Anyone who knows anything about Indonesia knows that Pancasila is the nation’s official ideology, the five principles of which include belief in God, a just and civilized humanity, national unity, democracy, and social justice. Anyone who knows anything about Indonesia also knows that in Indonesia there is no avoiding the use of abbreviations, one of which is “P-4” (Pedoman Penghayatan dan Pengamalan Pancasila), a program the Soeharto government established in 1973 as “Guidelines for the Understanding and the Experience of Pancasila.” To give Soeharto’s government the benefit of the doubt, one could say that this program represented a noble goal as well. Unfortunately, his apparatchiks went overboard by formulating 45 rules for the implementation of Pancasila in daily life which every civil servant who wanted to keep his/her job and every young person who aspired to work in the government or the military had to memorize and uphold—which, frankly, turned out to be a stomach-turner for most everyone. In this instance, it wasn’t a question of throwing out the baby with the bathwater but, rather, drowning the baby in a tub full of water instead of letting him soak in a shallow basin. Heaven sakes, even God had limited His rules to ten. “You got to keep ‘em simple and easy to memorize,” I can imagine the Supreme Editor saying to Moses on Mount Sinai when He laid down His principles for life.
“Simple and easy” was the pledge I memorized as a youth when becoming a member of the Cazenovia chapter of the 4-H Club. The oath was mellifluous and repetitive, almost like a mantra, and spoken simultaneously with sign language: “[Hand on head like a salute] I pledge my head to clearer thinking, [Right hand on heart] my heart to greater loyalty, [Outstretched hands, as if to offer help] my hands to larger service, [Hands at the side with head erect] and my health to better living, for my club, my community, my country, and the world.” (Note: “the world” was added later, in 1973.)
Originally an organization for rural youth, 4-H grew out of an American grass-roots movement in the late 19th century whose focal point was hands-on learning by rural youth. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin and other “land-grant universities”—federally-funded institutions of higher learning whose concentration was the teaching of agriculture, science, and engineering as well as classical studies—had come to see that adults in farming communities did not readily accept new-fangled farming techniques but that young people, who were much more open to new ideas, would experiment and then share their experiences and successes with the adults who would then learn from their children—an important lesson that applies to this day.
When I was young, the adult leader of the Cazenovia 4-H Club was Gaylord Marshall, the town’s blacksmith and it was at his home where he and his wife Ethel hosted most of the monthly meetings. The club was most active during the summer months when it was that most rural kids were learning practical things in life: planting, canning, cooking, sewing etc. At the start of each club year, members had to state their goals for the months ahead. For my sisters it was usually what kind of garment they would learn to make or what vegetables they intended to grow. Gardening was on my list too (which was something I had to do anyway, 4-H or not) but also insect collecting and woodcraft.
4-H was one of the first youth organizations worldwide to promote gender equality which was evident at all meetings and events where it was just as likely (and, often, more likely) for a girl to be the chosen as leader or top achiever. Egalitarianism was also evident. The club’s motto is “to make the best better” and in my poverty-pocked community this was interpreted as “To make the best that you have better than it was” and, with the club’s hands-on approach, there always a project even the poorest of members could excel in.
Meetings were a mixture of business and socializing. Through them, we learned basic rules of order but, just as importantly, how to better formulate our thoughts and to speak for ourselves. After recitation of the pledge of allegiance and the 4-H pledge members would then take turns providing a kind of progress report on their projects. At one meeting my sister Mary might show a skein of cloth and describe the sports outfit she intended to make. At another, my sister Jane might tell how she made the fringed scarf she was wearing that day. Meanwhile, other members might pass around the cookies they’d learned to bake—inevitably accompanied by paper cups of the fruit-flavored Kool-Aid that Ethel prepared for meeting.
 Mary McGlynn in 1962 holding the fabric that she would turn into a sports outfit. |
 Jane McGlynn in 1961 holding the fringed scarf that she made all by herself. |
 John the Dork in 1965 standing in the middle of his potato patch |
 Mark McGlynn in 1964 with his moster cabbages. |
The high point of a 4-H year came in late August at the time of the annual Richland County Fair. There, 4-H club members displayed their projects: the produce they’d grown, the skirts they’d made, and the insects they had collected. Award ribbons—blue, red, pink and white in color—were appended to these displays to denote their merit and small monetary prizes were given as further incentive as well.
In my five years as a 4-H club member, I can’t remember winning more than a couple blue ribbons which, at the time, bothered me greatly but gradually I came to see that it was not prize ribbons that mattered at all. Recount now the 4-H pledge and what it means: training the HEAD to think, plan, and to reason; training the HEART to be kind, sympathetic, and true.; training HANDS to be helpful, skillful, and useful; and training HEALTH to enjoy life, resist disease, and work efficiently. Combine these principles with those of Pancasila (especially the latter four) and I sincerely believe that you have the guidelines for how to run not just your life but a county.
In this fraught-filled time of a global pandemic where the leadership of at least one super power is marked by dishonesty, ineptitude, as well as outright chicanery and malfeasance, it is the individual who must stand up for “my community, my country, and my world” and to take responsibility for their safeguarding and well-being.
John McGlynn
john_mcglynn@lontar.org