Student leaders meet to discuss role in society

By Yoko N. Sari

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Approximately 150 students from 75 universities across Indonesia are gathering here this week to discuss the role they must now play in society.

One of the debates will, no doubt, be centered around campus politics. This meeting comes amidst signs of a new attempt to revive students' political activism in the face of tight official restrictions.

Minister of Education and Culture Wardiman Djojonegoro, who gave the keynote address opening the meeting on Thursday, warned students not to look towards the heyday of the student movement of the 1960s.

Such student activism is a thing of the past, Wardiman said.

Instead, students should answer the challenges of the future and help this nation develop, he said.

"Reviving the student movement is not the answer," he said. "We still have plenty to catch."

Wardiman virtually told the students not to duplicate the massive student movement of the mid-1960s which helped bring down President Sukarno in 1966 and paved the way for Soeharto, then a young army general, to take the reins.

Many of these student leaders are now in the government themselves.

"In 1966, the nation was in a state of chaos, both economically and politically," Wardiman said. "Now the situation is different. We are facing different challenges."

The meeting, held on the campus of the Gadjah Mada University, brings together the leaders of the student senates from 75 different universities. It is scheduled to wind up on Sunday.

The senates in the 1960s provided student leaders with a spring board to launch their political activities. Nowadays, the senates are strictly under the rectors' supervision and their activities are restricted to the campus.

"A students senate is not a political organization but an academic organization to accommodate students activity," Wardiman said.

The government is not asking students to shun politics altogether but to refrain from conducting political activities on campus, he said.

Students wishing to enter political careers should turn to the political parties, he added.

He also noted that, in the past, many student activists have simply turned to the senate because they were not doing well in their academics.

He also warned the students not to equate academic freedom with campus freedom.

In clarification he said that the latter means freedom to discuss, to join organization and express their feeling scientifically. However, he felt that this freedom can never be absolute because there are norms and values to respect.

He felt that, even when holding academic discussions, students should be selective and not pick on subjects that could be politically sensitive because they could fan the flames of an already difficult issue.

The meeting of the leaders of student senates is being held with the objective of finding the appropriate role that university students should now play, R. Widodo, the chairman of the organizing committee said.

For the past two decades, the students' roles have not been optimal, he said, recalling that Indonesia has had a history of active and effective student movements before then.

"This meeting provides us with an opportunity to unite in taking part in the national development program," Widodo said.

Some parties in the government were suspicious about the intention of the meeting, and some university rectors had even gone as far as barring their senates from sending representatives to Yogyakarta, according to the students.

Maj. Gen. Hari Sabarno, assistant to the chief of the political affairs of the Armed Forces, said in his address to the meeting that there was no need for students to suspect the intentions of the military.

He acknowledged that such feelings were based on traumas from the past but stressed that the military's chief concern is security and stability of the nation.