It's time to revitalize the Youth Pledge

By A. Chaedar Alwasilah

BANDUNG (JP): The 7th Congress of the National Language last October featured the theme of strengthening the role of Bahasa Indonesia as a means of development in the globalization era. The month-long commemoration of Bahasa Indonesia which falls each October is reminiscent of the first Congress in 1928, in which the Youth Pledge was declared to acknowledge one country, one nation, and one national language.

This year the commemoration is of most significance, as the nation is now undergoing social, cultural and political instability, and raises the question of whether the Youth Pledge is weakening. The issues of East Timor and the Free Aceh Movement are telling evidence.

Political leadership presupposes acceptability by electorates and supporters who -- in the Indonesian context -- are multiethnic and multicultural. The political function of language policy is to minimize national schisms and conflicts and to promote sociocultural integration, which consists of a fusion of traditional and regional cultures. The prevalent threat of disintegration suggests that present language planning has not fully played out this political function.

A theory of culture contact asserts that students of the minority and marginalized groups can overcome inequalities through a standardized curricula and national language. In such a school setting, prejudice and discrimination by members of the dominant cultures and vernaculars would be reduced.

Early, rather than late exposure to the national language as a medium of instruction would benefit children both linguistically and cognitively. The nationally standardized curricula obviously functions not only to control the quality of education, but also to ascertain nationalism and to a certain extent patriotism.

A nationality may have all or some of the following characteristics: common descent, territory, political entity, custom and tradition, religion, or language; and Indonesia has them all. All of these characteristics make up what a nation is, yet it is the language which plays a greater role, as any activity related to the above characteristics is always mediated by language.

Language is indeed an index of authenticity, and is viewed as the best way to safeguard or recover a national heritage. Language planning is by necessity culture and nationality planning.

The 1928 Youth Pledge came into being as a result of the commitment of youths of that time to establish a nation which was then under foreign sovereignty. Since then, the national language has developed and modernized. It is a medium of educating and modernizing the country. It is also a medium of the well entrenched bureaucracy. Under the New Order, apparently the nation was unified until former President Soeharto stepped down.

However the recent election of the President and vice president was held amid economic and political instability. The country is now facing the threat of national schism and disintegration, mainly from the several ethnic and religious conflicts in several areas across the nation.

We have learnt that the national language is necessary but insufficient for keeping the country intact. Most important is the fair distribution of the results and achievements of development, to ensure that no provinces like Aceh and Irian Jaya are underdeveloped, while their abundant natural resources are exploited to subsidize other provinces.

For some time, the use of Indonesian as a medium of instruction has been highly stimulated by pragmatic justifications. There are hundreds of dialects in the country, and some of them have neither clear grammar nor an alphabet. It will take some time before their grammar is written down. The multiplicity of vernaculars in Indonesia makes it difficult to provide schooling in each one.

One of the most difficult problems regarding vernaculars is that of providing reading material for school children. It would be difficult to find or train competent teachers, authors, editors, or translators; and above all it would be prohibitively expensive. Publishing newspapers, magazines, government announcements and documents in various vernaculars would be unmanageable and too expensive.

These reasons are realistic and sensible enough to abandon any use of vernaculars as the medium of instruction in schools. The earlier the students are taught in Indonesian, the better their scholastic achievement will be. It is interesting to note the popular resistance to the use of vernaculars as the medium of instruction. Parents and teachers are not enthusiastic about teaching vernaculars, which is the local content of the national curricula in a number of provinces.

The reason of resistance is that the use of the mother tongue does not promise any instantaneous advantage for the children.

Education is the most convincing way to provide people with an understanding of and commitment to nationalism, and to be productive it should be conducted in the most versatile, efficient, and modern language accepted by all the people. Language planning should revitalize our belief that the national language should take precedence over minor languages.

The local content policy, which allows mother tongue instruction in schools, should not generate ethnolinguistic chauvinism at the cost of a diminished commitment to nationalism.

The maintenance of Indonesian as the national language in a pluralistic society, where ethnic solidarity remains a potential source of disintegration, represents a significant achievement in building an integrated political community. Language education for maintaining nationalism suggests providing the people with literacy in the national language so that they can contribute their best to development.

General education for nationalism should be designed to promote equity and equality of education for all people regardless of their ethnicity and vernaculars. Bahasa Indonesia should not only be a medium of instruction, promoting nationalism and function as the medium of the bureaucracy, but it also should be a medium of maintaining interethnic and inter-religious solidarity.

The writer is a lecturer at the Graduate School of the Teacher's Training Institute in Bandung.

Window: Bahasa Indonesia should not only be a medium of instruction, promoting nationalism and function as the medium of the bureaucracy, but it also should be a medium of maintaining interethnic and inter-religious solidarity.