What Can We Do to Preserve Our Culture?

What Can We Do to Preserve Our Culture? The Youth Movement to Promote Local Culture in Globalization Era 

Written By : Fidelis Elleny Averina

As we know, culture is an important part of human life. The tradition passed down from one generation to generation has been deeply rooted and become one of the characteristics which defines one particular group from another. Culture is also related with local languages, beliefs, cuisines, social habits, musics and arts. In short, culture plays a role as an identity which distinguishes one place from another. Through culture, we are governed by norms, wisdom, and customs; which are the pillars of any society. If these pillars are not properly preserved in our society, our culture will be eventually extinct and there will no more left for our next generation to be inherited.

We are all also aware that the rapid development of technology and globalization gives huge impact to the existence of culture. Globalization itself points to the whole effort towards making the world global community as a one village. Therefore, the development of globalization seems like the double-edge sword which gives both the negative and positive consequences. On one side, the advancement of technology will give us easy access to learn about other cultures. In the era of the internet and fast communication, people can interact easily with each other. As a result, it will develop a wider cultural understanding, foreign values, and attitudes which means that it will help to spread and promote the culture rapidly. On the other hand, it will dilute the unique aspects of each culture and force us to live in homogeneous world. The presence of technology will create standardize values and beliefs, that eventually will make one culture more superior than others. Some small cultures may also lose their distinct features and at the end, they will be extinct.

Let’s take a look of the reality nowadays. In Indonesia, teenagers’ pride on their local culture is decreasing every day. The western culture or the Hallyu waves have changed their lifestyle and their point of view. Of course it is not entirely wrong, but it becomes wrong when they forget their own local culture. Many local traditions such as: wedding traditions and local events have also been neglected for the sake of practicality. This miserable condition should be stopped before it’s too late. Obviously, we cannot simply eliminate the presence of technology in our daily life. What we can do is to make use the benefit of technology to promote local culture

We, the Millenials, are very fond of social media. Everyday and every time the millenials access the internet including their social media. Unfortunately, most of them use it for not-so-important purposes. Here, we can use social media and make this a beneficial tool to promote our local culture. The next question might be: How can that be? that must be boring! Actually, that is the challenge. Are you creative enough to promote and show your local culture to the world?  

The easiest and smartest way is by utilizing Youtube. Youtube is an online video platform where all of us from different part of the world can upload, share, and even download the video. You can record many videos about your local culture as creative as you can and share them world wide. We can upload and show the local dances, events, traditions that exist in our place. We can also tell particular customs, values, beliefs, or everything that we’d like to share about local culture. There will be comments  part where we can give comments to each video, discuss something, or simply share our story about local culture. You can also use other social media such as facebook, instagram, twitter, etc. The other way is by making poetry, song, or article, just like I do. 

Of course, this movement will be useless without the involvement of the youth itself. Therefore, I try to promote this idea so that all teenagers from all around the world can join it. We, as the legacy of our culture, hold the responsibility to preserve our local culture from extinction. Having said that, I would like to say that It has taken ages for our forefathers to form such a composite and ethnically rich culture, what is important for us is to preserve it so that we can pass it to the next generation. I believe that together, through this simple action and movement, we can achieve and make positive changes for our future generation