Young People Forging Ahead

Indonesia without its commitment to empowering young people would be like a tree forgetting its roots.

Writing for a column in the progressive magazine Bintang Hindia (volume 14/1905:159), Abdul Rivai defines kaum muda (young people) as “all people in Dutch East Indies [young or old] who no longer desire to follow the old rules, but were instead eager to build self-confidence through knowledge and science”.

The emergence of the "young people" term signified an intellectual effort by a new crop of educated people to draw imaginary boundaries between themselves and “old aristocrats” by constructing a distinguishing marker between the two. The members of old aristocrats were what Rivai referred to as bangsawan usul, as opposed to bangsawan muda or bangsawan fikiran (nobility of thought).

In the first issue of the same magazine in 1902, Rivai emphasized that for the sake of progress, “There is no need to prolong our debates over the bangsawan usul because their existence has been destined... Nowadays, it is achievement and knowledge that will determine one's status. This is a situation that is giving rise to the bangsawan fikiran". The two types of nobilities were then associated with their respective communities.

They strove to represent the collective identity of those who brought forward aspirations to reform the Dutch East Indies (indigenous) society through science and progressive-minded movement.

The followers of bangsawan usul were associated with the community of "old people" or "primordial people", while advocates of bangsawan fikiran were young people. The following development saw the “young people” term being used widely in media news and discourses in support of the nobility of thought. They strove to represent the collective identity of those who brought forward aspirations to reform the Dutch East Indies (indigenous) society through science and progressive-minded movement.

Since then, the “young people” or “youth” term was closely associated with the quality of knowledge and intellectualism as reflected in the emergence of the “youth-student” entity. The Dutch term jong, which was often used to identify youth-student organizations in the early decades of the 20th century, did not refer simply to a youth organization, but carried a special connotation of "educated and knowledgeable young people". This identified youth later gave birth to the "Youth Pledge" on 28 Oct., 1928, which marked a milestone in the creation of Indonesia’s nationalism.

Also read:

> About Youth Pledge

> Voice of the People, Voice of God

The commemoration of the Youth Pledge Day serves as a moment to reflect that young people deserve to become the initiators, leaders and advocates of national politics given their past peers’ involvement in bringing up the idea of nationalism from the onset.

The political awareness for those young educated people was that they empowered their rational faculty in seeking a resolution to the collective problems (of the colonized) through strengthened bonds of solidarity and fulfillment of common good.

Opportunities and threats

Such a spirit being the molding template of nationalism, any efforts to revitalize the dignity of this nation must consider the nature of the aspired emancipation struggle based on youth empowerment and knowledge acquisition. Awareness about the importance of youth and revitalization of knowledge will bring back relevance to our efforts in the face of today's challenges.

Engaging in the second decade of the 21st century, in the midst of a world that has just shifted from the grip of the Covid-19 pandemic, is an experience akin to déjà vu, with the past backdrop heralding the Youth Pledge event. It was marked by the end of World War I, social life in the Dutch East Indies entering a period of crisis and acute catastrophe, the collapse of economic life, industrial and food crises resulting from the war, along with the grip of the influenza pandemic (1918-1920), which killed around 4.6 million people.

The economic crisis forced the colonial government to tighten its belt with more repressive measures. This aroused the spirit of resistance among the creative minority of young people to incorporate various aspiring groups of ethnonationalism into a historical common bloc in order to drum up a new imaginary community (civic-nationalism) called Indonesia. The Youth Pledge became the awakened monumental national awareness that paved the way for Indonesian independence.

If educated young people in the colonial era proved to be able to come up against the challenges of their time, can today's young people respond to the challenges of the new era? For that, we need to navigate ​​where the pendulum of the world's human life is moving post-pandemic.

One scenario that we can build is with a reference to the view of Peter Zeihan in his book The End of the World is just the Beginning (2022). According to him, the globalization that began a few decades ago was actually triggered by the United States policy aiming to overpower the Soviet Union during the Cold War through strategic alliances with many transcontinental countries.

Billions of people had access to food and education thanks to the US-led global trading system. Thanks to all that, globalization has since been spreading to make things faster, better, cheaper.

To meets its policy, the US offered security assistance, investment, technological infrastructure, finance and global markets. A global-scale supply chain was enabled by the protection of the US navy. The US dollar shored up financial markets and energy internationalization. Innovative industrial centers were growing to satisfy US consumers. US security policy sought to pressurize the disputing countries to disarm. Billions of people had access to food and education thanks to the US-led global trading system. Thanks to all that, globalization has since been spreading to make things faster, better, cheaper.

With the end of the Cold War, the US lost its interest in maintaining the repercussions. Unless the US is back at odds with a new superpower, the pendulum of the world’s human life would reverse direction toward deglobalization. The signal popped up during the Trump administration era with his proclamation of "America First". The isolation of many countries during the pandemic has accelerated the process in that direction.

If deglobalization becomes a reality, countries or regions will have no other choice but to produce their own goods, grow their own food, fulfill their own energy needs, fight with their own self-made weapons and do all of these relying on their own people and resources.

In the face of such a prospect, Indonesia has both opportunities and threats to deal with. Geographically, Indonesia is in a strategic area as a gateway to new centers of economic growth in East Asia and India, as well as being exposed to the specter of global geopolitical tensions in the future. Demographically, Indonesia is fortunate to have a better structure of young population than European and East Asian countries that are experiencing aging population. We also have diverse resources for supply chain for domestic industries.

Our biggest challenge lies in the low level of human capital. This can be a big drawback, as many countries have shown in their development dynamics that, while abundant resources (geography, demography, geology, nature) can be contributing factors to progress, the most deciding factor is human capital. If Indonesia fails to build the quality of life and human capabilities, the abundance of young people will not be a demographic bonus, but a demographic catastrophe.

What should be done?

To respond to this, we need to change the concept of development by delving back into the nature of nationalism. As it was shown in the past that the national awakening movement was ignited by educated people as a product of human development, so should the contemporary roadmap be for the progress of Indonesia today. Development should not only be understood as the building of physical infrastructure and achievement of quantitative indicators (GDP, per capita income and the like).

And, the main prerequisite for this is education, with the support of well-established political and economic systems.

In essence, development must be understood as an effort to improve quality of life. The key is how human capabilities can function to solve real problems in society. And, the main prerequisite for this is education, with the support of well-established political and economic systems.

Good education improves human capabilities with excellence in knowledge, governance skills and character, which will help shape up smart personalities nationally and globally. Ray Dalio (2021) says that throughout the history of civilization, the prosperity of a nation is defined by its ability to present a system in which well-educated people can work together peacefully, with respect for laws, regulations and public order, so that they can give birth to various innovations and productivity.

Such a system is born in a healthy state. A state with strong and capable leadership, good governance and manageable civilians will have more resilience and responsiveness. A more inventive and adaptive state will be more prepared for changes and challenges to achieve prosperity.

Civilized politics

Human-based development requires a paradigm that can transform political and economic approach into civilization. Civilized mindset must be instilled through education to guide the direction of development. As Bung Hatta emphasized, what is taught in education is civilization. Education is a civilizing process, through empowerment of thinking faculty, empathy, creativity and physicality, which can function optimally in an environment of good values, governance and prosperity.

Civilizing efforts call for a strategy to reorient the dimension of myth (belief), logos (knowledge) and ethos (psychological character).

In the mythical dimension, we must refute the mythical views that the status quo of seniority, wealth and inheritance are made as the measurement of respectability and the foundation of progress. A new belief must be put forward that human qualities and capacities of young people should be the measurement of respectability and the agent of change. Young people themselves are expected to be able to save people's trust by returning politics to its purity as an art to realize the common good.

The old myth holding that one group's victory must be paid for by the losing group must also be replaced with a new belief in the virtue of sharing happiness by celebrating victory together. Indonesia's wealth and diverse resources must not continue to be controlled exclusively and run in "plural-monoculturalism", without the willingness to share and interact with each other.

A vehicle must be created that can strengthen the spirit of unity in diversity (Bhinneka Tunggal Ika), through the expansion of the network of connectivity, inclusivity equality and justice. This will overcome prejudice and social jealousy, strengthen mutual trust and produce superior and productive chemistry.

In the logos dimension, the reaffirmation of the power of science as a measure of dignity is becoming more urgent as the power of thought (bangsawan fikiran) looks to be outweighed again by the newly incarnated bangsawan usul, in the form of oligarchy-plutocracy, dynastic politics and the notoriety of "empty barrels", which bring mediocrity to every aspect of living. With society being mediocre, the pursued ethical creativity and economic innovation as the basis for the nation's prosperity and competitiveness will lose a stronghold.

If this nation is to restore the spirit of nationalism, once brought to life by pioneering youths in the past, there is no other way but by enhancing the development of knowledge and science by improving the collective social-learning system. People’s progress and welfare must be seen as the result of a social learning process through the provision of equal opportunity and freedom for anyone to learn to develop themselves and achieve what they consider valuable.

The educational process that leads to exclusivism and social segregation must be prevented. Capitalization of the world of education must be limited by reaffirming the standard of meritocracy above purchasing power.

To provide a conducive environment for strengthening knowledge as development capital, democratic praxis must be in the ethics and wisdom-guided orientation that glorifies rationality and knowledge. The educational system must be strengthened inclusively to enable the growth of a democratic culture and civic competence. The educational process that leads to exclusivism and social segregation must be prevented. Capitalization of the world of education must be limited by reaffirming the standard of meritocracy above purchasing power.

In the ethos dimension, there needs to be a character transformation to liberate the nation from bondage mentality that leaves the nation in dearth of liberating power, vulnerability to fussing over trivial matters and fallibility to outward overexcitement more than inward achievement. Young people should be directed toward strengthening the work ethos.

The Youth Pledge event can be described as an expression of creative dismantling of the dull, doubtful, conforming status quo and parochial tendencies of the oldies. Youth and students came forward with knowledge and an ethos of creativity.

This creativity ethos, as described by Margaret Boden in The Creative Mind (1968), is based on self-confidence and the ability to take risks so that they have the courage to deconstruct old buildings for new, better ones. That was the trajectory of the nation's revival in the past, and it should be the trajectory of the nation's revival in the future.

KOMPAS/WAWAN H PRABOWO (WAK)

Yudi Latif

Yudi Latif, Member of the Indonesian Academy of Sciences

(This article was translated by Musthofid).