Old pledge a lesson

Old pledge a lesson

It is disheartening to learn that thousands of students in a
Jakarta school had to miss many days of their classes this month
because of a religious dispute. We are talking about the Sang
Timur Catholic School, Tangerang, which was blockaded for three
weeks by two groups of residents calling themselves the Karang
Tengah Islamic Communication Forum and the Islam Youth Front
because the school had been used for Sunday sermons.

We picked up this case because today is the 76th anniversary
of Youth Pledge Day, a day when more than two dozen youths from
different ethnic groups and religious denominations conferred in
Jakarta (then Batavia) and declared the "one country, one nation
and one language" of Indonesia. It was a revolutionary thing to
do under the Dutch colonial government, 17 years before Indonesia
was born. What would the youths have to say today about the
school saga? If religious differences among them was not
important then, why should it matter today?

The Constitution guarantees believers the right to practice
their religions and yet law enforcement officers appeared to be
reluctant to address the crime. Constructing a two-meter wall at
the entrance gate of the school, thereby barring students from
kindergarten to high school level from classes, is definitely an
illegal action.

Thankfully there are people like Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid,
a former president and a respected Muslim scholar, and, Seto
Mulyadi, chairman of the National Commission for Child
protection, who went to the school in search of a solution.
Although Gus Dur was booed by the residents, his visit was a
display of great moral courage not many leaders show today. With
the wall demolished, the students are now back at the school
although the situation is still tense.

The wall had already been erected when President Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono underlined the importance of pluralism in his
inauguration speech.

Seventy-six years is a long time indeed, but perhaps not so
long for building a nation. In any conflict, it takes two to
tango. If one party has grievances so much so that it resorts to
action, the other party should withdraw and make a reflection.
Perhaps it has done something in the past that might have been
construed as offensive.

It appears the students of the Sang Timur school had been
defensive and held their emotions in check. We also commend the
angry youths from both sides for containing an incident in the
school compound. In the absence of state officials' intervention,
the two disputing parties somehow managed to restrain themselves.
It now looks like a sort of cooling-off period is taking place.

Now that the students have returned to their school, we should
not allow ourselves to be overly discouraged by the incident. In
a pluralistic society, we cannot ignore social tension or deny it
occurs. Despite this, the nation keeps on moving forward,
although, perhaps not at a pace many may want. This year it has
held its first-ever direct presidential election. The 1997
financial crisis has been a serious blow to the country but its
people somehow survive.

Indonesia's youth in other examples have shined in numerous
international sports and science events. Countless other young
people across the archipelago are tirelessly making contributions
in their own quiet ways.

The lesson we can take from the school incident is that we
should not be shy from openly talking about sensitive issues,
which in the New Order parlance translate to topics related to
religion, race, ethnicity and communal groups.

Our past habit of sweeping the dirt under the carpet and
pretending social harmony existed should be quickly abandoned.

No topic is too sensitive to be addressed in public as long as
it is conveyed in an eloquent, cool-headed manner with good
intentions.

Fruitful discussions often unveil the root of resentment in
any given issue, which in this particular case may lie in weak
legislation or otherwise.

By bringing these sensitive issues into the open, we are, in
effect, giving a new breath of courage to the nation -- the same
courage that was brilliantly displayed by those youths under the
watchful eyes of the Dutch colonial government.

Commemoration of Youth Pledge Day may have lost some of its
vigor, but it is fulfilling the substance of the pledge that is
more important.

By addressing the issue head on, we are showing our respect
and indebtedness to those visionary youths, despite not
remembering the day with pomp and ceremony.

We are, in effect, living the 1928 pledge.