Nurul Iffakhatul Sholekhah
Awardee of Bidikmisi Scholarship at IAIN SKA/ Mahasiswa Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris
Put a picture in your mind when 100 million of Indonesian young generation, each of them become an expert in their own field, they become the best scientist, the best entrepreneur, the best police in this world, then what a miracle can happened with this country? Recently, people are living in the globalization, time when there is a big chance for all of the countries around the world to influence each other in every single aspect of human life, such as in politic, economy, and in culture. This era, however just like a coin that has two sides, there are positive and negative side and whether a country will be able to achieve the benefits of this condition or not, it is all depends on their preparation to win this “battle”. Furthermore, the most essential preparation that Indonesia should to care is about the quality of its one hundred million young generations that will lead our country in 2045. By examining the important role of young generation for better Indonesia, how they can give contribution for this country and the impact for the students by joining organization today, we will see that by joining organization today, the young generation can lead Indonesia to be better in the future.
Undoubtedly, the young generation who has proportion for about 40 percent or about almost 100 million people of Indonesian is the key of our nation brighter future. By the time 2045, one of them will be the president, more will be our next stakeholder, and much more will be the pillar of Indonesian development, therefore whether this nation will be better or not in the future and today is all depends in their hand. It is often claimed that the future of a country can be seen by the condition of its young generation today, which means what the youth are doing now in all aspects of their life will give effect for the condition of this country now and in the future. If the most of the iron stock of this country, which is we are aware and prepare our self-start from this time to give our contribution for Indonesia’s improvement, then it is half guarantee for the brighter future of Indonesia. The history itself has revealed how the young Indonesia took a part in the brighter future of this nation. They made their own history by achieving goal to proclaim the first freedom of a nation, which is freedom from imperialism. They did it their way and now are our task as the next generation to do our way to reach the real freedom for this country.
This is the time for the young generation to straighten and resist all of the new type of imperialism. Their task to bring back the wealthy of Papua when now we only get for about Rp 2 billion than Freeport, the US company that can get over than Rp 20 billion. It is our responsibility to give back the national economic power to the one who struggle our freedom, the native of Indonesia, while now 5% of the particular ethnic here, dominates over than 80 % of our national economic and most of native Indonesia only become as laborer, manager but not the owner of the company. This is our task to struggle for better Indonesia, where we can control and manage our resources by our brain, hand, and people. Better Indonesia where all of Indonesian can have education as high as they want it be, without worry about the cost. For that reason, then we need to understand what are the qualities that need to have by our iron stock and how they can give their contribution to achieve that goal.
Our proclamation day, in 17th ofAugust 1945 can only happen because of the contribution of the young generation of Indonesia when they had prepared their self to make their dream to free our nation from the imperialism became true. They educated and lead their self, then educated and lead other people to achieve the bigger dream that has impact for whole nation: our freedom. HOS Cokroaminoto led one of the biggest Indonesia’s movement organizations,Sarekat Islam when he was still in twenty-five years old.SoebadioSastrosatomo, Wikana, ChaerulSaleh, Soekarni, and doctor Moewardi when they push Soekarno to announce our freedom is still on the age about twenty five years old.We also knew when in 1966 the dissolution of Indonesia Communist Party (PKI) and alsothe downfall of Soeharto in 1998 could happen because of the young generation’s movement. Ben Anderson, Indonesia’s politic observer, in Java in a Time of Revolution, Occupation, and Resisten (1944-1946) said, “Finally, I believe that the particular characteristic and direction from Indonesia’s revolution is influenced by the youth encouragement.” By learning our history, we can understand and learn what steps that our founding father took to achieve their goal against the imperialismand then our task today to follow that part to reach our dream to have better Indonesia and divest it from all of the forms of new imperialism.
Then, the next question is, what ispart that has taken by our founding fathers? Our history proof that the basic characteristic that all of our founding fathers, including our first president and vice president have is their ability to educate their self and people around them. They educate their self;it means that they have big concern in all of kind of their education, such as in their formal education,and their non-formal education. In the formal education, Soekarno and Moh.Hatta are widely known as intelligence people; both of them got the scholarship to continue their study in Holland, when at that time it was very difficult to get that chance. They also educated their self in Indonesia young movement organization, which has concern to free our country.
By knowing what our ancestor did to gain their dream, then there are some steps that we need to follow. First, we need to educate our self in formal way, which is means we need to have high education as high as it could be. Furthermore, of course, the purpose to get this higher degree is not only about the prestige that a person get because of his title, but more than it our goal to get high education is to educate our self to be wiser person when we need to face the problem around us. The high education trains us to have deeper and broader mind in seeing the world and its problem. This ability will really help us to overcome the obstacles when we set our self to obtain our dream for better Indonesia. In addition, the higher education will make us as an expert in our field. When each of our one hundred million young generation become an expert in their own field, thene we can have the best doctor in the world, the best chemistry technical of around the world, and the best expert in aerodynamic and many others , that by using their knowledge they can give contribution in the field that they have become expert in. We as the iron stock of our country need to make sure that ourself can successfully reach this step. Because, the success in achieve our purpose is not just one men movement but this is needed all of our actions as young generation of Indonesia, the one and only faction that still have chance to make the dream of better living in this country become true. The consequence of those requirementsis the eagerness of every single youth soul to empower their self to have the high education whatever it is, and thenwith the knowledge to be able to give our contribution to reach our dream to stand in our foot, in our land.
Secondly, the next steps that we need to have is educated our self to be leader tomorrow by learning how to become leader today, and this training can only we have when we join in organization because to be leader tomorrow we need to have the ability to organize many people and Indonesia resources. In addition, we also need to work together with other people to achieve our goal and those skill can only we learn by joining organization. Even more, the most essential think why we as young generation need to join the organization is because with that action we will be able to start our contribution for better Indonesia.When we look at our country condition today, however it will be better for us to enlighten the light than just curse the dark, and the way we can enlighten the light is by giving our contribution to take a part to solve our country problem, start from today. However, when we only do something by our self, our movement and resource will be very limited. It means when we only can give small contribution for limited people, but when we synergistic our movement with other youth in united movement, we can give more contribution for many others, and that is the power that we have when we join the organization. When we want to do all that things aboveit will need our capability to lead our self to fulfill our responsibility as the part of the organization and also to lead and direct other people to do their responsibility;therefore, we can reach the goal and have ability that we need to have to be able to lead our country in the future.
Last but not least, at this point we realize that to achieve our goal for better Indonesia, we need to have the ability to to become leader in the future, by achieving high education and joining organization. Therefore , we can make our dream for better Indonesia comes true.