Moslem Student Organization in identity crisis
Moslem Student Organization in identity crisis
JAKARTA (JP): The Moslem Students Organization (HMI) will face nothing less than an agenda of crisis when it begins its twentieth congress today in Surabaya.
After President Soeharto opens the meeting today, leading figures of the 200,000-member organization will begin scrutinizing the issues of future leadership and the recruitment of members.
The organization, which used to have important roles on the domestic social and political scene, will have to deal with the question of what kind of role it should be playing in the present day.
HMI is now at the crossroads, facing the question of whether it needs to return to a greater involvement in politics, or whether it should "return to the campus", to a more academic orientation.
None less than its former leader, Akbar Tanjung, who used to be a vocal political activist and is now Minister of Public Housing, has urged HMI to withdraw from politics and "get back to campus".
"Nowadays it is no longer appropriate for the association to be involved in practical politics," Akbar said. "Of course an individual association member may indulge in practical politics in his private capacity, by joining one of the political organizations, but he must not do so while carrying the association's banner."
Established in 1947 in Yogyakarta, HMI became an important political force and was involved in the nation's struggle against communism during the chaotic years of the 1960s. Many HMI leaders went on to important positions in the bureaucracy.
Prominent former members of HMI include Finance Minister Mar'ie Muhammad, Golkar Deputy Chairman Abdul Gafur, Minister of Public Housing Akbar Tanjung, United Development Party chairman Ismail Hasan Metareum, Moslem scholar Nurcholish Madjid and political scientist Deliar Noer.
Since the late 1970s, when the government clamped down on student movements by introducing the concept of "normalization of campus life", HMI gradually lost its luster. When in early 1980s it decided to join other organizations in accepting the state ideology Pancasila as the sole foundation of all organizations, the religious student movement became dormant.
"The organization is in a coma," political scientist Dr. Maswadi Rauf of the University of Indonesia told The Jakarta Post yesterday. "It has been dormant for years, it no longer has political clout, and it has not been responding to various problems in the society."
Maswadi was in agreement with political observer Dr. Afan Gaffar of the Yogyakarta-based University of Gajah Mada that the most urgent problem facing HMI is its lack of strong leadership.
"HMI is in a crisis of leadership," Afan said. "It's been unable to produce leaders with clear vision, leaders who are as strong as its former figures like Nurcholish Madjid, Akbar Tanjung, or Mar'ie Muhammad."
Both men listed numerous steps that the organization needed to take in order to gain more clout in society, especially on campuses which during the last decade have seen student apathy and a reluctance to join any mass organizations.
"HMI should re-evaluate its situation and its roles, and re- orient itself if needs be," Afan said. "It should cooperate with other organizations and student movements, including those which are religion-based, in order to attract more members."
Even if the organization cannot be directly involved in practical politics, it should at least become a moral force in society, he said.
"The organization has been too quiet, it has not responded adequately to issues such as human rights, democratization, labor conditions and land disputes," Afan said.
Afan believed that some of the former members of HMI who join the Corps of HMI Alumnae (KAHMI) group, have contributed to the stagnation. Many members of KAHMI occupy important positions in bureaucracy.
"Many of those alumnae have a vested interest in making HMI weak...they hold the purse-strings of the organization," Afan said. "If HMI is too daring, these alumnae's positions might be threatened, so they tell it to keep quiet."
Maswadi backed Afan's opinion, saying HMI needs to rally all its resources and address the problems of "poor programs, poor recruitment mechanism and poor roles".
He suggested that HMI should now return to the campus, not in the sense of abandoning politics and concentrating only on academic matters, but with a view to training more members.
It should approach the education authorities, including the Minister of Education and Culture, to develop collective programs for addressing social issues, he said.
HMI should "re-invigorate its activities from the lowest layers of the organization, in order to cultivate new potential leaders," Maswadi said, adding that the group had to re-assert its independence.
"It should become more political, not in the sense of merely engaging in mud-slinging or raining criticism on power holders, but in the sense of being more involved with its surroundings," he said.
One of the most pressing problems that HMI will deal with in the congress, however, is that of leadership.
"We realize that our past recruitment has excluded quality cadres," outgoing chairman M. Yahya Zaini told the press.
Maswadi agreed. "The least that HMI can do now to start its campaign for greater independence is to elect an independent chairman," Maswadi said. (swe)