One year on and students still pushing for change

One year on and students still pushing for change

Demonstrating university students were among the major
elements behind the immense pressure that eventually forced
Soeharto to resign a year ago. Hermawan Sulistyo, director of the
Research Institute for Democracy and Peace reevaluates the
student movement.

JAKARTA (JP): Many observers theorized that Soeharto was
forced out of power a year ago by his fourteen dissenting cabinet
ministers. It has been made public that the fourteen ministers
submitted a joint letter of resignation on the night before May
21, 1998 when the president made his well known "I quit"
announcement. But this perception is arguable at least for two
reasons.

First, if Soeharto's past political behavior could be used as
a benchmark, there was no evidence that he ever made compromises
with dissenting aides. In fact, he had always reacted sternly
against any political opposition. Second, the joint resignation
letter from his ministers never reached him that night. A high
ranking official had kept the letter in his pocket. Nevertheless,
Soeharto did learn that his ministers wanted to resign.

What had really forced Soeharto out then was the immense
public pressure spearheaded by the demonstrating students.
Perceptions on this issue are important, for historiography can
be written differently. Student movements are then inarguably the
most significant factor in pushing the first fundamental change
in today's political life.

Now, one year on, many prodemocracy activists are not happy
with the outcome of the political reform movement. Other than
press freedom, there was almost nothing else that could be
considered as an encouraging result. So, what has gone wrong?

The question looms over recent stubbornness on the part of the
regime to consolidate itself. Meanwhile, students are still
taking to the streets espousing their demands for total reform.
Their demand to bring former president Soeharto to court has
never been met.

The students who are the prime movers behind this reform
activism started their movement as a moral force. Former
president Soeharto, a strong leader, was seen as a symbol of
degrading morality who was the only target of the movement. When
the students finally did succeed in achieving this single goal,
they were caught in confusion. Some immediately rejected Habibie
as President, some others were willing to give Habibie a chance
to prove himself and the rest simply supported him.

Starting as a moral force bore a consequence in which students
lost their force when the nature of struggle transformed itself
to become more political. It was not like the political force of
the student movement in 1965-1966 when waves of protests brought
with them demands to dissolve and ban the communist party (PKI)
from the Indonesian political landscape.

At the beginning, the students never demanded Golkar to be
dissolved. Now, the party managed to consolidate itself to become
the last bastion of the old regime. Students lost the "battle"
because they never perceived themselves as a political entity.
When students realized that they lost the subsequent "battle,"
Golkar and other elements of the old regime managed to survive,
at least.

Also contributing to the students' lost battle is the
"stealing" of the agenda of reform. From the beginning, no
political power was strong enough to adopt an agenda of a total
reform. When Habibie replaced Soeharto, his regime immediately
"stole" the reform agenda by naming itself a "reform government."

Operating under this banner Habibie's administration indeed
adopted a minor reform. Enactments of new political laws are a
clear example. The new law of the general election, for instance,
still stipulates the allocation of 38 free seats for the
Indonesian Military (TNI).

To some degree, a "reluctant reform" has made its success,
especially in demeaning student protests and taking over the
tasks of changing the system in a very slow way. The speed of the
"stolen changes" is not enough, since there is an economic crisis
that needs an urgent call for political remedies.

Many students now feel that the reform has moved in another
direction. They started to think about faster changes, something
they call "revolution." A revolution in this sense is nothing
more than a total reform. But the public has been misleadingly
interpreting the new "agenda" of student protests as something
violent and horrible.

Still moving as a moral force, the students also lost most
parts of its reform agenda to new political parties. The train of
democracy has changed locomotives. Unfortunately, political
parties are busy with their efforts to vie for power rather than
continue the original agenda of reform. To take an example, only
a few, if any, political parties give a serious assessment on the
mounting pile of foreign loans that the students will have to pay
someday.

Many student activists believe that most of their demands are
now impossible to implement. But they take the maximalist
position anyway for they know that being realistic would only
slow down the process of change while the country still urgently
needs changes. This is why after all their failures, they still
take to the streets. And we still need them.