National pride is the most important thing for any country. A nation without a pride is like a body without a soul, like a morning without a sun. Indonesia is a strong maritime nation with diverse cultural heritage. Our ancestor has traveled through the sea India, Arab, China, even Madagascar thousand years ago. They were skilled seafarer and trader, which were the heart of our ancient economy.
Diverse religion, culture, language has coexisted in our nation from thousands of years ago. We were the strongest and the biggest nation in South East Asia. However, hundreds of years ago a traveler from foreign countries has colonized and occupied our nation. During era of colonization, our country is weakened and divided. Our national confident in self independent was waned and we had assumed belief that we are inferior to any foreign countries.
Today, Indonesia has achieved its political independence with its own people self determination. Nevertheless, the inferiority feeling still remained in the memory of our people. Our people have many self-deprecation humors that laugh at our nation weakness.
This how one of self-deprecation jokes told…. One day, a military officer of foreign countries is in charge of territorial security. A sophisticated Russian Unmanned Airplane crossed the border. The officer ordered his man to shoot it down…..Boom! The Russian plane is destroyed. A moment later an advanced American Stealth Airplane cross the border. The officer ordered his man to shoot it down…..Boom! The American plane is destroyed. A moment later, an Indonesian Made Airplane crossed the border. The soldier waited for an order to attack. However, the military officer ignored the present of Indonesia Airplane. The soldier is curious, “Sir, why don’t we shoot em down?” The officer laugh, “Ha, just wait for a moment, their plane would fall even if we didn’t shoot it.”
You get the point. This kind of jokes is numerous, and they were a strong indicator of how the feeling of inferiority to foreign countries technology or cultures still remained in our society. This kind of feeling, prevent our people from harnessing the full potential of our national power.
I do not intend to laugh at my nation weakness. I strongly belief that my nation capable to be competitive in global environment. Some influential person in my nation has proved this. An Indonesian professor was convinced that, an Indonesian physicist will able to win on IPhO (International Physics Olympiad). He did not just dream, he trained our national best students to compete in International Physics Olympiad. For the first few years, we failed miserably. He did not surrender; he persisted on training the students to win. He even quitted his job to focus in his believe. His struggle is not in vain. At 2006, we won 4 gold medals and one of our students has been the world IPhO champion. Now, he is preparing to train our physicist to win noble prize for physics. I am personally waiting for that.
Despite positive facts, our national pride still weak. We cannot change the inferiority feeling easily. I strongly recommend making a national day for National Pride. At that time we will celebrate our annual national achievement. By that, I hope that the people of our nation to be motivated and fight for the pride of our nation. It will be the change that we need.
Ari Bimo Prakoso
Teknik Fisika - Physics Engineering
Instrumentasi (Instrumentation)
Energi Terbarukan (Renewable Energy)
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