The Special Gifts for The Youth: Culture and Globalization

Penulis adalah santri di pondok  pesantren Annuqayah daerah Latee. saat ini tercatat sebagai mahasiswa INSTIKA Annuqayah Prodi Pendidikan Agama Islam. aktif menulis esai, arikel, story dan puisi. perindu bulan purnama karena baginya saat itulah sebuah puisi akan tercipta buat putri tidur-nya.

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Essay ini masuk lima besar dalam kegiatan Maliki English Festival 2016, dan telah dipersentasikan pada tanggal 25 Desember 2016.

The Special Gifts for The Youth: Culture and Globalization

By: Abdullah Rais

PP. Annuqayah Latee Guluk-guluk Sumenep Madura

Geographically, Indonesia is an archipelago country which has more than 17.000 islands stretched from Sabang till Merauke. Every island is inhabited by a group of people having a difference uniqueness and characteristic of culture, ethnic, language, and religion. Even, well-known author of “The Religion of Java”, Clifford Geertz, (1969) has said that Indonesia is so complex that it is difficult to decide its anatomy precisely.

This is a great potential we have. However, in a concept of developing a country, we cannot put the natural resources as our priority and forget who is going to control the natural resources that we can exploit as a tool to develop the nation.

Shaykh Mustafa Al-Ghulayani in his book, Idhotun Nasyi'in, said that it’s in the hands of the youth humanity affairs and in the legs of the youth the progress and decline of humanity are controlled. The statement shows us that the youth is an agent of change or in this discussion; the youth is the element that will control the natural resources we have, which they should inherit to maintain the natural wealth. Inevitably, culture or local wisdom is a challenge that must be accepted and maintained by the youth as a gift of their forefather.

This challenge is more complex when the certainty of keeping the local wisdom opposed with the social changes happening all over the world, globalization. The changes demand people toward a free world which has no limits of geography, culture, politic, and economic. While on the other hand, globalization is a must that has to be followed not to be rejected. This is what the Marxists have said that the eternal is the change itself. Although most of us reject it, but the reality is that the change is the essence of life. This is the second gift that inevitably has to be accepted and faced by youth.

What is going on?

The diversity has formed Indonesia into a country with multicultural structure. This has been realized by the founders of this nation that the diversity we have is an inseparable diversity. Therefore, to keep a social harmony, they made Bhinneka Tuggal Ika as a slogan of unity.

According to Koentijaraningrat (1995), the pride of Indonesia in the past is that Indonesian societies lived in an archipelago that has colorful language and culture. However, what is now happening? Diversity not only becomes a pride but also a source of conflict and hostility. Bhinneka Tuggal Ika is just a lesson for the students at school and they never practiced into the real life. The mass media never stops to report the conflicts, which ultimately is still same, because of the difference. Based on the data of the interior ministry, the number of conflicts in the year 2013 as many as 93 cases, then declined in 2014 to 87 cases, and the data until mid-2015 was as many as 26 cases.

Secondly, we are still not ready to face globalization era which in this era there will be many foreign cultures go into our country easily. It will affect our dynamic life we have. Meanwhile, the rule of globalization is that the strong will win . The reality appears in our country that we lost to other countries. The impact has been very clear among our youth, which they had been influenced by western culture and forget their own cultures.

Our life style already tends to imitate the western liberal lifestyle and individualism. It happened because the less filtering of the cultures coming into Indonesia, till foreign cultures dominate the local cultures. As a result, we are more proud of the foreign culture and even forgetting our own culture that actually should be glorified and kept.

What can we do?

In general, the gifts, (culture and globalization) we have, have two problems that must be overcome soon: The first is uniting our diversity. It’s important that we unite Indonesia into fully integrity. And the second is the challenge to make globalization era as a tool to develop our own cultures rather than to know foreign cultures. To respond these challenges, a multiculturalism concept to unite the diversity and think globally, act locally concept to face globalization era could be a starting point.

Multiculturalism can be understood as a perspective or worldview which recognizes and glorifies the differences and diversity to go into action in the limits of a country . The target to be achieved by the multiculturalism concept is social cohesion through the understanding, appreciation, and recognition on the basis of social justice and human dignity. In this concept there is no cultural domination of the majority against the minority cultures .

Multiculturalism concept is suitable for various Indonesian cultures. This concept was created as an effort to build a harmonious life in the midst of differences and diversity. Therefore, this concept should be applied in our country to save the values ​​of peace and harmony because the diversity could be a source of conflict and hostility if there are no our efforts to maintain the harmony. It is what Samuel Hungtinton (1996) has said that an identity is as a unifier power and troublemaker.

The conflict of Poso, terrorism, and the tragedy of Sunni-Syiah in Sampang are a number of conflicts caused by the difference of beliefs. The mentality of "I and you" as well as "we and they" are still inherent in our society which finally will create an individual or group that shows their personal identity and does not accept the existence of the other.

The second concept is thinking globally, act locally. This concept is interpreted as an idea or thought demanded globally, and think to the body as a container of the mind, namely local wisdom .It shows us the limits of locality that must not be passed out by human because locality is an identity of "humanity". Although modernization and globalization will and must color our lives, but human beings cannot forget themselves from their local world.

The recognition of national culture that lately often happens is a real proof that we are still not able to implement this concept. We still tend to think globally without acting locally. This is what happened to Malaysia claims to Reog Ponorogo because we were falling asleep to the globalization, communication and technology, and forget our own culture; another country is busy researching our culture and ultimately claims it as their culture.

Boarding School (Pesantren) as a miniature application of these concepts

In general, multiculturalism in boarding school can be seen in terms of socio-cultural. Boarding school as a social institution consists of the santries with the difference backgrounds of culture, ethnic, language, and dialects. It shows that the reality of boarding school is very various. Even though, the diversity had never seen as a reason of dissension, but a reason of harmony.

The example is Annuqayah Islamic boarding school, in Sumenep, occupied by more than 5000 santries from different regions. Some santries are from Java, Kalimantan, Sumatra, Jakarta, and also there are the original people of Madura. Even though they come from different regions, we, however, had never seen their divisions, but harmony. All of them live in harmony like brothers.

With the hostel system, Annuqayah is able to build multicultural awareness to the students not only in the theoretical paradigm, but also practically in the real. The rooms measuring 4 square meters sometimes accommodate as many as 15 students, who are from different region, but even so they are still able to live harmoniously.

The second concept (think globally, act locally) is also able to be implemented at Islamic boarding school. It also looks at Annuqayah boarding school which can maintain its own culture but not close themselves to the development of globalization. Here, science and technology as the default of globalization era were also developed, but not to affect their own culture. Even, to face globalization era, in 2015, Annuqayah builds salafiyah (Islamic) boarding school as a respond to globalization era. Think globally act locally concepts can really be applied here.

This is a hope that these concepts have been able to be applied on a small scale such as boarding school. It is not impossible that these concepts can be applied in a larger scale: the nation-state.

In a nation-state scale, grounding values ​​of multiculturalism could be done: (1) in educational institutions or social community that has the diversity trough understanding the importance of tolerance. Or (2) foster a love of our local culture through activities that are directly related to the preservation of the culture.

This nation is not yet too late to do any of that. If a boarding school has been able to apply these concepts in the real world, then the application of the larger scale, nation-state, should be processed immediately.