The 1966 student demonstrations demanding the dissolution of the PKI, and the restructuring of the cabinet were clearly political in nature. Yet from almost immediately after the issuing of the Supersemar, the New Order was concerned to reorient students’ roles and identities away from politics and back to the campus. It was this concern which motivated the introduction of a number of policies throughout the 1970s, including the campus normalisation policy of 1978. In this context, the political nature of the student demonstrations of 1966 set an undesirable precedent for the
Sejarah’s contemporary student audience about their role in national politics and the relationship between the bapak of the state-family and his citizen-children.
In the Sejarah, this problem is in part resolved by representing the student demonstrations as a legitimate response to the political and economic failures of Sukarno and his government. In the Sejarah’s version of events, the student demonstrations are the physical manifestation of the rakyat’s frustration at the president’s failure to provide a political solution to the crisis. Sukarno and his government are represented as having deviated from the Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution (Poesponegoro and Notosusanto 1990, 6: 404). The president is also represented as failing to fulfil his promise to provide a political solution to the crisis. The political role of the students in their demonstrations against the president and his cabinet are legitimate because Sukarno represented in the Sejarah as no longer representing the aspirations of the people, as having deviated from the Pancasila, and as siding with the communist party. These failures also justify the students’ undermining of the normal hierarchical power relationship between students and the head of state and others in positions of authority.
Yet students are also represented as politically inexperienced and hence more easily exploited by those with vested political interests. As noted above,the Sejarah’s version of events contrasts ABRI’s political astuteness and the political inexperience of other groups, including the students. In the face of mounting political pressure, on 16 January
1966 Sukarno called for the formation of a Sukarno Front (Barisan Sukarno) as a means of shoring up what little public support he had left. The Sejarah notes that the president’s command was supported by the rakyat, and ‘even by no less than’ (bahkan tidak kurang) Universitas Indonesia’s student council, which was ‘the backbone of KAMI’ (Poesponegoro and Notosusanto 1990, 6: 407-8). ABRI, however, notes the
Sejarah, ‘as a group which was ‘experienced’ (matang) in facing political intrigues’ (of which, it is implied, the call for the formation of a Sukarno Front was an example) declared that the formation of the Sukarno Front was not necessary since the rakyat, including ABRI, already represented a Sukarno Front. The designation of ABRI’s response to Sukarno’s call as that of a politically ‘experienced’ group suggests that by initially supporting the formation of the Sukarno Front, students (and the rakyat) are still ‘inexperienced’ in matters of politics, especially in recognising the signs of ‘political intrigue’. This inexperience means that students may be more easily deceived by those with vested political interests (in this case, Sukarno) and as such more open to being exploited (ditunggangi). The accusation that students are susceptible to exploitation delegitimises their criticisms of the state. As Naipospos argues, following the 1974 demonstrations:
[t]he term ditunggangi became the government’s official designation for subsequent student movements. The government’s use of the term gave the impression of sympathy and openness to students’ criticisms. But on the other hand, if there were demonstrations with which the government disagreed, they were immediately stamped as being ditunggangi (1996, 26).53
By describing students’ actions as those of a politically inexperienced group, the
Sejarah implies that were it not for the political maturity of ABRI, students might have been deceived by the political intrigues of Sukarno. This is consistent with the broad emphasis in New Order policy on students from the 1970s on the need to ‘improve and develop’ (membina) the young generation and to educate them in key national values and ideologies so that they develop ‘political maturity’.
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Istilah ‘ditunggangi’ kemudian menjadi istilah resmi pemerintah bagi gerakan mahasiswa berikutnya. Dengan istilah itu pemerintah seolah-olah menunjukkan kesan simpati dan terbuka terhadap kritik mahasiswa. Tapi di pihak lain, bila ada aksi yang tidak berkenan di mata pemerintah dengan segera dicap ditunggangi (Naipospos 1996, 26).
Conclusion
The Sejarah’s version of these key moments in Indonesia’s modern history portrays youth and students as a group concerned for the interests of the rakyat as a whole and as the pioneers of the idea of the nation and national unity. Students are also represented as recognising and respecting the authority of their leaders and, even if there were occasional differences of opinion between the old and the young generation, these were resolved through culturally appropriate means of deliberation and consensus. Students’ historical role in politics was, on occasion, as radical defenders of the nation and of Indonesia’s independence. In keeping with the New Order’s concern to limit contemporary students’ involvement in politics to ‘analysis’, however, this role was largely represented as a symbolic one and students’ active role in political events backgrounded.
Throughout the Sejarah’s account, the role of youth and students is framed in terms of the organicist values of the New Order state, which emphasised family values, including respect for elders, placing the interests of the collective over those of the individual, and order, harmony and stability, achieved through the consensus produced by deliberative decision-making. In this sense, the Sejarah’s representation of the historical roles of Indonesia’s youth and students was an integral part of the state’s program of ideological indoctrination, which aimed to education and socialise Indonesian citizens, including the young generation, into the key values and ideologies of the regime. More specifically, the Sejarah’s account of these moments was an attempt to delimit what it was possible to say about the historical roles of Indonesia’s youth and students in the context of the state’s efforts to depoliticise students’ roles and identities. This strategy of government aimed to modify the ways in which contemporary youth and students were able to act in their identities as students. It also aimed to provide the conditions within which contemporary students could police their own behaviour. The success of these efforts is the subject of the following chapter.