Independence as Being Educated

Kompas/AGUS SUSANTO

Motorists pass in front of a diversity mural under the Rawa Panjang flyover, Bekasi City, West Java, Friday (7/8/2020).

The commemoration of Independence Day should be a spiritual magnet that can unite the cracks in Indonesia-ness into a nationhood image. That in navigating our life together, we do not always have to be uniformed and agree on all issues.

However, the survival of a nation cannot be sustained without the love for our motherland (patriotism). And we cannot love the motherland without loving all human beings with all the diversity that exists in them. For that, we must always try to find a "common ground"; we must be able to build bridges between differences in order to pursue the goodness and happiness of living together.