Indonesian youths have little sense of nationhood

Indonesian youths have little sense of nationhood

Fitri Wulandari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Ask young Indonesians today what makes them Indonesians, and
the answer may likely surprise, or disappoint you.

"I'm Indonesian because I was born in Indonesia and I'm a
citizen of Indonesia, I just have to live with that," Intan
Nirwani, a 14-year-old high school student, said when she was
asked about what it meant being an Indonesian.

Swastika, 24, an anchor at a TV station and also Javanese,
gave a similar answer.

"It's just a statistical status. I mean...you are Indonesian
because your ID and your passport say so," Swastika stated.

It may be a false assumption to say that Intan and Swastika
represent the general feeling of Indonesia's younger generation
about their country, but their answers reflect a growing trend
among the younger generation. They seem to have grown further
away from the sense of being Indonesian that was still very much
alive among the previous generations.

For many of today's young people, being Indonesian means
nothing more than a "geographical fact" -- because they were born
and raised in the country. Nothing more, nothing less.

Ramadhani, 22, a high school dropout and a street beggar, and
Ismail, 17, a student at the Santi Rama school for the disabled,
said they were Indonesians only because they lived here.

Robert Mulyarahardja, 17, an Indonesian of Chinese descent and
chairman of a student body at Pangudi Luhur high school in South
Jakarta, said, "I'm an Indonesian. I was born here and had my
education here. And my family is rooted here. We no longer
practice Chinese culture".

Chandi Salmon Conrad, 18, a student at the Islamic private
high school Al Azhar, also in South Jakarta, shared similar
sentiments. A product of an American and Javanese marriage, he
said he felt more Indonesian than American because, "I was born
and raised here."

Chandi arrived at the "decision" to be an Indonesia not only
because Indonesia is his home country but also as a result of his
exploration of Indonesian cultures.

Since he was young, his parents have been providing him with
reading materials about Indonesian history and culture. "I also
travel to many places in the country and in the process learn
about the different cultures."

All these young people share one thing in common: It is merely
geography that defines their nationhood and explains their
feeling of being Indonesians. In other words, they are bound by
the land into which they were born and in which they were raised
and now live.

This shared identity, while providing a strong foundation for
the nation to survive, is lacking in its essential ingredient
that binds a people. Ernest Renan, in his essay Qu'est-ce qu'une
nation? (What is a Nation?), writes that "a nation is a soul, a
spiritual principle".

"A nation is a large-scale solidarity, constituted by the
feeling of the sacrifices that one has made in the past and of
those that one is prepared to make in the future. ...A nation's
existence is, if you will pardon the metaphor, a daily
plebiscite, just as an individual's existence is a perpetual
affirmation of life," says Renan.

Today, it is exactly this sense of solidarity, of
togetherness, of the will to sacrifice, that is being questioned.
The country's inability to come out of the prolonged
multicrises that began with the financial meltdown in 1997 has
been attributed in parts to a lack of solidarity among its people
to solve the problems. The reform movement that ended the
government of President Soeharto has failed to forge solidarity.
On the contrary, people, the elites in particular, are fighting
each other for power, sidelining the people and national
interests.

Parakitri T. Simbolon in his book Menjadi Indonesia (Becoming
Indonesia) writes that "nationhood is a serious effort to achieve
a balance between society's interests on the one hand and state
interests on another. Along the process, clashes occur between
the two interests. The clashes that end up with the domination of
one party will threaten the existence of the related state or
society."

Indonesia's problems are a legacy of state domination on the
people done through, among other things, the blurring of
historical facts that have uprooted the people's sense of
nationhood.

During the 32 years of the New Order era, Soeharto used
historical facts as his tools of power. The teaching of history
in schools must follow the guidelines set in the six series of
Indonesian History written in 1974 by the then Minister of
Education Nugroho Notosusanto. History was seen and understood as
state interpretations of facts and events.

"The whole thing about being a nation was dictated by the
state. Students were only taught that independence meant being
'free from colonialism' not 'free to form a nation," Swastika
explained.

Chandi concurred, saying that students learned at school
merely to get good grades but not to explore the impacts or
meaning of each historical event for the nation.

Moreover, as noted sociologist Ignas Kleden pointed out, in
the process of becoming a state, Indonesia had neglected
nurturing its populist nationalism--the sense of being part of a
nation and of living in one homeland--which was the basic
foundation of the country's national movement.

Bitterness over the state's oppression of the people and
failure of the state to protect the rights of the people may
explain why these young people do not see being an Indonesian as
part of their identity.

"If I had a choice, I would change my citizenship because as
an ethnic Chinese, I am often a victim of discrimination," Robert
said.

Nonetheless, amid this pessimism, some people still feel that
as citizens they have the responsibility to make the country
better.

Herman Sutiono Nainggolan, 22, a fourth-year student at the
Jakarta Institute of Theology (STT Jakarta) and a member of the
Forum Kota (Forkot) student movement, said: "It's my sense of
nationhood that has encouraged me to take the responsibility as a
young man to create a new concept to renew the bond with other
youths."