Reflections on national awakening day

Mochtar Buchori Legislator Jakarta mbuchori@indo.net.id

May 20 is National Awakening Day for us Indonesians, and May 2 is our National Education Day. Every year, on these two dates in May, we try to renew our understanding about the significance of the two important events for our nation and our country. Personally, I have also tried on these two dates to renew my appreciation of these two historic events.

Every time I think of these two dates, one question persistently comes to mind: Can our educational system bring about a second national awakening? Will our educational system be able to produce new generations of leaders capable of taking the nation out of the present disorder and the doldrums?

Why does this question persist in my mind?

I am not sure. I think, though, this is because I firmly believe that as a nation we cannot possibly sustain our present way of life, and that sooner or later we will have to change our current system for running our country and our nation. To me, the most aggravating feature of our society today is that even though we have formally decried the New Order system, in our day-to-day life we are behaving in a renewed New Order way. We are still trapped in the New Order mentality. We have become real hypocrites. We don't practice what we preach.

Can we change this situation? I think so! Not in my lifetime perhaps, but certainly in the future there will be a new generations of Indonesians who, spurred by their knowledge of past national glories, will be determined to resurrect a respectable Indonesia. This will be the second national awakening of the Indonesian nation.

It could be that this is just an illusion or hallucination on my part, but somehow I believe that our nation does possess the will to change and the potential to do so. And, I also believe in the power of education. I believe in its power to shape minds and to influence young people in formulating their aspirations about their personal and collective future. I believe that good education will help the young to enrich their lives, broaden their horizons, and ennoble their ambition.

I think in this respect that our educational system, in spite of all its shortcomings today, has the capacity to heal itself and will, at some point in the future, be able to bring about new generations of leaders capable of motivating and guiding the population to work hard to improve their personal and collective lives. If and when such a national resolve could be attained, it would be a matter of organization to transform this national resolution into an endeavor to end this present humiliating mess and to build anew a nation and a country, which we all can feel proud of.

Thus, in my opinion, the arrival of generations that will save the country and the nation from bankruptcy will be determined by cultural and educational factors. On the cultural side, the question is whether we will be able to continuously adjust our value systems to the changing challenges of the time, and whether we will be able to transmit effectively these value systems to the succeeding generations. To cite just a simple example, we can ask ourselves whether we will be able to transmit values related to personal and national pride, hard work, decency, and empathy -- to name just a few -- to the successive generations.

On the educational side, the question is whether our schools will be capable of redesigning their educational programs. In my view, our schools will have to extend their current programs beyond training students to accumulate, store, and retrieve knowledge, to guiding them towards understanding and appreciating the struggles of their forefathers to create a "just and prosperous society", and ultimately impelling them toward a commitment to continue whatever task their forefathers left unfinished.

Thus the arrival of Indonesian generations that will restore the honor of this nation cannot and should not be taken for granted. As I see it, it will depend very much on our ability to synchronize family education at home, formal education in our schools, and the unintended educational impact provided by the mass media. If we are sincere in our pledge to revive and rejuvenate our country, we will find ways of synchronizing these various educative forces. But if we merely use those lofty words and ideals for partisan political gain, I am afraid that this generation of national angels will never come.

Each of these three parties -- the family, the school, and the mass media -- has its own assignment to bring about a second national awakening. At the initial stage it will suffice if each of these three parties formulates its own agenda. But for the purpose of speeding up this national rescue agenda, I think it will become necessary for these three parties to coordinate and synchronize their agendas.

In spite of my cautious tone, I still believe that my dream for a second national awakening will materialize. I think in this regard of the way in which our founding fathers were educated and brought up. The majority of our founding fathers had a colonial education that was never intended to nurture national political leaders.

But it provided our forefathers with a solid intellectuality that made them capable of understanding the moral and cultural climate of the time, the zeitgeist, and understanding also the burning aspirations alive among people at the bottom of the heap. They should also not forget that their home life can equip them with strength of character, which emphasizes willingness to endure political pain, persistence in hardening one' resolve and readiness to make sacrifices.

It should be stated here that in spite of the scarcity of mass media, which sustains the idea of creating cultural identity and achieving political independence, the combination of forces stemming from family education and school education that emphasized intellectuality succeeded in creating generations that changed the history of the country.

If we may use this sketchy analysis as our guide we can say, I think, that the main assignment for Indonesian families today is to contribute to the building of a noble character in their children). The main assignment of our schools, as I see it, is to strengthen the learning capability of our children. The idea that accumulation of knowledge creates smartness, wisdom, and power is misconceived and misplaced.

And what is the main responsibility of the mass media? I don't know! One thing that I feel worth mentioning is that the time seems to have come for contemplating how the commercialization agenda can be balanced with the missionary agenda, viz. programs that constantly remind the public that we have to save the future of the nation and the country.

Are we up to this challenge?