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."