What Our Heroes Did, Do, and Will Ever Want: A Peaceful, Beautiful, Rich Indonesia

Heroes’ Day (Hari Pahlawan) has always become a day for remembering all of those fighting for Indonesian independence. The date specifically commemorates the Battle of Surabaya on November 10th, 1945. Our Timmy, Naomi Yunita Silitonga as the Campaign Associate of IDN Creative, is going to share what she knows about Indonesian Heroes’ Day. 

To start her conversation with us, Naomi mentioned how much a Heroes’ Day deserved some time to reminisce how it had gone. It was truly a historic day because heroes were sincerely willing to sacrifice their lives, families, and possessions in order to take over Indonesian independence. “Soekarno, our first president said: ‘A great nation is a nation that values the struggle of its heroes’. We need to appreciate our heroes—they were the ones carrying weapons to fight against the colonizers, gave their all for the sake of Indonesia’s independence.” 

Not only in the past, their struggle was also relevant up to this very present time that it left us knowledge, history, and the meaning of struggle. Naomi took Kartini as one of the heroes whose spirit still surrounded us. "Let's say Kartini—her struggle means a lot to me personally. She was still young when she spoke up her mind. She had the chance to get a good education, but she didn't only enrich herself. Instead, she shared anything she had by letting other women know their worth and practically fighting for women's rights."

We realized that not appreciating diversities, for example, or betraying the trust of our own people by committing corruption, we just were incapable of showing our gratitude for our heroes. Naomi said, "We have this freedom, but I find what Soekarno stated: 'My struggle is easier because I fight the invaders, but yours will be more difficult because you go against your own sibling' to be very in line with what's happening now. We break their' hearts when we don't live harmoniously with these diversities between us. They'll say, 'Indonesia wasn't like this. This is not how I want my country to be.'" Moreover, as Naomi also realized, some of our veterans weren't taken care of properly and we didn't even know what to do unless filling out a petition for the better living of our veterans. It was such an ironic—we would always need to voice this up. 

However, since everything should start from ourselves, we could do the least thing in order to appreciate what our heroes had done for us. It was to accept and be sincerely kind to everyone around us without paying any attention to our different backgrounds—whether race, religion, political preference, point of view, etc. That was, is, and will always be what our heroes did, do, and will ever want: a peaceful, beautiful, rich Indonesia.