My 17an Post

July 17, 2009. I was on my vacation in Melbourne, and my main sources of news from home were Facebook and Twitter. Naturally, those two channels gave me mostly personal updates, so the day went as usual. When I was taking a nice stroll in Melbourne’s CBD, I took the free afternoon paper mX, which carried the headline Terror Blast and a mainly grey-black front page. Given the paper’s light-reading quality, I thought it was the usual exaggeration of the trivial, perhaps it was about a new reality show twist or another esoteric Australian show. Exactly because of that, I continued my walk and sat down to enjoy the afternoon at Federation Square. Everything was fine, just normal.

Man, was I terribly wrong! In the first sentence, Jakarta was mentioned, then the words JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton followed. Apparently, the capital was once again hit by two bombs in the Mega Kuningan area. That would explain the picture in the front page, which I only then realized was a picture of the smoke billowing from one of the hotels. But I told myself to slow down, “hey, it’s mX the paper that scrutinized every bit of Lady GaGa and publishes celeb tweets everyday, it could be wrong. I’ll just check the internet later when I go back.” Simply enough, I looked online and the news started pouring in.

I was flushed by a deluge of reports about the bombings. This channel said this, that newspaper said that, and although it seemed impossible, the internet felt rather chaotic. However, there was one web service the users of which consistently exhibited a different take on the tragedy, and it would keep amassing attention for more than a month, maybe forever. It was Twitter.

Indonesian Twitter users (Twitterers?) ignited another kind of explosion, that instead of spreading fear and killing men, revealed whole new levels of optimism, activism, and nationalism in the generation frequently labeled “lazy” and/or “unpatriotic”. #IndonesiaUnite claimed the trending topics top spot (a feat which would be repeated by Mbah Surip – but that’s really another story). #IndonesiaUnite made an unprecedented impact not only in cyberspace, but also in meatspace. As time progressed, the movement grew and touched more general issues too. In the end, it was about showing off our love for Indonesia.

It would be ironic, not to mention disrespectful, to say that it took two bombs and many lost lives to switch on our nationalism. Yet, it is understandable that only something extraordinary can do so. Then again, the past Dutch colonialism did, in one way or another, force Indonesians of the time to unite. This time, the so-called spoiled Indonesian generation –my generation- suddenly came out in full force, nudging Indonesia into the world’s limelight one tweet at a time. For one thing, I have never expected the archipelago to host so many twitterers. More importantly, we (as in they and I) proved that our nationalism never hit rock bottom. Yes, maybe it’s a little drowned out by the music from our iPods or by the addictive games on Facebook, but we definitely still have nationalism.

The #IndonesiaUnite movement brought a sense of relief that Indonesia is not losing a generation, it just got another precious generation with its own attitude – and advantages, of course. That generation might have been reticent all this time, but when the time comes, as the bombings showed, we are more than ready to contribute in our own ways. If we do our parts right, Indonesians of the next era will regard this point as another milestone in the nation’s history.

The two sides of nationalism: loving your nation, despite its shortcomings; loving your nation, and complain about its shortcomings – for a better future.