Fulfilling The Promise
No matter how controversial Muhammad Yamin may have been, there is no denying the vital role he played in the rich modern history of Indonesia. When hundreds of youths at the 1926 congress debated on the issue of a national language, 23-year-old Yamin proposed that it be Malay, not Javanese or other local language, as a unifying language. Two years later, at the 2nd Youth Congress, it was Yamin who drafted the words of the now famous Youth Pledge.
His concept of how the Indonesian republic should take form was inspired by the romanticism of ancient kingdoms he avidly read about. He pored over the histories of the Sriwijaya and Majapahit kingdoms and concluded that the two statesyes, he referred to them as 'states' and not kingdomsbecame big and powerful because they had a leader who united the people, supported by a strong central government. At the sessions held by the Indonesian Independence Preparatory Work Investigative Board (BPUPKI), Yamin would stress that Indonesia should be a union. He rejected the federal state, as proposed, among others, by Mohammad Hatta.
August 19, 2014
No matter how controversial Muhammad Yamin may have been, there is no denying the vital role he played in the rich modern history of Indonesia. When hundreds of youths at the 1926 congress debated on the issue of a national language, 23-year-old Yamin proposed that it be Malay, not Javanese or other local language, as a unifying language. Two years later, at the 2nd Youth Congress, it was Yamin who drafted the words of the now famous Youth Pled
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