youth pledge of indonesia

Eighty-three years ago, on Oct. 28, 1928, a group of young men and women from far-flung islands assembled in Jakarta to pledge that they would be united under one motherland called Indonesia, one nation called Indonesia and one language — Bahasa Indonesia.

Since then, we have commemorated Youth Pledge on Oct. 28 every year, because this was the first time in our political history that representatives of the Indonesian youth from different ethnic and religious backgrounds had made a public declaration on the unity of our nation.

It is now important to raise the question of whether the spirit of Youth Pledge is weakening. Student brawls in various regions, the recent civil war in Ambon, or youngsters’ preference to use English over
Indonesian are telling evidence. Regarding the use of Indonesian, for instance, there seems to be evidence that students are no longer proud of Indonesian and that too much emphasis is placed on learning foreign languages, say English and Mandarin.