V EL GRIEGO EN EL PRIMER MILENIO PANORAMA DIALECTAL

Above it was suggested that the Sejarah’s account of the 1966 demonstrations represented pemuda, pelajar and mahasiswa as playing a grammatically active role in a range of concrete actions. This, it was argued, served as a means of legitimising the actions Suharto took following the Supersemar as a response to the demands of the wider populace. Yet students are also represented as passive representatives of the

rakyat’s demands, as in, for example, the Sejarah’s description of the demonstrations:

The accumulating dissatisfaction of wider society eventually erupted in the form of demonstrations carried out by university and high school students. Pioneered by KAMI, demonstrations by students of Universitas Indonesia with their yellow jackets were begun on 10 January 1966… (Poesponegoro and Notosusanto 1990, 6: 406).50

The metaphor of ‘eruption’, signalled by the use of the words menumpuk (to accumulate or mount, as of pressure), and meledak (to erupt), signifying a spontaneous and uncontrolled occurrence, plays down the active role of the students in planning and carrying out the demonstrations. The use of the passive form of the verb in the phrase

dimulailah aksi-aksi demonstrasi (demonstrations were begun) also backgrounds the students’ active role. In this view, the student demonstrations are simply the spontaneous expression of the rakyat’s dissatisfaction, manifested in the physical form of demonstrations.

The Sejarah’s description of the formulation of the Tritura also transforms students into passive instruments of the rakyat’s demands. In the Sejarah’s account, students are merely the channels through which the demands of the people are communicated:

The feeling of dissatisfaction moved the conscience of the pemuda, and the Three Demands of the People’s Conscience, better known as the Tritura (Tri Tuntutan Rakyat) was ignited. On 12 [sic] January 1966, initiated by KAMI and KAPPI, the

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Ketidakpuasan masyarakat luas yang menumpuk itu akhirnya meledak dalam bentuk demonstrasi- demonstrasi yang dilakukan oleh mahasiswa dan pelajar. Dengan dipelopori KAMI dimulailah aksi-aksi demonstrasi mahasiswa Universitas Indonesia dengan jaket kuningnya pada tanggal 10 Januari 1966 …

action fronts united in the Pancasila Front approached the People’s Representative Council of Mutual Cooperation to put forward three demands (Tritura) namely: the dissolution of the PKI; the cleansing of the cabinet of elements of the Thirtieth of September Movement/PKI; and the lowering of prices/improvement of the economy (Poesponegoro and Notosusanto 1990, 6: 404).51

The students’ actions are here represented as a response to an uncontrolled emotion: the hardship faced by the people in the face of price rises moves the conscience (menggugah hati nurani) of the youth, and leads to the announcement of the Tritura. Similarly, the use of the ter- form of the verb in tercetuslah (was ignited) suggests that the formulation of the Tritura was a sudden and spontaneous process, rather than an intentional process directed by the students. The impression this gives is that the Tritura was not conceived by the students but instead simply ‘came into existence’. The students are also described as ‘putting forward’ (mengajukan) the three demands to the parliament. In this view, students are merely the medium through which the people’s demands are conducted.

The symbol Tritura also abstracts students’ role in events. In the Sejarah’s account, the Tritura as a symbol occupies a central place, in phrases such as pihak yang tidak senang terhadap Tritura (those who disliked the Tritura), perjuangan Tritura (Tritura struggle),

aksi-aksi Tritura (Tritura actions), tuntutan Tritura (Tritura demands), demonstrasi Tritura (Tritura demonstrations), and salah satu di antara Tritura telah dilaksanakan

(one of the Tritura had been carried out). Ben Anderson has pointed to the tendency of the language of Indonesian politics to bury ‘words of great symbolic power … within hermetic acronyms’. These acronyms, he argues, are not functional in the sense of being convenient abbreviations for specific policies and concrete institutions but rather represent ‘synthetic syntheses of ideas that refer to no concrete reality but that by verbal manipulation acquire a life of their own’ (Anderson 1990b, 147). For the students of 1966 the acronym Tritura represented ‘a theme for the struggle which was easily and quickly understood by the public’ (Martha, Wibisono and Anwar 1984, 315-6). Its use by the New Order, however, effectively embedded the politically potent words tuntutan

(demands) and rakyat (people) within an abstract concept. Moreover, far from

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Perasaan tidak puas menggugah hati nurani para pemuda, dan tercetuslah Tri Tuntutan Hati Nurani Rakyat yang lebih dikenal dengan sebutan Tritura (Tri Tuntutan Rakyat). Pada tanggal 12 Januari 1966 dipelopori oleh KAMI dan KAPPI [Kesatuan Aksi Pemuda Pelajar Indonesia], kesatuan-kesatuan aksi yang tergabung dalam Front Pancasila mendatangi DPR-GR [Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Gotong Royong] mengajukan tiga buah tuntutan (Tritura) yakni: pembubaran PKI; pembersihan kabinet dari unsur-unsur G-30-S/PKI; penurunan harga/perbaikan ekonomi (Poesponegoro and Notosusanto 1990, 6: 404). KAPPI was the Indonesian Youth and Student Action Front.

representing the easily comprehended concept which the students intended, during the New Order the Tritura became a concept which required deep reflection in order for its true meaning to be revealed. In his address on the occasion of the nineteenth anniversary of the Tritura in 1985, for example, Suharto stated:

If we reflect on it deeply, the Tritura has a deeper and more fundamental significance than that which was formulated. The dissolution of the PKI embodied a will to defend, uphold and implement the Pancasila… The cleansing of the Cabinet from PKI elements manifested a determination to build a clean and authoritative government… The lowering of prices/improvement of the economy embraced a resolution to rectify the uncontrollable economic decline at the time, since it was only by putting the economy back on its feet that the development which provided progress and prosperity to the entire Indonesian people … could be achieved (Suharto 1985, 18).52

In this view, the Tritura was a concept to be meditated upon, recalled and celebrated on key historical occasions. It was the Tritura as a symbol, and not the students, which occupied the central place in Indonesia’s history. This focus distances responsibility for action from the students themselves.

In the Sejarah’s version of events, then, students do not play an active role in representing the rakyat’s interests. Instead their demonstrations are the spontaneous expression of the rakyat’s dissatisfaction, and the students merely the medium through which the people’s demands are channelled. This representation aimed to ‘discourage’ the Sejarah’s contemporary student audience from seeing their role as leaders of the

rakyat or as playing an active role in speaking on behalf of the rakyat’s interests. In the New Order view, it was not students who were to represent the interests of the rakyat

but rather the state itself. The concept of the family-state to which the regime subscribed held that the state was the ultimate embodiment of the aspirations and interests of the rakyat. The state and the people were united within the state-family and the people’s aspirations were represented in the political system through the practice of functional representation within the legislative bodies. Moreover, since the New Order state had not yet come into existence at the time of the 1966 demonstrations, the Tritura

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Jika kita renungkan secara dalam, maka Tritura itu mempunyai arti yang lebih dalam dan lebih mendasar dari apa yang dirumuskan. Pembubaran PKI mengandung tekad untuk membela, menegakkan dan melaksanakan Pancasila … Pembersihan Kabinet dari unsur PKI mengandung tekad untuk membangun pemerintahan yang bersih dan berwibawa … Penurunan harga/perbaikan ekonomi mengandung tekad untuk membenahi segala kemerosotan ekonomi yang merajalela waktu itu, sebab hanya dengan pembenahan ekonomilah akan dapat dilaksanakan pembangunan yang memberikan kemajuan dan kesejahteraan kepada seluruh rakyat Indonesia (Suharto 1985, 18).

both highlights the failures of the previous regime and provides a justification for the transfer of power to Suharto.