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.