The Generation of Hope

(a contemplation for youngsters)

Each nation have to regenerate in order to be survive and to keep his existence in this world. A nation needs their successor to replace the old ones. Guess, who will be the successor!! The answer’s we. Yes! We are the one; we will inherit this beautiful archipelago. We, as he young generation, is the only heir of Indonesia. We are the generation of hope.
Therefore, as the consequences, whether we wants to or not, we will find and face many obstacles and challenges in our effort to fulfilled this noble task. The obstacles and challenges not just come from the external aspect but also from the internal aspect. To tell you the truth, to manage obstacles which came from the intern aspect is more hard instead which came from the extern aspect because obstacles from intern aspect means that the obstacles came from ourselves. It’s difficult to defeat an enemy which is in the fort.
The foundation to be a good successor for this huge archipelago is the sense of nationalism. The sense of nationalism is an ideology or concept of a citizen of a country which place the existence, safety and prosperity of his country and nation in the highest place of his heart and mind. A nationalist have a huge loyalty upon his nation. The primary priority of is life is to make his live useful for his country. If every of young generation of this country has the sense of nationalism, this country won’t worry about its future. But, unfortunately, there’s many problem which are contaminated in our youngsters.
The external problem which is starting to ruin our youngsters come from the phase of globalisation and industrialism. The globalisation and industrialism which have spread all over the world have brought many effects to human civilization. The majority of effects which are brought by them is negative. In the economic aspect, it has known that on the year of 1800, only 74% of the world citizen which are poor. But, on the year of 1995, the poor increase into the percentage of 80%.
In the other point of view, globalisation and industrialism also have brought changes in human culture, attitude and livestyle. Those changes is dangerous for the existence of a nation because these changes can make the sense of nationalism faded and ruined. The changes are the concept of profanism, such as hedonism, conformism, consumerism and westernism.
Hedonism is a kond of lifestyle which deify secular pleasure. A hedonistic doesn’t think about school for his future; but on the contrary, he only think how to make himself feel happy. Consumerism is a kind of attitude which always buys anthing to fulfill his desire. Conformism is a lifestyle which directly imitate other people’s habitual or buy other people’s goods in order to follow the trend at that time. Westernism is an attitude which imitate western culture directly without any conscience consideration or other further judgement. Whereas western culture is not always fit with east livestyle.
All of those bad seeds have infected the young generation of this country. Even, maybe, you have one of those above in yourself. If you pay attention to those ‘viruses’, you’ll agree that all of those will make the sense of nationalism of our young generation faded, or even ruined. If that’s happen, how gonna be our nation in the future? This nation will extinct. The word ‘extinct’ is consider to be rude and impolite, but an extinction will really happen if we, as the young generation don’t have the sense of nationalism. How do we inherit this country? How do we fulfilled our noble task? There’s no other answer except to bring to life the sense of nationalism in the heart of the young generation as the generation of hope.
The effort to rekindle the concept of nationalism isn’t an easy job to do. We, as the generation of hope itself, need to have the sense of belonging, first. If we have the sense of belonging for this nation, automatically, we’ll take care this nation and conserve its culture. But to build a sense of belonging isn’t easy at all. First of all, we must to know well our nation. We need to build the Archipelago concept in ourselves. In this case, the education institution must takes part in it. The institution of education must build a curiculum in which young generations can know well their own nation. Last but not least, one thing which must be implanted in heart of the young generation is the sense of proud. Indonesia must be the pride of all its citizen, especially the generation of hope. With all of those above, it will emerge the etnosentrism and the sense of patriotism at the heart of young generation.
To block the bad seeds from globalisation, the young generations need to have pure conscience and integrity between mind (rasio) and feeling (emotion). Those are the main weapon to defend our self from the concept of profanism.
There’s still much what we can do, there’s no place for the word ‘late’. The most importing point is having the same aim; that is to be a good sucessor for this beautiful archipelago. The future of this nation depends on ourselves, as the generation of hope. Remember what President Kennedy have said! “Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country.“ So, now the question’s what can we do for the sake of Indonesia?