The Rise of Indonesian (elitist) Nationalism.

I’ve never felt a stronger surge of nationalism in Indonesia in my whole lifetime as it is right now. Nationalist movement has however been around ever since the establishment of this Republic. But how is it now? Is it good, or bad, or just a trend that exist temporarily and fades? Also it is for me personally interesting to analyze this nationalism thing; having spent my time in the US and Germany –both has very different interpretation of nationalism. As in for Germany let’s just leave the word nationalism as it might mislead people to think that you are a right-extremist.

So I saw two Indonesian movies during my two and half week time at home this summer, Merantau, an action movie that involves Indonesian traditional martial art called Silat, and Merah Putih, a movie about the struggle against the Dutch aggressors. Add in Garuda Di Dadaku that makes three big nationalist themed movies. Moreover, the bombings in J.W Marriott and Ritz Carlton have surprisingly seemed to strengthen the feeling of unity as a nation, more than just a mere condemnation of the act. Following the bombings, the Indonesia Unite movement that originally started in Twitter spread quickly, online and offline. The #Indonesiaunite hashtag has became one of the most famous one in Twitter (perhaps due to the sheer number of our gigantic population that is on Twiter). People are now wearing t-shirts that has prints saying I Love Indonesia or “Kami Tidak Takut” (we are not afraid). Suddenly, wearing symbols of Garuda or just some forms of our flag is cool. One should also take into account the ever-rising sentiment against Malaysia. People back home are furious to Malaysia’s claim of Indonesian culture such as Batik, some of our folk songs, and very recently the Balinese ‘Pendet’ dance. This has results in more awareness towards our culture. The cool kids or Jakarta are wearing Batik in more occasions now, and learning traditional dances in high schools are in.

Now what is so different this time? People occasionally get nationalistic or patriotic at times like independence day or election times. But never has it been in my time that wearing or talking about Indonesia is cool. Amidst the globalization and influx of western culture, the so-called ‘cool kids’ - middle and upper class young Indonesians – are avid consumer of whatever west. Now suddenly they are wearing batiks, talking about the hunt of the terrorists, and tweet each other about things related to their country.

In a book written by the vice-president elect Boediono that I read recently, nation-building is a key to social cohesion, which could help economic development. Furthermore, and related to it, the elitist apparently plays a big role in leading the path of our newly born democracy. These kids who are well educated in our scarce elite institutions should start thinking where this nation is going. Economically speaking, the two percent of Indonesians that own more than half of the assets in Indonesia do play an inevitably big role in deciding our economic growth. If they are more conscious about all the problems that rotted our country, I believe more substantial changes could be done in the future (when this cool kids actually inherited all the powers from their parents). So I think we should really capitalize this national excitement and somehow translate it into a more concrete effort in saving our nation.

My Flight Home

This is actually part of my-email that i sent to Anya, but i'll share them anyway bcos it's pretty interesting :

So my trip home was interesting. I got to the Frankfurt airport with an ample amount of time to counter all the problems i usually encounter in airport, but i had not expected that my luggage was so overweight that there was no way they could check it in. So i had to reduce it by 8kg which means that basically throwing my stuff to the garbage. Short story i threw one jeans (my black one that has stitches on it), some shirts (tshirts,polo shirts), my eskrima weapon (this should not get on the plane in the first place), FOUR pair of shoes (soccer shoes, dress shoes, white canvas shoes, and snickers), praying mat (i had never used them), H&M blazer (i bought in on sale for 15euro so its not that bad). I put everything in my black duffel bag (which i threw away as well). Apparently things in black bag on a garbage can in airport look like a bomb, so i had to wegschmeissen things one by one with policemen watching me putting those things inside the garbage can. Then I also could not bring my cabin bag bcos its too heavy so they check it in for free. My mistake as we will find later was putting all my nice and expensive clothes + my hard drive in that cabin bag. So my flight to Abu Dhabi was ok. My flight to Jakarta was terrible. The flight was filled with domestic workers from Indonesia that are working in UAE or other arabic countries, which i wasnt really complaining - i had been wanting to see normal indonesians and get to know them. But then I got the last seat in the plane, next to two bathrooms, with like 5cm legroom, and these guys are just coming in and out of the bathroom - and puking there, disgusting. So i survived my flight home, my dad abholen me right from the airplane so i did not, as usual, go through the immigration. Then on the baggage claim i waited for like an hour for my luggage and found out that i lost my small cabin baggage. SHIT.
So there we go, i only have ONE pair of shoes with me, one jeans, one short pants, one dress shirt, and bunch of tshirts and dirty underwears.
Fortunately i got to keep Fritz and the mass glass (which weigh 2kg itself) that we got in Weltenburg.