From a Rich Land, For a Burdened Generation

Sumber: dokpri

“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” — Greek Proverb

We live in a country that proudly claims to be rich. Each state speech is filled with romantic narratives about the abundance of resources, from gold mines, coal, palm oil, nickel, you name it. A myth of endless wealth is repeated, becoming a kind of national spell. But behind all of that ceremonial optimism, few trees are planted for the generations to come. What grows instead are extractive ambitions, paved roads to nowhere but short-sighted milestones. Amid grand speeches of surplus and national pride, young people find little to no place to thrive. They walk under the burning sun with inherited burdens, outdated glory, and deferred dreams. According to BPS, this quarter, Indonesia’s GDP grew by 5.12%, a figure that exceeded official projections. It sounds like progress, but why do young generations actually feel burdened? Are we really inheriting prosperity, or just the splendor of promises?

The Asian Tiger Echo

There was a time when the world looked to Indonesia with awe, not just for its size, but for its milestones. In 1976, we were the first in Asia to launch a domestic communication satellite, Palapa A1, nearly two decades before Korea’s own KoreaSat. Our engineers, led by B.J. Habibie, created the N-250, the world’s first turboprop aircraft with fly-by-wire controls in 1995. In 1969, Malaysia imported 40-100 of our teachers each year, including lecturers to help develop the education curriculum. We weren’t just a developing nation, we were a beacon of progress for our neighbors. This progress was driven not only by vision but also by young generations who were empowered to innovate, lead, and build.

The phrase “Macan Asia” also came from our growing spirit of manufacturing base expansion. In the early 1990s, our growth story was real. GDP grew at around 7% annually, and by 1995, Indonesia had hit 8.2%. More impressively, the manufacturing sector was growing even faster than GDP, twice as fast as the national economy (AMINEF, 2020). Manufacturing wasn’t just a part of growth, it was the engine. Then came the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. It hit us hard and brought manufacturing growth to a stop.

Figure 1. Indonesia’s Manufacturing and GDP Growth Before and After 97/98 Crisis, Source: AMINEF, 2020

What followed was the Reform era, a moment of hope. But that hope was scattered. Not only the manufacturing sector faced a major setback, but also the broader institutional framework. Cabinets changed, curriculums flipped, and priorities kept shifting with every election cycle. Countries that were once inspired by our steps, committed themselves to long-term plans, built industries, invested in education, and created space for their people to grow. But instead of building on our breakthroughs, we started over again and again, putting bandaids on deeper wounds. We had the makings of an Asian Tiger, but without institutions strong enough to channel that potential into long-term strategy, we lost our footing, and somewhere along the way, the roar softened into an echo.

Still Digging, Not Building

Instead of laying the groundwork for a resilient, innovation-driven economy, where young generations can contribute and thrive, Indonesia kept digging, quite literally. Mining, palm oil, and raw exports still dominate our GDP, with mineral fuels alone accounting for 22.99% of total exports (InCorp, 2024). Our economy grows, yes, but like crops harvested too early, it lacks roots. Indonesia’s dependence on raw exports reflects the resource curse, the paradox where countries rich in natural resources often experience weak long-term growth and become a barrier to development. Instead of diversifying and moving up the value chain, our economy remains skewed toward extractive sectors. We’re stuck in the environmental degradation phase of the Environmental Kuznets Curve, depleting the earth with no turning point in sight. This stagnation was worsened by premature deindustrialization and growth that still leans heavily on resource extraction instead of innovation in clean industries. The contribution of manufacturing to Indonesia’s GDP which once reached 32% in 2002, had dwindled to 19% in 2024 (BPS, 2025). While in 2023, renewable energy investment reached only US$1.5 billion, far below the US$146 billion needed by 2030 (IEEFA, 2024). Instead of building factories of the future, we dig into the ground and hope the earth will keep giving.

Figure 2. Environmental Kuznets Curve, Source: Economics Online, 2023

In contrast to the need for revolutionizing, our R&D spending is only 0.3% of GDP, a whisper compared to South Korea’s 4.9%, Japan’s 3.3%, Thailand‘s 1.2%, and even Malaysia’s 1% (UNESCO, 2021). We graduate millions, yet fail to provide a space for their ideas. Our schools train minds that the system doesn’t absorb. When education is divorced from policy, it becomes a wasted potential, a credential, not a catalyst.

In 2024, Indonesian youth NEET (not in employment, education, and training) figure reached 20.31%, higher than the regional average of 16.3% (BPS, 2025). Let alone the quality of education. In the 2022 PISA assessment by the OECD, Indonesia ranked 69th out of 81 countries in reading, 71st in mathematics, and 72nd in science. More worryingly, over 80% of 15-year-old students did not reach minimum proficiency in math and 66% in science, basic competencies needed for participation in the modern economy.

Now, our famed “demographic bonus” is starting to look like a liability. The labor force grows faster than the economy can absorb. Underemployment is rising, with over 59% of university graduates working in informal sectors or roles far beneath their qualifications (BPS, 2025). In 2025 alone, mass layoffs jumped 32% in just the first half of the year (Satudata, 2025). Tens of thousands of Indonesians have lost their jobs under Prabowo’s watch. But the response? Almost nothing. While young people scramble to find secure, dignified work, the state busies itself with ceremonial gestures and artificial optimism. Being indifferent to the structural destruction below the surface.

We’ve become a nation of overqualified gig workers and undervalued youth, a symptom of what the Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach critiques: development should be assessed not merely by income or access to resources, but by the actual opportunities people have to achieve meaningful beings and doings, to live the lives they value. It’s not enough to report GDP growth or fiscal balance while our education system remains uneven, our research budget remains thin, and our job market fails to absorb the very talent it is meant to empower. What good is a growing GDP if the people fueling it can’t afford stability or the ability to plan a future?

Paralyzed Institution, Stolen Future

We’re not just standing on broken promises, we’re walking through the ruins of systems that were meant to lift us. What was once called the engine of reform now feels like an empty shell worn down by political myopia. A nation’s institutions are meant to be the architects of the future, helping generations thrive beyond the electoral cycles. But ours have grown tired from being bent so often to serve the urgency of the now. Where policy should be a compass pointing toward generational uplift, it has only been spinning to match the gusts of public opinion and quarterly optics.

Investments in sectors like technology, research, or education are often not "politically attractive" because their results aren't immediate. This links to Public Choice Theory, which explains how politicians may act in their self-interest, maximizing votes, popularity, or rents rather than public welfare. This gives rise to short-term solutions, where every crisis invites a new program. Over time, this has created a complex landscape, with overlapping efforts, each attempting to solve a problem without sufficient coordination, resulting in inefficiency. This disconnect becomes especially visible in poverty alleviation programs. In 2019, the poverty reduction initiative alone comprised 65 distinct programs and 128 separate activities managed across 16 different ministries and institutions, each acting within sectoral silos with minimal integration, ultimately weakening outcomes and wasting resources (Prasojo, 2022). Furthermore, in many programs, up to 70% of the budget is absorbed by bureaucracy and process, rather than being directed toward implementation that would directly benefit communities (Yanwardhana, 2023). Millions of young people grow up in a country that never truly prepares them for the global world, but the leaders instead focus on dressing up performance for quarterly reports.

This myopia breeds stagnation, and the youth see through this illusion. They sense that the system was not built for them. When space to grow, innovate, and contribute meaningfully is scarce, the rational choice becomes departure. Between 2019 and 2022, according to the Directorate General of Immigration, 3,912 Indonesian citizens of productive age renounced their nationality to become Singaporean. Thousands more leave quietly, not always to change passports, but to chase a better life that feels increasingly out of reach in our own land. This shows the nation’s failure to build a future worth staying for. When bright minds see no place to grow, dreams find no soil to root, leaving becomes the logical next step. 

Indonesia’s institutions whisper ambition, but act out of fear, fear of losing popularity, fear of taking the kind of bold steps that won’t pay off before the next campaign trail. And in that fear, they trade away the future to protect the present. Rather than a mere bureaucratic issue, this reflects a deeper failure in fulfilling institutional responsibility.

Will the Tiger Ever Rise Awake?

Indonesia is not short on potential. We are the fourth-largest country in the world by population, with over 283 million people, 69% of whom are in the productive age bracket. Our cities are swelling with youth, hungry for progress. But we know, potential alone doesn’t move a nation forward. We must begin to hold the government to account, not only for what it builds today, but for what it neglects to build for tomorrow. A nation's strength isn't shown in how it extracts wealth, but how it transforms that wealth into opportunity for all. This means investing in a long-range goal for greater mobility and opportunity, not just for the elite, but for the many.

So, in the midst of all this noise about “rich land”, who really holds the future? Because if the next 20 years are written by the same short-term logic, the echo of the Asian Tiger will remain buried beneath. But it doesn’t have to be that way. The young generation should rise not just as watchers, but as thinkers, builders, and critics. That way, we can plant something better beneath the roots of real change. Let’s demand more than just illusions of progress. Because there is no point in calling ourselves a rich nation, if our generation is poor in choices and direction.

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