Albeit less than half of Manchester United players are in fact British, most would say that it is part of the British National pride. The English monarchy, Rolls Royce, the channel tunnel, and Harry Potter novels and movies are also symbolising the pride of the nations which stands firm from the other nations.

The Japanese would probably say that they are proud of the disciplines and high tech businesses. Karate, Sony, Mitsubishi, Shinkansen Bullet train are a few examples of things that the Japanese might be pride of.

What about the pride of Indonesians? Do we need one that we can associate with as an Indonesian?

The image of contemporary Indonesia might not be looking so great. For many, perhaps it is much easier to write Indonesia’s shame list than our pride. Corruptions, terrorisms, human rights violations, forest fire and the smoke it produces have been the major embarrassments for Indonesia in the world’s arena.

However, it is important that we associate with something that lift up our spirit, and can be used to propel our drive to do and achieve more as a nation.

In the past, Indonesia has been widely known for its military strength within South East Asia. Not anymore though. The strength of our once mighty air force has been reduced to a very limited operational aircrafts, with heavy reliance on overseas support.

In its heyday, Pertamina was a strong contender at least for region high achiever in the business and economic field. Many large Indonesian conglomerates such as Salim Group, Bimantara, Bakrie and the like have not developed into our national pride due to both their economic performance as well as the association of their success with Suharto’s regime.

We also had IPTN as an attempt to jump-start Indonesia to a high tech aerospace business which was very rare in the developing world. Indonesia was also hailed as the first developing country to own and operate a high tech telecommunication satellite.

In the field of sport, Badminton, as sport which Indonesia has a long history of success and great names, has been in the continuous decline over so many years. Football, although arguably is the much loved and watched sport, has not been Indonesia’s strongest talent.

None of those can be considered as our pride anymore. They might be in the past, but it is certainly not the case today.

What are the things that Indonesian should be pride of then? The answer maybe lies in our everyday live. It is the language that all Indonesians speak.

Bahasa Indonesia is certainly the main candidate for the Indonesian pride. It has glued a widely diverse Indonesian population and ethics groups scattered in thousands of islands into a single common ground uniting the diversity. With more than 220 million people speak the same language, it is now one of the world’s top ten most spoken languages.

Derived largely from the Malay language, Bahasa Indonesia was spread across the region through peaceful means, carried through commerce and the spread of Islam in the Archipelago. Lingua Franca status was achieved as a universal language on top of the numerous native languages in the archipelago. The declaration made by the Indonesian Youth in 1928 helped to shape the formal adoption of the Lingua Franca into Indonesia’s unifying language. In 1945, Bahasa Indonesia was formally adapted in the Indonesian Constitutions.

Bahasa Indonesia has no contest in showing that language alone can unite the whole archipelago into a common means. While many might said that English is the world’s unifying language, its historical spread was more or less related to the spirit of colonialism of the British. Spanish and French languages are unfortunately share the same background with English.

The success of Bahasa Indonesia in unifying Indonesia into a single entity is our biggest pride. While we should learn to master and use English, and other foreign languages alike, Bahasa Indonesia should be kept as the medium of Indonesia’s formal language and national identity. And the fact that I wrote this article in English does not reduce my praise and appreciation of Bahasa Indonesia as our national pride.