Making Indonesian History 2018

Kompas/Priyombodo

Media promotion for the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games displayed in Jenderal Sudirman protocol roads in the area of Semanggi, Jakarta, Friday (3/11/2017) night.

History is something that has happened in the past. However, what has happened in the past can be a lesson for the present and the future.

History is a continuum between yesterday, today and tomorrow. The month of January has just started, but we can write the history for the year 2018 by drawing up a record of what will happen in the future based on materials from past events.

Two important events will happen this year. The first is the Asian Games XVIII, which will take place on Aug. 18-Sept. 2. Second is the commemoration of the Youth Pledge on Oct. 28, which will mark its 90th year.

For the second time, the Asian Games will take place in Indonesia. In 1962, we emerged as the second-place champions, but why are we uncertain this year of reaching even the top 10?

During the Youth Pledge in 1928, the Indonesian language was declared the language of unity, but why is it that recently, ahead of the simultaneous regional election on June 27, 2018, the Indonesian language has tended toward being a language of division?

President Soekarno cared much about sports competitions at the Asian level. He prepared the Senayan central stadium with loans from the Soviet Union, which were later fully repaid. Up to 50,000 Senayan residents were relocated to Tebet and other areas.

Bung Karno also prepared all facilities for the athletes who would be coming from overseas. With the help of the war reparation funds from Japan, he built the Hotel Indonesia near the Sarinah area, a hotel for athletes and journalists.

Kompas/Yuniadhi Agung

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The Welcome Statue at the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle was prepared to welcome athletes who arrived at Kemayoran Airport. Bung Karno had the chance to check the progress on the bronze statue, which was being made at Edhi Sunarso studio on Jl. Kaliurang in Yogyakarta.

As a result of the hard work, Indonesia emerged the second overall winner in the Asian sports event in which 12 countries participated.

When the event was not recognized by the International Olympics Committee because Indonesia did not give visas to athletes from Israel and Taiwan, Soekarno established in 1963 a separate Olympiad, the Games of the New Emerging Forces (Ganefo), prepared in only 200 days. At this international sports event where 51 countries took part, we emerged the third overall champion.

During the one-year anniversary of Ganefo in 1964, Bung Karno said in his speech: "Hi, all Indonesian people, old and young, especially the youths, train yourselves as hard as possible in the next ten years, in ten years, Indonesia, the Indonesian people, will occupy the highest place in the sports arena."

Is the Indonesian nation capable of meeting the message of Bung Karno half a century later? Apparently, we have fallen far from the tree. Some time ago, the public was shocked by the corruption of billions of rupiah from the socialization fund for the Asian Games. However, the half-year ahead of this year’s games has to be utilized as well as possible by involving the public (including student volunteers).

Our athletes must train continuously both at home and abroad. News on the preparations (and implementation) of the Asian Games should receive priority coverage in the mass media.

Kompas/Wawan H Prabowo

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Language of division

The 1928 Youth Pledge constitutes one of the most important milestones in Indonesian history, when youths from multiple ethnicities and religions declared themselves as one state and one country. They also adopted the Indonesian language as the language of unity.

At the Second Youth Congress, a seminar was held during the day that obliged its speakers to speak in the Indonesian language. The educated Indonesian elite, who were fluent in Dutch at that time, were forced to deliver their ideas in the Indonesian language.

But they tried and struggled hard, and finally were able to do so. They acknowledged that the Indonesian language was the language of unity, the language that united us despite our different ethnicities and faiths.

We are grateful to have the language of unity, the Indonesian language. India, a country with a population much larger than ours, does not actually have a language that unites them, except their invader’s pragmatic language: English.

Of course, the function of language is related to substance and style. Since last year’s election of regional heads, it has been felt that the Indonesian language is being used to raise tribal, religious, racial and societal group (SARA) issues. It has also been felt that political wounds caused by societal divisions regarding ethnicities and religions take a long time to recover.

Of course, we do not want the same thing to happen again in the 2018 regional election. It is expected that those who are elected will be qualified leaders with good performance, not figures who have won because they defeated their opponents with SARA issues or engineered photographs from the past. We want the Indonesian language to remain a language of unity, not a language that divides the nation.

All of us will make Indonesian history in 2018: Externally, will we be able to organize the Asian Games smoothly and vibrantly and show sports achievements that are not viewed as an embarrassment by other countries?

Internally, we will also determine whether, in the regional elections in June 2018, we will use the Indonesian language as a language of unity or a language of division. This linguistic practice will be noted in the upcoming Indonesian Language Congress in October 2018, which will be held concurrently with the 90th anniversary of the Youth Pledge.

Asvi Warman Adam

Historian, Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI)