence of the church’s activities in the area.

If only our founding fathers who proclaimed Sumpah Pemuda could see what we are doing at the moment; they would surely be very ashamed to have us as their descendants.

Why, as I am deeply puzzled here, do such racial barriers and differences have to matter? During my high school times, my school was mostly dominated with Chinese-Indonesian students with very rich family background, yet in reality they never look me different despite the fact that I am a Moslem Javanese who merely come from middle-class family background.

And regardless our racial, religion, and social status differences; we are still Indonesian at heart.

“You know, I was very impressed by the way you guys enthusiastically sang your national anthem together,” said an Irish teacher who taught high-school students in United States, as he paid a visit to our school.

“In the United States, young people in your age don’t even memorize [the lyrics of] their own national anthem,” he added.

Indeed, it is ironic why those ethnic-group people should look down against each other’s roots, while back then in high school times all my friends always identified me as “Indonesian”, nothing else matters. During that time, my Chinese-Indonesian friends frequently offered me ride home, jovially invited me to their houses, and on occasions even introduced me to their parents who later cooked me dishes so we could have dinner together.

Did those specific ethnic groups say that they did it merely for retaliation, because of one or two things which some Bataknese or Ambonese did in the past? Then they really should learn to forgive and bury the hatchet: When I sat with my friend’s parents around the dining table, I was sure that they had not forgotten how the Javanese people brutally treated their Chinese relatives during the 1998 riot either.

Revenge is never-ending; forgiving each other and living together in such harmony look to be a life more comfortable living. For massively-diverse citizens of Indonesia, it is indeed a better option to choose rather than fulfilling your revenge now and living life full of insecurity later.

Amidst recent clashes involving religion and ethnic groups in Indonesia, this is the day when I miss the moment when a foreigner was in awe and felt really timid seeing Indonesian high-school students from different religions and ethnic groups singing Indonesia Raya sincerely together.

Ask the then Dutch colonialists at this date eighty two years ago, and that’s the same feeling which went through their spines when those Jong Sumatranen Bond, Jong Ambon, Jong Batak, Jong Java, as well as other Indonesian youths from different backgrounds, all ignored their differences and stood as one to sing Indonesia Raya with all their heart.

This article was published in The Jakarta Post on Thursday, October 28 2010

Building Integrity of Indonesia's Future Generations

When my father was defiant to throw me to study at Kanisius Senior High School, at first I just could not comprehend his seemingly confounding decision. Despite realizing the fact that I will study in a Catholic school while actually he had struggled so hard to build an obedient Muslim environment in my family, or knowing that both he and my mother must take turns to wake up very early in the morning to drive me to school (it was located about 20 kilometers from my house); he stood firm on his decision. “The school will shape your mindset,” he argued.

During my three-year high school times there, in fact it did not take as long as three years for his argument to be proved dead right. Inside I discovered that the school was very strict in various matters, particularly in terms of its commitment to produce Indonesia’s younger generations with honest character, which can be considered somewhat hard to find these days.

And it was somewhat surprising how the school takes this simple matter very seriously. I was astounded the moment I found out that the all-boys school has one major rule for its students: that every student who is caught up in the act of cheating, beyond any reasonable doubt, will be shown the door out from the school.

The rule was not mere words. It was three weeks before the national exam, and the school was not so lenient when two of my friends –who both were third-year students at that time–, were caught red-handed when cheating during the class. As the consequence, they had to undergo the agony of dropping out from school as because of their wrongdoing.

After I graduated from high school and enter a whole new environment in university, I realized that unfortunately not everyone in Indonesia is on the same frame of mind. When I was still in my early sophomore year in the university, one of my peers was very surprised on how I could score so high on the national exam without cheating.

“I wonder how you guys achieved an almost-perfect score on national exam like that without bocoran soal (test’s answers). I simply wouldn’t even have passed the national exam if I were you,” he said.

“Back then, I and most of my friends in my high school chip in together to pay millions to insider in the education ministry, thus we can get the bocoran soal and very much relied on that to pass the national exam.”

That’s not the only one. While many were surprised by plagiarism cases that have been dominating newspapers’ headlines in recent weeks, yet for me the news was far from shocking. In actual fact, even here in one of the best universities in Indonesia, students who just do a copy-paste job from the internet for their tasks and conduct such act of plagiarism can still be found.

We can see that dishonesty practices, as they have always been, can be considered custom entrenched in Indonesia. Eventually as more and more people get accustomed to it, such ignominy turns out to be something rational thing to do: since everyone does thing the same way, it’s the people who don’t do it who will be considered wrong among their society.

As I grow up and can see Indonesia in a bigger picture, only now I can understand why my high school decided to pay intense attention to the word of “honesty” on its foundation of learning. For too long various dishonesty conducts, such as corruption, have been the root of evil that hampers Indonesia from reaching its full potential. While Indonesia inherits the land of rich natural resources which makes foreigners to see us with full envy, very frequent many of the resources are utilized to fulfill someone’s greed rather than the interest of this nation as a whole. Corruption practice like that, unfortunately, flourishes very well here in Indonesia.

Every student must be taught that deceitful things like cheating and plagiarism are the most disgraceful thing to be put into practice as it can become the origin of future corruption acts. Such mentality, therefore, should be planted in the mind of all Indonesia’s younger generations from the very beginning of their development.

The future of one nation lies in the hands of its younger generations, and we ought to invest in our younger generations if we want to fulfill our dream of seeing this nation to stride forward. Without doubt, in the future Indonesia needs leaders and government officials who are equipped by not only intellectual aptitude, but also integrity. And yes we really need to start thinking about implementing strict policies when it comes to the subject of reforming the mindset and mentality of our younger generations.

The tangible solution is clear: someone needs to do something to fix Indonesia deep from the root of the problem itself. Perhaps that was the thing which crossed into the mind of my high school’s executives when they established such stern rule; or what exactly my father thought by the time he insisted on putting me to study there.

This article was published in The Jakarta Post on Saturday, March 6 2010