HMI roles in society now questioned

HMI roles in society now questioned

By Santi WE Soekanto

JAKARTA (JP): Chaotic as it was, the recent congress of the
Moslem Students Organization (HMI) eventually resolved conflicts
among its members and elected its new leaders.

The new chairman, Taufiq Hidayat, and his friends were also
able to present programs which they believe will answer President
Soeharto's call when he opened the congress: that HMI prepare
itself to meet future challenges brought about by development and
globalization.

Prior to the congress the organization had found out that
public places an impossible burden upon it: the burden of having
to compete with the ghost of the past.

A number of political observers greeted the congress by
engaging in nostalgia, and comparing, unfavorably, the
performance of the current HMI members with that of their
predecessors, many of whom now occupy important decision-making
positions.

"The HMI is no longer popular among students...and the
organization, which once gave birth to young intellectuals, is
now in an intellectual crisis," said Nazaruddin Syamsudin of the
University of Indonesia during one discussion last month.

"The HMI does not even exist on the campuses. Outside the
campuses, it no longer makes a significant contribution, so, what
role does the HMI have in society now?" he said.

Prominent political observer Fachry Ali criticized the
organization even more harshly, saying that "the HMI is almost
nothing now". He said the existence of the HMI "is preserved only
because it's been taking shelter under the wing of another
organization, KAHMI (an association of HMI alumnae)."

Fachry, as quoted by Kompas, said the organization was now in
a difficult position, politically, socially, and culturally.
"It's no longer a Moslem youth organization which is able to come
up with ideas for reforms the way its former members did," he
said.

In short, these discussions compared the current HMI
unfavorably with the old HMI, whose members were instrumental in
organizing mass rallies and protests and eventually helped topple
the Old Order of President Sukarno in the mid-1960s.

Those HMI activists, and the leaders of other students
organizations that were prominent in the 1960s, have come to be
called the Generation of '66.

Unfortunately, it is not only the HMI which suffers from being
unfairly compared with the ghost of past student activists. Other
student organizations, including GMNI (nationalists), PMKRI
(Catholics), GMKI (Christian) and AMPI, which is affiliated to
the ruling Golkar group, have fared no better.

Some contemporary student activists and observers say that
student organizations are now in a no-win situation.

They have no leeway to engage in political activism, the way
their seniors did, while academic courses are arranged in such a
way as to impose on them a burden which is not easy to handle.

It was House Speaker Wahono who pointed out how unfair the
comparison was, given the fact that times have changed.

He said in a recent seminar that "the success of the
Generation of '66 resulted from several factors, including the
fact that their orientation was in harmony with that of most of
the people...while (at the same time) there was a disparity
between the aspirations of (successive) legislative councils and
the aspirations of the people."

This unity with the people created, he said, "support and
participation, not only from the students who were grouped in
KAMI, KAPI, KAPPI...(all names of student movements of the
1960s), but also from the people."

Wahono said the most important factor was the support provided
by the armed forces: "If the Armed Forces had not sided with the
(student) movement at that time, the struggle of the Generation
of '66 would not have gone as smoothly."

A by-product of the "success of the Generation of '66 was the
emergence of heroes ... and people understood and saw it as
fitting if these students now became government leaders," Wahono
said.

Another factor hampering the student organizations in recent
times has been the government's campaign, since 1978, to
depoliticize the campuses, through the introduction of the
"normalization of campus life" concept and the abolition of
students senates. Critics of these policies say they effectively
put an end to the students' movement and opportunities to
generate new leaders.

Safrizal, a student activist from the National University in
Jakarta, and Fauzi, from the Pontianak-based Tanjung Pura
University, both acknowledged a feeling of "entrapment" regarding
the student movement.

Safrizal, who organized a national seminar on student
demonstrations in Jakarta last month, said he and his friends
feel they are "up against a wall".

If they decide to express their concerns about society and
take to the streets to demonstrate for various causes, they often
have to deal with security forces. Back on the campus, they are
tied up with the old dilemma of "study or politics?".

"I believe most of students today still have a burning desire
to do something great," he said. "But institutions and
organizations within the campus cannot meet our demands."

"We have a moral responsibility towards our society, but how
we actualize it is another question," he said. "But at least we
still retain a spirit...to do something better."

Fauzi complained of feeling of desperation when it comes to
campus activities. "There's not much that we can do, so we go on
holding more fun activities, like music shows, instead of doing
something really good for people around us," he said.

Political observer Arbi Sanit acknowledged that there is no
justifiable reason for the public to compare HMI and other
student organizations at present with the old student movements.

He pointed out that the current political climate is marked
with the state's dominance over the people, and it is reflected
in the way student organizations perform.

"Just like the rest of the population, many of the youth
groups function only to provide legitimacy for the power
holder ... they merely translate the wish of the interest groups
in the political superstructure," he said.

The public, he said, knows enough not to demand members of the
youth groups to show similar achievements with their
predecessors. "But these young people should also try to free
themselves from the trap of this 'legitimacy-giving' role and
find their own direction again," he said.

"They should find the motivation to do something concrete, if
not politically, at least socially," he said. "They should learn
from non-governmental organizations, and go directly to work for
the people."

"They should contribute, no matter how small, toward effort to
improve people's welfare," Arbi said.