Motivation Formation of Student Movements

motivation formation

of student movements

Dr. Sarlito Wirawan Sarwono

Prologue

"Student" can be defined as a part of the community, which has two important qualities, namely: youth and intellectualism. Being young, the student is energetic, active, dynamic, curious and impatient. On the other hand, students are also intellectuals, or at least in the process to become intellectuals. They go to the universities so that they have the opportunity to develop their analytical ability, logic and ratio. As intellectuals they will become more critical, more innovative and more sensitive than the rest of the youth.

Given the two qualities, many social scientists assume that the student is one of the most important agents of change of a nation. Many social changes or even political changes in many countries throughout the world are triggered by student movements. Although it is impossible to list all student movements which have social or political implications, I think it is worth noting some of them as an illustration. The Zengakuren student movement in Japan is one example. Other examples are: the student movement in Turkey during the period of Menderes' government (1960), the Berkeley student revolt, the French student revolt, the Thai student movement in 1973, and the Indonesian student movement in 1966. We can even put Lenin's revolution in the list of examples since his revolution was launched when he was a student and was supported by his fellow students. We can also consider the case of Gavrillo Princip (the student who assassinated Prince Ferndinand in 1910) as one of the student movements, which triggered a world wide revolution, in this case the World War I.

However, in spite of convincing evidence listed above, one can also see some cases where the student fails to become the spearhead of a social or political change. In Indonesia, we experienced two important movements in 1974 and 1978, which did not lead to

any significant political change, although they had still some social and administrative impact on the governmental system. In places like the South American countries, African countries, communist countries and some Asian countries such as Singapore, we can hardly hear anything about student movements.

It is clear from the examples given above that although the student can be one of the most important agents of change, it is not necessary to be always the case. From my observation, I get the impression that the student will not have the role of pioneer of change if there are other political forces, which are stronger and more influential. These political forces could be civilian or military.

The Questions

The questions that arise to me as a person who is involved in a number of observations of student movements (and I believe will also be the interest of the audience, which consists mostly of student leaders) are:

1. Is it necessary that the student always takes a role as the initiator of social or political changes in a country?

2. If the answer is "yes", then why in some countries the student does not have the motivation to do so? Is there a way to motivate the students, to push them to move towards a better life of the nation?

The Student or the Military?

Particularly in developing countries, there is a tendency to change the traditional way of life of the nation to a more modern one. The process of change is called "modernization". To provide such changes there must be some parts of the community, which can act as the stimulator of change. These parts of the community should have some better qualities than the rest of the society because they must be able to see the alternatives-, the chances and the possibilities of implementing new ideas to encourage modernization. This group is usually small in number and usually called as the "elite" group of the community.

According to Adam Curie, the elite group in a developing country is the intellectuals. The intellectuals form a new class, which is called the "new elite" to replace the traditional elite: the feudals. The intellectuals are able to be the new elite because they studied western sciences, western languages and

western technologies and therefore, they are the first persons in the country who are able to adopt western values and to implement these values in their new posts after they finished their education (usually abroad) These intellectuals become the modernizers of the society and they in turn control society in its new values and systems,

However, as we can observe throughout the history of nations, the power of the new elite sometimes is not strong enough to influence the social or political life of the nation. It is quite often that the new elite is bounded to bureaucracies and routine jobs so that it does not have much time left to make important political decisions. India, Singapore and Malaysia are some of the rare countries where the political power is still in civilian hands. The rest of the developing countries are usually still governed by the military.

Why is the military so powerful in most developing countries? Lucian W. Pye argued that the military in a developing country is the modernizer institution because of two reasons:

1. The military is a modern institution, which is minimally influenced by the tradition of the community.

2. The members of the military have the privilege to live securely in a modern system with a minimum interruption from the traditional environment.

The military men therefore have more courage to take the initiative and they are able to gain political control because they have also equal educational level with the civilian intellectuals. And almost as important as the education and courage, the military has the arms in its hands which make them are powerful.

Motivation of Student Movement

Student movements can be motivated by one of the following:

1) Nationalism

2) Ideology

3) Frustration and aggression

4) Social conditions.

Nationalism usually takes place before the independence of a nation. The urge to be free from colonialism and the need to have a self-government push a nation to fight for independence. History has noted that in most revolutions for independence, it is the intellectuals and the students who initiate and lead the revolutions.

After independence when a nation is in the process of seeking its identity, some ideologies grow within the nation. The ideologies vary from communism to liberalism, from socialism to capitalism. The spreading of these ideologies usually is done also by the intellectuals and the students. In this stage of the development of a nation, student movements usually are motivated by the urge to win in the competition among different ideologies.

In the next stage of a nation's development, student movements can be motivated also by frustrations. Frustration or relative deprivation might be society, political or economical. In frustration, there is a relatively big discrepancy between the expectation of values or conditions of the people and the real values or conditions perceived by the people in a given period. The bigger the discrepancy, the greater the possibility of aggressive behavior to take place. The student, being part of the intellectuals, has the bigger tendency to have a greater sense of deprivation than non-student youth or the rest of the community because the student has higher value expectations. That is why the student tends to take the role as the pioneer of most social or political movements in a country.

As a social movement, student movement is caused also by particular conditions. N. Smelser mentioned six social condition required by a social mass action i.e.: structural strain, structural conduciveness, generalized belief, mobilization for action, lack of social control, and a triggering factor. Again, the students are a group in almost every country, which has all the conditions required to make it more sensitive and action prone.

The Indonesian Experience

Before independence, there was a very limited number of students in Indonesia. Some of these students started a political movement as early as 1908 by founding the first Indonesian political parties. The year 1908 is regarded as the year of the rise of the Indonesian nationalism.

In 1928, some youth organizations, led by a group of students, expressed their oath: "One country, one language, and one nation: Indonesia". Starting from this year, the political struggle for independence (which was done before on regional or ethnical basis) was united in one national movement from Sabang to Merauke. This event was very important because since that time the people in Indonesia who live in an area as large

as the mainland of the United States or as large as Western Europe and scattered in thousands of islands and consist of hundreds of ethnic groups were able to unite themselves in one national political struggle for independence.

In 1945, 17 years after 1928, Indonesia had a number of mature political leaders who were able to initiate the declaration of independence when the Japanese colonial forces surrendered to the allies. The independence day was then followed by a long period of armed struggle (1945-50) against the intervention of the Dutch colonial troops which came back to Indonesia with the allied forces. During this revolutionary period, a lot of Indonesian students went to the fronts and fought the enemies. They led other people to fight with them and from these groups of voluntary troops the Indonesian armed forces was founded. It is obvious then that in the early stages of Indonesia political history, the movement towards independence was advocated by the students and only after some period also by the politicians. But no military was involved in these stages since the military had not been founded yet.

After the armed revolution was over, there was a period of competition of different ideologies. Various ideologies such as Islamism, Christianism, Nationalism, Socialism and Communism were represented by different political parties. The competition involved not only the politicians but also the students and the military. The students at that time were fractioned into some organizations, each was aligned to one of the political parties. The competition, which tended to become open conflicts between political powers created an uneasy situation. Students wished they could carry on their study and their activities restfully. The campus-oriented students then reacted to the situation by founding intra-university student organizations which concentrated their programs to non-political activities (social, recreational, sports, arts, etc.). The period of ideological competition was terminated in 1965 when the Indonesian Communist Party's attempted coup d' etat was defeated.

During the period of ideological competition the intra university student organizations apparently could not stand the political pressure from the out-camps organizations. The intra-university organizations, therefore, were competed to do political activities to oppose the political pressure from outside of the campus.

In 1966, the students and the military were involved

in a political movement to ban the communist party and to overthrow the old regime. The new order government was born in 1966 and after that year, the government's orientation shifted from politics to economic development.

Student movement in 1966 can be classified as an ideology motivated movement because it had one goal: -to ban communism and to rehabilitate the national ideology-Pancasila.

After 1966, it was evident that the students were not really united to each other under the ideology of Pancasila. In fact, each student group still has its own ideology and it was not easy to converge these different ideologies. Political activities were strongly controlled in order to maintain political stability to enable development. The number of political parties was reduced. Consequently, out-campus student organizations list their affiliation with political parties. Political channels were relatively narrowed to the out-campus organizations. The only available channel then was the intra-university bodies. This channel was perceived also as the most effective so that the role of intra-university organizations became more and more important.

Parallel with the rise in the student's role is the rise in their role expectations. They also set up high expectations on values and social conditions, while in daily life they see that the reality is far below their expectations. Deprivation arises, frustration is felt and the tendency for aggression becomes greater. The frustration is turned into mass action, some become aggressive and violent. Student movements after 1970 in Indonesia mostly are based, on frustration-aggression motivation and social conditions encouragement.

Two events after 1970, namely those in 1974 and 1978, ended up in apathy and passivism. Why? Because the -motivation was just frustration or deprivation. There was no clear cut and well-defined objectives. There was no nationalism or ideology to defend, there was no common enemy to fight. The students just react spontaneously to the social conditions and their feeling of frustration without laying out a plan or carrying out a strategy or tactics. Therefore, it was not difficult to disconcentrate the student movements of those years.

Epilogue

Students can be pioneers of change, but in history, it has not always been the case. Their role as agents of

change depends very much on the internal conditions of the students themselves (motivation, ideology, competition among them) and the external social and political conditions as well (pressures from the outside competition with other pressure groups, availability of political channels, etc.).

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