By: Yusuf Efendi (Social and Political Science Student at UIN Jakarta)
Youth are the backbone of the country. That sentence almost becomes a cliche because it is always repeated as a rhetoric. Because of the vital role of youth, Sukarno also in his speech once cried “Give me ten young men, I will shake the world”. That sentence becomes a kind of hope for young people to be able to carry out their role as agents of social transformation.
However, such idealism does not seem to always materialize in reality. The reality of the picture of youth as the backbone of the nation and agents of social change is not always true. In real life, not a few young people are actually a burden to the nation and state. Many of them are trapped in promiscuity, becoming drug addicts, even affiliated with radical religious movements. Conditions that certainly invite mutual concern.
About the spread of radical religious understanding is certainly not new news and also not just an assumption. Various surveys and studies prove that the infiltration of radical religious understanding among adolescents and young people has reached an alarming stage. A survey from Alvara Institute in 2018 stated that of the 2,500 respondents surveyed, 54 percent agreed with the Khilafah Islamiyyah idea . While 45 percent consider the ideology of Pancasila and the Republic of Indonesia and the 1945 Constitution no longer relevant to be applied in Indonesia.
It is never too late to save young people from the invasion of radical religious ideologies spread by transnational Islamic organizations. However, this nation and country needs the existence of young people as recipients of the nation’s travel baton. Do not let this nation lose a generation that will certainly disrupt the regeneration process of the nation’s leadership.
Therefore, we (the public and the government) need to regain awareness of the participatory awareness of defending the country among the younger generation. Participatory awareness, in the social science lexicon, is understood as an attitude and behavior that encourages a person or group of people to be actively involved in the socio-political dynamics. In the context of defending the country, participatory awareness is interpreted as an attitude of volunteerism to actively participate in realizing and maintaining state security while at the same time broadly committed to defend the country at all times.
The participatory awareness of defending the country among young people is certainly not coercion from a one-way hierarchical state , but the result of a meeting between state interests on the one hand and national commitments on the other. In another sentence, participatory awareness of defending the country is a natural attitude that simply arises out of love and pride in being part of Indonesia.
The first and foremost thing that is embedded in awareness certainly starts from the family. Maybe some people are bored with these words, but until whenever , family remains number one in shaping a person’s personality. Form a good paradigm with the aim of good development going forward. Final, love the motherland.
By building participatory awareness in defending the country, it is hoped that young people who have a nationalist leadership spirit will be born and are ready to initiate social transformation against the traitors of the state.
