AAP 2026 CONFERENCE

Buddhist Philosophy offers the concept of anattā, the principle of no-self that leads people to the always changing present in life. Buddhism believes that everyone needs to have one’s own responsibility to purify one’s life to reach its purification state out of the suffering cyle of saṃsāra. In 2028, Indonesia will celebrate the 100th birthday as a nation. It was through the Youth Pledge or Sumpah Pemuda in Indonesian, young Indonesians proclaimed three ideas of one motherland, one nation, and a unifying language: Indonesia. They came with this narration as a respond for the colonization practice for 350 years that eventually has brought Indonesia to its proclamation of independence in 1945. In parallel, Paul Ricœur comes with similar ideas that the concept of self has the unchanging side (idem) and the changing side (ipse). The balance of these sides of self helps people to form a narration of one’s own life to overcome one’s experience in life. By comparing the Buddhist’s concepts of anattā and self-purification with Paul Ricœur’s concept of self-narrative, we can reflect on the phenomenon of the Indonesian Youth Pledge as a capable self that leads to the purification process through the narrative process of a nation.