It's time to revitalize the Youth Pledge

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.