Sei sulla pagina 1di 2

Draft Mellyna

smp islam dian didaktika

Good afternoon my fellow classmates and a very warm welcome to the juries

I was informed that the topic of this speech should revolve around Nusantara Indonesia. What
a timely occasion, 10th of November was just around the corner!

Nusantara is a word that comes from the Palapa Oath, or as Indonesians call it: Sumpah Palapa
this oath also aspired a group of youth from different regions to gather with the determination to
unite Indonesia in which we know as the Youth Pledge; Sumpah Pemuda their praiseworthy
pledge, to which I also agree wholeheartedly, is based on their love for Indonesia and for the
countrys unity

I will just run quickly through with the facts of Indonesia here:

1.Indonesia is the worlds 15th largest country

2.If we combine the sea and land area, its even the 7th largest country in the world!

3.There are over 260 million people in Indonesia (statistic taken last September 2016)

4.Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world

5.We all know that Indonesia consists of hundreds of native ethnicities

6.There are over 700 linguistic groups in Indonesia, 742 different languages and dialects to be
exact, imagine that!
Now, basing ourselves from the Youth Pledge; we have pledged for one nation, one country and
one language.

Obviously, not an easy task knowing all the facts I have just bared in the five pointers before.
How can we make 260 million people cooperate? One of the brilliant solution in that pledge was
to have one language to speak. That is: Indonesian.

However, why are we now experiencing lots of Indonesian children who speak another language
very fluently yet speaks broken Indonesian? To make it worse, these children are living in
Indonesia?! This situation saddens me. How could someone deem their own mother tongue to be
so unimportant that this beautiful language is not passed on correctly to their children?

I used to live in Belgium and even went to a French-speaking school there. The whole day we
spoke French. Yet, when I am back home with my mother, we would speak Indonesian. My
mother was adamant that even if we were not living in Indonesia, we would still speak the
language.

As Nelson Mandela once said: If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to
his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.

The way I translate his message is this way: for us to feel connected with our homeland we need
to value our country. The way to value it is to love it. Love means going to the heart. How can
we feel all that if our means of communication is through waves, smiles, informal sign language
and broken Indonesian?

I understand that it takes effort. Big time. But we have to do it. We have to be proud of our
language. The 10th November 2016 is a celebration of our heros who have given their lives for
our country. We need to remember how important that is. We can do that by honouring the
Youth Pledge: one country, one nation and one language. Indonesia. We should be proud that we
speak Indonesian in a correct manner!!!

Potrebbero piacerti anche