National.is.m(e) !!

August. What is the first thing that pops on your mind when you read that words. Many of you will ponder about our Independence Day, I supposed. And yeah, in this month, in the exact 17th, Indonesia celebrate its 71st Indepedence Day. Many of us had been told all of stories about how our founding fathers achieved our freedom by sweat, tears and blood.

Source: blog Djarumbeasiswaplus (accessed from https://blog.djarumbeasiswaplus.org/rerisaputra/2013/10/13/merah-putih-di-ufuk-utara/)

According to Merriem-Webster Dictionary, nationalism defines a sense of national consciousness exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups. In the early perspective, primodialist one, nationalism is decribed as perceived tendency of human as part of distinct group affiliated by birth i.e. Javanese, Sundanese, Aborigin etc. As time goes by, this perspective evolves into modernist one that describes nationalism is a certain phenomenon that requires certain and structural conditions of modern society in order to exist (Paul : 2006).

Naturally, our concept about nationalism is referred to the early one, simply because we are born here, in Indonesia, long time after Independence Day on 1945. By default, we feel that we need to defend Indonesia because we are Indonesian. There is no wrong in that. But, as time flies, as our life and priority take over, nationalism becomes vague premises. Celebration of Independence Day become more ceremonial and routine festival. Over these past years, national pride are not so popular topic in society moreover in youngster. It is so unfortunate because, according to demographic trends, there is particular emergence of a young and productive cohort. Youngster between 15 and 39 years of age now dominate Indonesia’s demographic spectrum, accounting for around 43 percent the population (The Jakarta Post, August 2015). We arguably are more familiar with foreign lifestyle (Western, Korean, Japanese or so) in entertainment, literacy, music, fashion etc than our very own one.

Once, I saw in Youtube Indonesian Choir performing in International  Choir Championship in Poland (forgot in which year) presenting Yamko Rambe Yamko. By the end of their performance, every audience gave standing applause. The performance was indeed mindblowing. I felt like I got slapped in my face. Hard. I didn’t know that one of our traditional folk song could be arranged and performed so beautifully. Not even long time ago, we felt overwhelmed by duo Tontowi-Butet getting gold medal on mixed double badminton in Olympics. I could recall all the social media buzz by then. All of Indonesian were being so hyper and extra by their triumph over duo Malaysian. In addition, they achieved it right on Independence Day. Proud and happy were clearly understatement. Who doesn’t feel emotional when Indonesia Raya being played in such a grande event? Sometimes, we even forget that there are so much to be proud of. So, I realized that nationalism can be grown in any sorts of way. We just need triggers. That phenonemon clearly defines what is nationalisme about based on perspective on modernist society. We feel proud of being part of one big nation, Indonesian.

Source : CNN Indonesia. (accessed from http://www.cnnindonesia.com/)

Each country has its own issue. In our country itself, there are many thing that need to be fixed. Traffic, criminality, corruption, identity crisis, economic issues, security threats and the list goes on. Sometimes we feel so hopeless and wonder what is wrong with our country. For some kind of reason, we often think it is so difficult to feel proud of Indonesia. But, on the other note, we also often forget that it still needs long way to go to achieve ideal concept of nation. Regardless, we need to do our part as well.

Lack of nationalism, as well as nationalistic pride, requires different approach. Small step matters. We can learn nationalism in many ways. Over the simple thing by reading biography (M. Hatta and Habibie biography are my favorites), traveling, volunteering in endeavors like Indonesia Mengajar or even taking parts in Diaspora can be taken into consideration for reviving our national pride. By reading biography, we can grasp more about spirit of our founding fathers in striving to get independence for our country. It can be a constant reminder that no matter what, our independence is earned not given. Traveling is also one of way that can make us more open minded. We know that there are many spots in Indonesia that everyone would die to visit but by actually going there we realized that there is more than meets the eye. More than just beautiful landscape, we can observe the people and the culture. If we travel inside this country, no matter where, we can realize that Indonesia is so rich and diverse. So different yet united. Instead, when we travel abroad, not only do we get experience overseas but also our nationalistic pride thicken.

Wae Rebo. Flores. (source : personal colection)

Living a long way from our own country doesn’t mean that we have less nationalistic pride. Nowaday, there is many diaspora movement by Indonesian living overseas. By taking part in diaspora event, they can gain more sense of nationalism across border. This is connected. They, Indonesian living overseas, can express their affinity to homeland. As much as they enjoy living there, I believe that they also long for opportunities to give some contribution.

On the domestic approach, the project like Indonesia Mengajar is one of the finest way to channel our nationalism. Imagine that you, someone that is used to live in well of environment, with full of awareness, go to in the middle of nowhere to teach children there. There are still underdeveloped and remoted area in Indonesia, in which, the educational system is also still below average. This project is to ensure that how isolated is the region, basic education for childern is very much needed to be delivered by the best teacher. The teacher conveys not only about standar education like formal school gives out but also on how to know more about Indonesia. It reciprocates though. In the end, the teacher also get valuable lesson about Indonesia in the other way around. As Rihanna said in her song, we found love in the hopeless place~~

In realistic approach, our organization, Ministry of Finance have vertical units spread all over Indonesia. Moreover, one of its unit, Directorate General of Treasury, have vertical unit in the west end (Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam province) until the east end (Merauke, Serui, etc) and also from the most hectic city to the most remoted one. It is stated that we have to be prepared being place in whenever unit our organization need us to. I think that is one of the way we can channel our nationalism too. In my early experience as a civil servant in this unit, I was “forced” to learn that Indonesia is so broad. My first unit placement was in far away from home, across the island (Java). By then, I learnt so much about other culture, diversity and toleration. By doing our part as best as we can as treasurer in all over country is the way we show our nationalistic pride. There are more rocks along the way, but we gotta do what we have to.

For final note, I will end this rambling by quoting one of our Minister speech, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, years ago in STAN Graduation Ceremony : For all its worth, don’t ever feel tired loving our country. Preach!

PS. This post is the original version of the published one at Majalah Treasury.