'Youth bodies can no longer cling to power'

'Youth bodies can no longer cling to power'

JAKARTA (JP): A former student activist said youth organizations must stop depending on ties with those in positions of power and rely on their own abilities.

"When Indonesia becomes part of the global free market, youth organizations can no longer depend on links with powerful people for their existence," Hariman Siregar said yesterday.

"Ministers will only be in power to serve ... bids will be determined by the private sector," said Hariman, one of the leaders of the early 1970s.

"Personal achievement, instead of connections, will be what counts," he said at a meeting held by the Indonesian Youth Committee (KNPI).

Hariman said the public now views KNPI "as a mere vehicle for the coopted elite of the younger generation to acquire political positions in legislature or government."

This, he said, is a side effect of the government's tendency to impose uniformity on the activities and vision of organized youths.

"Earlier activists should have anticipated this," said Hariman, the former head of the Students' Senate of the University of Indonesia from 1973 to 1974.

"(The uniforming tendency) was a reaction of the ruling elite of the New Order government to straighten out the 'chaos' among youth organizations ... which were affiliated to the existing political groupings."

Appeal

Earlier this year, State Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports Hayono Isman said youth organizations have less appeal to the young people than various non-governmental organizations.

Hayono blamed the inability of the youth organizations to respond to public needs, and noted that some KNPI leaders used their positions to further their own personal interests.

But Hariman blamed the government policy for organized youths which "has stunted criticism" within KNPI.

Uniformity imposed on a heterogeneous society, he said, hampers development.

He said this uniforming tendency, and "distortion" in the form of intervention into KNPI's decisions by the Office of the State Minister of Youths Affairs and Sports, has led KNPI to become "an extension of the bureaucracy."

With an orientation to secure political positions, KNPI leaders have also divided the youths into "who gets the spoils and who doesn't", Hariman said.

As a result in the past 20 years, the young generation represented by KNPI "has severed the tradition of the youth movement," Hariman said.

This tradition in Indonesia dictates that "the young come forth in times of crisis," he said.

This can only happen if youths know closely the society around them, something which they cannot do if they are oriented towards power, he said.

The government, he said, must refer to the 1993 State Guidelines and abandon the policy of imposing uniforming.

The Guidelines state the need "for a more healthy, dynamic and democratic climate...to encourage the young generation to play a larger role in development."

It is stated further that the role of youth organizations should be more independent. (anr)