There have been a number of studies of the language of the New Order state. These have been undertaken both by Indonesian and non-Indonesian scholars. The majority are in the form of short academic articles although two book-length studies have been produced (Berman 1998; Eriyanto 2000). Of these studies a number focus on the use of single keywords (Heryanto 1995; Bowen 1986) or sets of keywords (van Langenberg 1986, 1990). Others have used presidential speeches as a means of analysing more global structures of New Order language use (Matheson Hooker 1995; Eriyanto 2000). A number have also examined the relationship between New Order language use and the dynamics of power (Saryono and Syaukat 1993; Berman 1998; Langston 2001).
While the majority of these studies have focussed on the powerful aspects of New Order language use, most also acknowledge the presence of resistance to New Order language practices. The amount of attention this receives is variable, however, ranging from a single line to a more substantial discussion and there is little attempt to analyse the relations between New Order language practices and practices of resistance. A number of studies have approached the issue of resistance to the New Order from the perspective of literature and the performing arts (see for example Hatley 1990; Foulcher 1990; Clark 2001; Errington 2001; Hill 1979; see also Matheson Hooker 1999) although the emphasis tends to be on the macro-level themes of resistance and not on more micro-level aspects. This study is thus one of the first to consider in detail the linguistic aspects of opposition and resistance to the New Order. It foregrounds analysis of one form of resistance by examining one of the key groups which consistently challenged the regime. A significant strength of this study is that it focuses in detail on the role of language in the articulation of power and resistance to power. As a result, this study will make a significant contribution to understanding the micro-level dynamics of opposition in New Order Indonesia.
The seminal work on the political aspects of Indonesian language is Benedict Anderson’s 1966 paper, ‘The languages of Indonesian politics’, republished in 1990 in the collection Language and power: Exploring political cultures in Indonesia
(Anderson 1990b). As the title suggests, Anderson sees Indonesian politics in the late 1960’s as encompassing a number of different ‘vocabularies’ or ‘languages’
(discourses), including bureaucratic colonial, Western democratic-socialist, nationalist- revolutionary, and Javanese traditional. Anderson’s primary concern is to trace the development of these discourses through the colonial and early post-colonial period to their synthesis in the language of Indonesian politics in the late 1960s. The aim is to explain how this synthesis was and continues to be transformed ‘to adjust to the realities of urban Indonesia’ at the beginning of the New Order period. This process of adjustment, Anderson claims, is best understood from the perspective of the growing imposition of Javanese language and cultural modalities onto ‘revolutionary Malay’.33 This shift, he suggests, had its origins in the slowing of the revolutionary impulse, which came about as the result of changes in political, economic and social practices in the period after the revolution.
Anderson’s article offers a unique perspective on language use at the beginning of the New Order given that it was another 20 years before any further detailed studies of New Order language use were produced. His paper is the only one which seeks to identify the historical origins of the ‘languages’ of the New Order. Yet the changes which took place in New Order language use, even in the period immediately following the initial publication of Anderson’s article, mean that his conclusions regarding the ‘fusion’ of bureaucratic colonial, Western democratic-socialist, nationalist-revolutionary, and Javanese traditional discourses were not borne out in precisely the way he envisaged. During the New Order’s first few years, for example, nationalist-revolutionary discourse took on a markedly different character, which the gradual disappearance of the term ‘revolution’ from official speeches and texts exemplified (see Cribb 1992, 405). Western democratic-socialist discourse was also quickly stripped of its socialist aspects and democracy redefined in uniquely ‘Indonesian’ terms as ‘Pancasila democracy’. The bureaucratic character of New Order language also flourished (see Anderson 1994, 138-9; see also Bourchier 1996, 245-50). At the same time, ‘Javanese’ linguistic and cultural frameworks continued to dominate at least in the language of the state and the bureaucracy (see Errington 1986, 2001; Sneddon 2003, 139-40; Kleden 1998).
During the 1980s and 1990s several studies of New Order language use employed Raymond Williams’ ‘keywords’ approach, focusing on either sets of keywords (van
33
The Javanisation of Indonesian has in fact been well documented by both Indonesian (Pabottingi 1991; Moeliono 1989, 40-1) and non-Indonesian (Siegel 1986) scholars.
Langenberg 1986, 1990) or on single keywords (Heryanto 1995; Bowen 1986). Michael van Langenberg’s 1986 article ‘Analysing the New Order state: A keywords approach’ represents one of the first attempts to analyse the structure of the New Order state through ‘its own indigenous discourse’ (van Langenberg 1986, 1). Van Langenberg identifies a basic lexicon of forty keywords, which he defines, following Raymond Williams, as ‘significant, binding words in certain activities and their interpretation’ (van Langenberg 1986, 1). These keywords identify and provide the link between the five major facets of the state: power, accumulation, legitimacy, culture and dissent.
Van Langenberg’s analysis provides a systematic account of the interaction between the key terms of New Order political discourse as the expression of the state’s ideology and the way in which the state maintains its hegemony. It is concerned with how keywords both describe and are involved in the establishment and maintenance of state power. The keyword bapak (father), for example, which van Langenberg categorises as a keyword of power, articulates ‘the overall structure of social stratification in Indonesia’. Similarly, the keyword Gestapu (Gerakan September Tigapuluh, Thirtieth of September Movement) justifies the New Order’s authoritarian mode of rule by serving as a constant reminder of the danger posed by the ‘enemies of the state’. In this way, van Langenberg’s analysis represents not only a novel contribution to the understanding of the New Order state formation but an explicit acknowledgement of the connection between language and power.
The emphasis on ideologies of dissent is also of value. As van Langenberg points out, dissent is both ‘a product of the state-formation and a determining factor upon it’. The keywords of dissent he identifies are focused around religious belief, cultural identity, ethics, morality, and social justice (van Langenberg 1986, 28). Such issues have, according to van Langenberg, been central to dissent since the New Order’s inception and remain important loci of opposition today.34
In a later paper van Langenberg revisits the keywords approach, making some adaptations to the original lexicon and incorporating new keywords (including
deregulasi (deregulation) of the economy and regenerasi (regeneration), referring to the
34
Anders Uhlin, for example, has described Islamic pro-democracy discourses in which Islamic values and Islamic concepts are central aspects of opposition. Similarly, a common goal of pro-democracy discourses is social justice and the demand for human rights (Uhlin 1997, 129-30 & 145)
generational change in the leadership of the state) to fit in with recent events and changes in policy (van Langenberg 1990). Of particular note is the redefinition of the state as encompassing eight major facets, including four main arenas: a state-system, civil society, private realms and public realms, and four processes: dominance, hegemony, production and markets. However, this reformulation appears to have resulted in a loss of emphasis on dissent, which van Langenberg claims has been domesticated under the auspices of the policy of political openness (keterbukaan) (van Langenberg 1990, 136).35
Ariel Heryanto’s (1995) analysis of the term pembangunan (development) also takes a ‘keyword approach’ (see also Heryanto 1988, 1990b). Heryanto’s central concerns are to outline the political, economic, and cultural variables involved in the construction of the various definitions of pembangunan, to trace the continuities and changes that have taken place in these definitions, and to explore the implications of these changes and continuities for contemporary Indonesian society.
Like van Langenberg, Heryanto sees pembangunan as a keyword in New Order Indonesia. Pembangunan, he suggests, has an all-pervasive presence in the official life of the nation. In this sense, he argues, the word pembangunan defines reality:
The keyword Pembangunan … is ‘constitutive’ because it gives Pembangunan
its actual existence, as well as its recognisable and workable nature. The metaphor, Pembangunan, provides a set of boundaries within which the general population is urged to concentrate their views of reality, from which and within which to explore the vast changes in which they are engulfed (Heryanto 1995, 9).
According to Heryanto, the all-pervasive nature of Pembangunan in qualifying individuals, institutions, concepts or activities:
indicates the espousal of controlled or approved processes of social interaction, in thought and behaviour, which are conducive to maintaining or reproducing the state-desired economic, political, and cultural status quo (Heryanto 1995, 10).36
35
As this study shows, dissent was by no means wholly domesticated. Although the period of openness to some extent did assimilate soft-line opposition, student protest in fact escalated during this period.
36
Vedi Hadiz suggests that the Pancasila indoctrination courses for civil servants (Pedoman Penhayatan dan Pengamalan Pancasila, P4) were successful in ‘totally stultify[ing] the minds of people’ (cited in Bourchier 1996, 247). However, as Bourchier notes, pointing to Ramage’s 1994 study of Pancasila discourse, ‘lively and vigorous debates are possible within the framework of Pancasila discourse’ (ibid.).
Heryanto recognises the possibilities for resistance to these approved processes of social interaction. Pembangunan, he argues, has not ‘exhausted the population’s consciousness’ nor the potential of the language (Heryanto 1995, 10).
The anthropologist John Bowen’s 1986 study of the concept of gotong royong (mutual assistance) in Indonesia takes a similar approach. Bowen explores the ways in which the category of gotong royong ‘has provided ideological material for political discourse and for state intervention into rural society’ (1986, 545). Yet, as Bowen points out, villagers themselves do not always interpret the term gotong royong in the way in which the state intends: alongside the official understanding of gotong royong as the authentic ‘spirit’ of the Indonesian community are the ‘everyday’ understandings of gotong royong. In these understandings, gotong royong is seen as either a convenient term for pre-existing local practices of reciprocity or as a euphemism for the labour demands made of villagers by the state. Local responses to state intervention thus vary from ‘acceptance based on a strategic misrecognition of the basis for the labour demand to tacitly ignoring the dictates of the state’ (Bowen 1986, 558-9).
Van Langenberg’s analysis is undertaken from the perspective of state theory. And while both Bowen and Heryanto take an anthropological approach, only Heryanto focuses on the linguistic aspects of the keyword pembangunan, and even then the focus is on single word. As a result, despite their relative strengths, the keywords approaches offer little in the way of detailed linguistic analysis. Moreover, while the keywords are considered in terms of their broader social, cultural and political contexts, the textual contexts, and the relationship between the textual context and the broader social, cultural and political contexts, is not considered.
Virginia Matheson Hooker’s study of New Order presidential speeches offers considerably more in this regard. Matheson Hooker applies Halliday’s register theory in examining ‘the interaction between the language of the New Order Independence Day addresses [Pidato Kenegaraan] and their social context’ (Matheson Hooker 1995, 276; see also Hooker 1996). She begins by discussing the New Order policy of language development. One of the major policy goals, she notes, has been the standardisation of the language and the promotion of proper and correct (baik dan
benar) use (see also Sneddon 2003, chapter 7; Errington 1998, 274-5).37 This, she claims, is not merely an aesthetic concern but rather represents an example of language manipulation and a means of establishing the hegemony of the officially sanctioned mode of expression (see also Heryanto 1987, 1992; Pabottingi 1991; Moeliono 1989; Sudjoko 1989).
Matheson Hooker takes Suharto’s presidential addresses commemorating Independence Day as a benchmark for formal, baik dan benar (correct and proper) New Order language (1995, 274). The speeches, she claims, have developed a regular format which enables them to be easily compared (see also Teeuw 1988). Using as her framework the three register variables - field, tenor and mode - Matheson Hooker analyses the Independence Day Addresses in relation to the social and political context in which they were presented.
In terms of their field, she notes, the Independence Day Addresses are concerned with the role and aims of the New Order. According to the speeches, the primary role of the New Order is the pure and consistent implementation of the Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution, which includes the correction of ‘deviations’ from the ideals expressed in the proclamation. The New Order also functions as the provider of a ‘way of life’ (tatanan kehidupan) for the nation, which is consistent with the Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution. In addition to this, a number of other themes pervade the texts including the concept of demokrasi (democracy), stabilitas nasional (national stability), kemajuan
(progress) and kekeluargaan (family principles).
The tenor of the speeches is formal and authoritative. A strong sense of distance is established between the president and the immediate and wider national audience. The members of the MPR are addressed using conventional phrases. The wider audience, however, is never addressed directly although they are included in the speech through the use of kita (we: inclusive) and through references to rakyat (the people), masyarakat
(society) and bangsa (nation).
37
Errington notes, for example, that ‘Indonesian is considered … as part of the nation-state’s infrastructure, promoting homogeneity among citizens across national territory and so facilitating the modernisation of the economy and the stabilisation of social configurations. It is likewise derivative of a state-supervised, ‘top-down’ process, through which Indonesian is superimposed on otherwise diverse communities through a bureaucratically hierarchised system of state-sponsored or state-supervised schools. It resonates with the vision of bounded but socially and linguistically homogenous space characteristic of national forms of territoriality (1998, 275).
The mode of the speeches is written although they are intended to be read aloud. Rationality and forward planning are expressed through the constant repetition of vocabulary items such as dalam rangka (in the framework of), landasan (base, starting point) and tahapan (stage, phase). A sense of continuous consolidation in the development of the nation is expressed through the repetition of the word lagi (again) and through the use of the memper- form of the verb, indicating intensification of the quality expressed in the base word.38
This New Order discourse is then compared with the type of public discourse used by former president Sukarno during his Independence Day address of 1966. Matheson Hooker concludes that the differences between the two indicate that New Order discourse, with its formal style and emphasis on detailed planning, was ‘fashioned deliberately as a reaction and a contrast to the style of the previous government’ (1995, 284-5).
Eriyanto (2000) also uses presidential speeches as a means of analysing the language of the New Order regime. His approach is based on Teun van Dijk’s method of discourse analysis and focuses on a detailed analysis of the linguistic features of the texts including theme, structure, semantic strategies, sentence level features, keywords and style. These features are then linked to Suharto’s world view and to the consolidation of his power. For example, Eriyanto suggests that linguistic strategies used in presidential speeches are aimed at controlling information. In this way, information which is of advantage to the regime, such as economic successes or the reduction of debt, is given explicitly and the sentence structure is often active. Information which presents the regime in a negative light, including the presence of social conflict or political opposition, is given in an implicit and vague way, and the sentence expressed in the passive voice (Eriyanto 2000, 116). Active and passive sentences, nominalisation and abstraction are also used to foreground the positive actions and strengths of the regime or to deemphasise weaknesses or failures (Eriyanto 2000, 146-51). In addition, Suharto uses the first person inclusive pronoun kita (we) as a means of demonstrating his representation of the wishes of the people and to cultivate a relationship of solidarity with his wider audience (Eriyanto 2000, 156-9). Suharto also establishes semantic
38
In the verb mempercepat (accelerate), for example, is constructed from the base word cepat, meaning ‘fast’ or ‘quick’.
monopolies over the interpretation of certain key words, including pembangunan
(development), Pancasila, kebudayaan nasional (national culture), and adil makmur
(just and prosperous), and uses strategies such as euphemism, labelling and ‘newspeak’ in order to manipulate the meaning of certain words and obscure others (Eriyanto 2000, chapter 8).39
Saryono and Syaukat also take a linguistic approach to the analysis of New Order power, suggesting that the New Order’s use of language reflects the dynamics of power. Their focus is on the ways that the New Order authorities consolidated and strengthened their power through language and the linguistic responses of wider society to the New Order’s power (Saryono and Syaukat 1993, 55-56). One of the key ways that the New Order consolidated its power, they argue, was through the linguistic ‘smoothing’ (penghalusan) of concepts which might endanger the New Order’s power. Terms such as komersialisasi jabatan (commercialisation of positions) for bureaucratic corruption and kekurangan gizi (nutritional deficiencies) for famine are examples of this. The New Order also exaggerated perceived threats in order to deny or discredit non-state actors, classifying them as subversif (subversive), or applying the labels ekstrim kiri (extreme left) and ekstrim kanan (extreme right). In addition, the use of phrases such as demi kepentingan umum (for the common good), demi pembangunan (in the interests of development) and kita perlu mengetatkan tali pinggang (we need to tighten our belts) were designed to direct the public’s attention away from negative aspects of development and unite them behind the New Order (Saryono and Syaukat 1993, 60-1).
Despite these measures, Saryono and Syaukat argue that Indonesian society was able to exert some control on the New Order’s use of power in language. The key means by which they did this was by satirising official acronyms and concepts. The acronym for the Indonesian civil servants association, Korpri (Korps Pegawai Republik Indonesia), for example, was said to stand for koruptor pribumi (corrupt Indonesian official). Similarly, the term ganti rugi (compensation), used by the New Order to refer to the compensation given to villagers whose land had been taken over by the government for development projects (often promised and seldom given), was taken to mean ‘meskipun diganti ya tetap rugi’ (‘even though things have changed, we still lose out’). They conclude that the position of the New Order authorities over wider Indonesian society
39
See also Hidayat (1999). Lubis (1989) and Anwar (1989) discuss the use of euphemisms and other political aspects of New Order language practices.
remains dominant and society’s power weak. This is so, they suggest, because wider society is only able to express dissent in subtle linguistic ways while the New Order authorities are able to consolidate their power clearly and openly (Saryono and Syaukat 1993, 66-7).
The approaches of Matheson Hooker, Eriyanto and Saryono and Syaukat offer valuable insights into the micro-level aspects of power and language during the late New Order