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Indonesian

Youth: The Now Gener'Action'


By Afra Suci Ramadhan For all youth in Indonesia, you are quite lucky that this country dedicated a national day for youth pledge every 28th October. At least, young people in this country got historical justification for their roles as part of a nation. Youth pledge day commemoration often expose with any ceremonial moment paying homage to youth movement romanticism. In fact, the relationship between state of this nation and young generation is such a love-hate-love connection. At one moment, youth was an influential force on fighting Indonesian freedom, yet another time told different story. Youth movement was a serious threat for status quo because they demanded a reform, a revolution, or an innovation, which was not every regime expected. Indeed, youth movement has significant reputation in Indonesian historical timeline, every period has its own generation from 'class' of '45, '66, '77, to the latest one '98. The youth involvement in this nation endeavor also constituted on Indonesian Youth Law, UU no.40/2009. Indonesia also has Ministry of Youth and Sport, which intended to handle youth empowerment. The youth spirit seems to be adopted, but the fact whether young people needs are fulfilled with the existing policy remains unmapped. While the youth movement in the now generation is not as prominent as before, young people' contemporary initiative in this country cannot be seen in the same way that we see previous generation. Different context and circumstances generate new mode of youth movement. The post- authoritarian youth might seem ignorance, unprogressive, and precarious, yet without a pretension of revolution, this generation do refine and reorganize surroundings and society. What happened with youth in post-authoritarian era was unknown and rarely untold. As if it was an aftermath, there seems a gap between class of '98 and 2000's , which threw trivial speculations on the post-authoritarian youth. Some said that this generation (consider kids that was born in the late 80s) did not experience the new order oppression so if they initiate a movement, they don't know how it feels to have common enemy, the one that their predecessor fought over. Other acclaimed that current youth movement do not share the same goal, they are a segregated movement with different aims. The most cynical comment blamed the previous regime's policy, which was limiting youth movement with several policies such as NKK/BKK (Normalization of Campus Living/ Student Coordination Council). As result of restricted atmosphere and dogmatic school curriculum, this generation turned into conventional and ignorance. They no longer perceive on-the-street demonstration as a struggle, merely as a pointless annoying crowd. They are too busy maintaining their score at school and joining a tutor outside school to guarantee their national final test score. Besides school related pressure, they also busy with motorcycle club gathering or hanging out in the mall. Indeed, most of them did not know how abusive and limited the former regime, since they live in more democratic condition and have unlimited mobile

internet connection straight on their hands. The political participation of this group is quite diminished and they are losing force to protest any unfavorable policy about their own group. However the social apathy among young people cannot be seen as one of multidimensional effect of authoritarian regime only, this attitude can be seen as an expression of their disappointment towards current regime. Young people are not that blind, they are fully aware that previous reformation attempt has failed. The fact that 14 years after the new order downfall, the actual situation of this country did not evolve into better one. Corrupt bureaucracy, violence and conflict across country, unproductive government policy affected young people' perception to change the system from within. They thought that every attempt to improve the state system would be useless. This pessimism discouraged any intention or initiative to participate in political or social cause. It is not they are ignorance but what actually happened was the opposite, the government ignored them by excluding this group in the policy making or political participation. Furthermore, for a long time, youth movement is identified with students and formal organizations such as student council from some universities and organizations based on religious or a specific ethnic group affiliation. Youth movement in this country always associated with student movement. Even some religious or ethnic specific group was based on campus or student group, such as HMI (Islamic Student Association), GMKI (Indonesian Christian Students Movement. Campus was considered as significant medium to initiate subversive action and discuss progressive discourse. Yet, One of serious impacts of NKK/BKK was reducing the radical tension of militant students. Slowly but sure, campus life was losing its rebellious image and it became an ordinary spot for studying or academic activities. Those attempts in paralyzing youth movement in Indonesia almost successfully destroyed the now generation involvement in changing the system. But young people always had an answer for this kind of agony; they were born to reshaping the current. Post-authoritarian youth no longer considered campus or student council as the only option for their initiatives. As the society is more fragmented and technology is expanding, young people discovered different ways to set up social change. Now, they tend to find a specific issue or goal to be transformed, and then they gather with like- minded people as a community or loose group. They start from simple and local cause but related with grand social issue, which mostly they target a specific changes in culture, identity, lifestyle, etc. For instance, spreading tolerance through their artwork on the street or distributing free music album through netlabel. Some communities address more 'serious' issues such as sexuality and reproductive health rights, anti-graft, or empowering youth in democratic society. As result of institutional restriction such as legal student council or formal student- based organization, this new youth action initiatives believe in unofficial collective. This kind of group allows the cause or issue to be easily adopted and replicated by other

people in different areas without afraid of being exclusive. They also enabled wider participation with supports from social media and other online engagement. Thus, this format is likely more inclusive than formal attachment found in the existing legal student or youth organization. Everyone is allowed and invited to join the movement. For example, Berbeda&Merdeka 100%, a movement first initiated by street artist community is now embracing all young people and even Indonesian citizen across the country to participate by tagging or creating their own tolerance and anti-violence message and spreading it around their area. Another example of youth movement that belongs to everyone is '1000 Kartu Pos untuk Presiden' (1000 Postcards for President), which developed by several young people to encourage Indonesian citizen to express their message to President SBY through creative postcards written and made by them. At glance, these movements seemed fluid with peripheral issues, but it has to be admitted that they persuaded common people to think or join the action that actually spoke about important issue, pluralism in the 'Berbeda&Merdeka 100%' and activated citizen input toward current government in the 1000 Postcards for President. The trend of this new social movement is stretching out across the globe. Just like #Occupy movement, youth movement in Indonesia now located in civil society or cultural spheres as a major area for its collective action. Thus, unlike previous movement that challenged state in a way of aiming common goal to terminate new order authority, the present generation went local in terms of the scope of change that they wish to obtain. Do not expect them too much to advocate copyright issue in the parliament, because they prefer find and elaborate the alternate way to enjoy and distribute cultural product. Although, there are many young people and youth initiatives do the policy advocacy and target structural change, these no longer applied as main concern. Their goals remain unpretentious yet scattered, leave some people confused whether they can be classified as a social movement or not. For example, there is 'Indonesian Netlabel Union', an association of online record label that adopted creative common license in distributing music in Indonesia. This set of young people do not find the existing mode of music distribution fulfilling and only focusing on profit, so they initiated an internet based record label that released underrated talented bands or musician in Indonesia through creative common license. Usually, all visitors can download the albums for free but still conform to creative common framework. Their main goal is spreading free music from Indonesia without any claim to fight mainstream industry, they simply create alternative for people to enjoy music for free. With simple objective, this movement could transform (or at least offer other option) the way people enjoy music as cultural product. Moreover, some youth initiatives even go grass-root to outreach and empower other groups of young people directly. Although they have limited resources and deal with single issue, some community passionate to conduct trainings or capacity building for certain group. There is 'Needle N' Bitch', a circle of girls that concern in gender inequality and women body issue. This collective use fun and creative activities such as threading, crafting, or else to share conscience of gender issues or any issue related to

injustice. This community is self-organized and self-funded, they sell handmade cool crafts to support all activities. There are also some initiatives, which derived from established Non Governmental Organization (NGO). This community usually adopts its mother-organization issue by adjusting the agenda to be digested by younger and wider audience. For instance, SPEAK (Youth Voice of Anti-Corruption) which was facilitated by Transparency International Indonesia as youth space fighting for anti-corruption. The serious case like anti-graft often perceived as political and highbrow issue but SPEAK encourages young people to concern with anti-corruption starting from the family or school. The now generation is drained of jargon and political affiliation, what is meaningful for them is an everyday attempt to make change, no matters how big and significant the impact will be. Some literatures called this movement as 'everyday activism' that implied 'everyone is invited to make change'. However, the current form of movement evoked critics from within the movement or outer. In the same way of critics threw upon #occupy movement; the current youth movement has no clear goals. There is also a major question asking for what kind of ideology that this movement posses. Some also said that this kind of movement would not generate structural and systematic change since it is likely lack of policy intervention and advocacy. These critics will certainly open for discussion as the evidences are expanding out there with the multiplication of Indonesian youth initiatives. Indeed, technology offers medium to make anything possible and the current state of society cultivates different means of movement. Youth movement in the post- authoritarian era sees those as great opportunity to make action and spread it as widely as possible. The way we see the movement, however, depend on our cause and what will be achieved through the actions. Defining scope of change will affect the scope of initiatives and then the movement itself. Young people might be portrayed, as victim of consumerism era on the media, while some of them cannot wait any longer to make a change; they speak their mind, gather with like-minded youth, formulate the causes and plans, and then simply put them into action.

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