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.