Editorial: Still proud

Much can be found to fault the state of the nation around us. A sense of prevailing injustice to an inept political system soaked in a stench of racketeering.

There is state greed in the face of a country, home to more than 30 million still living below the poverty line, not to mention the 24 million unemployed or those who do not have stable incomes.

Yes, many feel glum as this nation commemorates its 66th independence anniversary, when the romanticism of 1945 ideals is bleached by political gluttony and the helplessness of the everyday Indonesian.

Were the sacrifices endured by our forefathers all for naught?

Nevertheless, amid the sea of cynicism of the urban sprawl, the creaky rural dwellings and isolated hamlets from Sabang to Merauke, there stands this week beacons of pride. Like a lighthouse in rocky shores, perched on high-priced metal poles to makeshift bamboos the red-and-white bustling in the wind recollects our national core.

We Indonesia, are a community created through a long struggle. A sum of its 13,400 islands are not just conceived as a history of a gloried past. Neither is our love of country the kind of chauvinistic nationalism which makes people kill and hate for their country. A one-dimensional nationalism fabricated through a systematic instilling of nationalist ideology via the educational system, regulations and the media.

Our love for Indonesia is an advanced, complex platonic devotion that sees both the right and does not hide its mistakes.

Never forget, we are a nation that refuses to accept conditions as they are and prefers to instead always look forward with the optimism to create something better. The struggle for independence was not a war of independence. It was a revolution to change the facets which hinge social structure.

From emancipation through education in 1908 to nationalist movements such as Jawa Dwipa which aimed to abolish the social hierarchy of the Javanese culture, the recurrent theme of Indonesia’s revolutionary struggle has been about liberation and truth.

The struggle was aimed to awaken the nation from the sleep of servitude to the consciousness of independence.

Hence nationalist leader Muhammad Yamin’s assertion of the “Age of Proclamation” — the post-1945 independence — as the final epoch of the nation’s long history.

It is this epoch that we reflect upon this week.

A modern day nationalist cringes at the events of the day — the absurdity of the Nazaruddin scandal — and detests the continued injustice toward minorities in this country and the complete lethargy at the high echelons of power.

But he/she will also resolve that dishonesty is not a cultural trait of this nation, that our secular values are stronger than our bigotry, and that history has shown us to produce leaders of moral fiber. These are facts that will sustain if none of us lose the spirit of unity and independence, like our forefathers.

True nationalists, heart-tugging lovers of this nation, are those who will never give up on it. No matter how dark the clouds are, or intolerable the mechanics of society can be. We should be proud because of the very fact that we, Indonesians young and old, have full unfettered ability to shape our own destiny.

How many nations in the world do not even have this very basic luxury?

We do. Merdeka!