The Laskar Pelangi Legacy
Last Thursday, I defended my PhD thesis. It lasted for 2 hours, and after a 5-minute discussion, my thesis jury granted me a PhD title. I didn’t remember much of what the jury said at that time; I was just too overwhelmed (and tired). Luckily, my husband and friends recorded that moment, so I can re-watch it.
On this quiet morning, my mind wanders back to circa 2006–2008. I was in the 10th grade. There was this best-selling book series: Laskar Pelangi, Sang Pemimpi, Edensor, and Maryamah Kapov. My favorites were the first two books. In Laskar Pelangi (Rainbow’s Trooper), the book was about a group of children from an elementary school on the small island of Belitong. These children were poor, but most of them were courageous enough to go to school. In Sang Pemimpi (The Dreamer), one of the kids from Belitong was able to study at the best university in Indonesia, and he later got accepted into the Sorbonne University. These books told a zero-to-hero storyline, where a poor kid from a rural area was finally able to realize his dream of seeing the world and improving his family’s condition. It might seem like a cheesy topic now, but I should say these two books were truly influential, not just for me but for many Indonesians of my age coming from middle-class families (who couldn’t afford overseas family trips). Studying abroad and seeing the world was a shared dream for many Indonesian youngsters.
Fast forward 15 years later, many Indonesians of my age are studying and working abroad. I wonder how big the effect of Laskar Pelangi was on this phenomenon. Aside from increased access to global information and funding to study abroad from within and outside Indonesia, I’ve noticed that in Indonesia, there is usually a ‘trend-setter’ that fuels the ‘education standard.’ In my parents’ generation, it was BJ Habibie (a former Minister of Science and Technology); many parents wanted their kids to become engineers. During my teenage years, Laskar Pelangi fueled the surge of youngsters wanting to study abroad. And now, there’s Maudy Ayunda, who has set the standard as an intelligent, highly educated, and well-spoken artist. I’ve seen many of my friends start bilingual education for their kids at an early age. Have any researchers in Indonesia studied this phenomenon? It would be interesting to read about the effect of any book/artist/public figure on the education trends in Indonesia.
Well, I should say, thank you to Andrea Hirata for writing Laskar Pelangi and Sang Pemimpi. They fueled my younger self to reach this point. But this degree is not my endgame. Hopefully, I can contribute more to society wherever I am.
