A Reflection on Sumpah Pemuda, Indonesia’s Youth Pledge Day
Every year on 28 October, Indonesians pause to look back at a modest meeting hall in Batavia, the colonial city now known as Jakarta, in the year 1928. At that time the vast archipelago we now call Indonesia was still the Dutch East Indies, a colony ruled from the other side of the world. In that hall, young people from many different regional organisations sat side by side and discussed something that, in their day, sounded almost impossible: a single nation. They arrived with different organisational names, accents, customs and interests, yet they left with one pledge that would later become the foundation of the Indonesian republic. That pledge is known as Sumpah Pemuda, the Youth Pledge, and the day that commemorates it is Hari Sumpah Pemuda, or Youth Pledge Day. It is more than a date on the calendar. It is an invitation to look in the mirror and ask whether the promise made nearly a century ago is still alive in us today.
What is easily overlooked is that those young people were not working in comfortable circumstances. The colonial authorities kept a close watch on political gatherings, places to meet were limited, and the differences among the participants themselves were far from small. Groups such as Jong Java, Jong Sumatranen Bond, Jong Celebes and Jong Ambon each had a strong sense of regional pride, and it would have been very easy for each of them to stop at defending their own corner. Instead, they chose the opposite. They set aside part of their egos for the sake of something larger than themselves. Unity, in other words, did not come about because everyone became the same. It came about because people who were different were willing to move closer to one another.
The first reflection worth taking away from that event is that unity is the result of a decision, not a gift handed down by circumstance. We often imagine being Indonesian as something already finished, an inheritance to be enjoyed. Yet the young people of 1928 show that togetherness has to be worked at, tended and chosen again and again. Today, when differences of opinion so readily divide us online, the temptation to retreat into groups of like-minded people feels stronger than ever. Echo chambers that only ever connect us with people who think as we do widen the distance between fellow citizens. It is precisely here that the spirit of the Youth Pledge finds its most practical relevance: the courage to keep sitting at the same table as those with whom we disagree.
Language, too, holds a lesson of its own. At that congress, Indonesian, which grew out of the Malay language, was affirmed as the language of national unity. The decision deserves admiration because no large regional language was crowned the winner. By choosing a language that did not belong exclusively to one dominant ethnic group, the young delegates created a space that everyone could inhabit on equal terms. Bahasa Indonesia went on to become the bridge that allows a child from the far west of the archipelago and a child from the far east to understand one another. Those of us who use it every day often forget that this convenience is the fruit of an agreement that was far from easy to reach. Looking after the Indonesian language means using it well and with respect, without belittling the many regional languages that are part of the country’s wealth, and without feeling embarrassed about one’s own.
The next reflection concerns the meaning of youth itself. Many of the delegates at the Youth Congress were in their twenties, an age when most people are still busy arranging their own futures. Even so, they chose to think about a shared future. They did not wait to become officials; they did not wait for a title, and they did not insist on ideal conditions. They acted with what they had: a willingness to learn, an ability to organise, and a conviction that a good idea would eventually find its way. This matters a great deal for today’s generation, which has grown up with access to information and technology that its predecessors could scarcely have imagined. The question is no longer whether we have the tools, but what we choose to use them for. The smartphone in our hand can be a classroom and a workshop, but it can just as easily become an escape that consumes our time and draws our attention away from the problems around us.
It must also be admitted that the challenges facing young Indonesians today differ from those of the colonial era. The adversary is no longer a foreign ruler. It is something subtler, and it often hides within ourselves: apathy, the habit of sharing news without checking whether it is true, the ease with which we are provoked by sentiments that divide, and the urge to chase instant recognition without the patience that real achievement demands. There is also inequality of opportunity, which means that not every young person starts from the same line, as well as environmental problems that will be handed down to them. Giving meaning to independence demands far more perseverance than winning it did, because the struggle no longer comes with applause and spotlights. It takes place in quiet, everyday work.
For this reason, living out the Youth Pledge does not have to wait for a grand stage. It can be seen in small things: a university student who chooses to befriend someone from a very different background, a young employee who stays honest when honesty is costly, a social media user who hesitates before sharing something whose source is unclear, or a young person from a village who studies hard and then returns to bring new life to their home community. Actions like these may never make it into the history books, but it is from the accumulation of such small kindnesses that a nation becomes real. A country is not held up by grand speeches alone. It is held up by good habits practised consistently by millions of people.
One more thing deserves reflection, and that is humility towards history. We did not inherit Indonesia ready-made. Countless people whose names we do not know risked their time, their energy and even their safety so that we could live in an independent and sovereign state. We remember them not out of nostalgia, but in order to nurture a sense of responsibility. Someone who realises how much they have received from earlier generations will find it easier to feel a duty to give to the generations that follow. In that healthy sense of indebtedness, the Indonesian spirit of gotong royong, or mutual cooperation, finds its home.
In the end, the Youth Pledge is a promise, and a promise has meaning only when it is kept. Its three vows, to one homeland, one nation and one language, were never meant to remain sentences recited at ceremonies. They call for expression in conduct: loving one’s country by caring for it, respecting fellow citizens whatever their origins, and upholding the language of unity wholeheartedly. Perhaps the most honest question we can put to ourselves today is this: what have we done, however small, to keep that promise alive?
Happy Youth Pledge Day. May each of us, young and formerly young alike, stitch the promise of 1928 together again with fresh thread: honesty, compassion and the courage to work together for a fairer and more dignified Indonesia.
