Becoming Village Activists

KOMPAS/SAIFUL RIJAL YUNUS

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We apparently have not learned from history, when in fact history could lead us to make the right changes.

Reform has taken place for 20 years without any substantial changes, according to some observers. However, I do not want to get stuck on the existing views (pros and cons), but want to raise  the worry of whether within the next 10 or 20 years we will let this situation continue?

Twenty years ago, when I was a fourth-year university student, the reform movement began and managed to overthrow President Soeharto. Unfortunately, 20 years ago, the idea of six major reform demands voiced by students was just a blank check given to the nation\'s elites. As a result, more than a few senior campus activists at that time became "trapped", even entered the "puddle" of power and forgot the noble demands of reform. Why? The answer is that the blank checks were not accompanied by clear instruments and methods!

Recently, the media (mainstream and social) has displayed again various actions to commemorate the 1998 reform. The atmosphere of the commemoration was full of criticism against the power. I think this is natural because this is a political year.

However, we have to realize that the current events and situation (the rupiah exchange rate reaches Rp 14,200 per US dollar, food imports, village gaps, and others) should not happen again in the future. That is the period where young Indonesians will dominate among the 271 million people in 2020 to 305 million by 2035, as well as the rise of the middle class (those who complete university studies) from 37.7 percent (80 million) to 56.5 percent (134 million). It is enough for the blank check of the 1998 reform demands  as a bitter pill that we have to jointly swallow.

I still hold the view that the six demands of the 1998 reform are still relevant and important for the struggle of former activists. The reason is simple. First, in the future, naturally there will be a transfer of leadership generation in this country, where the old generation which becomes the elites  at  present will be replaced by the youth. Second, the excessive granting of regional autonomy is still not optimally utilized well by the former activists.

If the two reasons above are fully realized, we can start from the villages. Campus activists should adorn the reproduction of leadership from the villages towards the national leadership. The reason is that the villages are the true arena of leadership for the campus activists.

The birth of Law No. 6 Year 2014 on the Villages has opened the arena for the campus activists to test the leadership and idealism to build Indonesia. That is because the root of the problem and creativity to answer the challenges of the real time is in the villages. It is not impossible that one day the leadership of the regents/mayors, governors, and presidents will be born from the village leadership. The village leadership is a genuine leadership style that is capable of addressing the substantial issues that Indonesia needs in the future.

Five agendas

It is now time for us to end the 1998 reform romanticism that gave the blank check to the previous generation. Let the romanticism be a valuable lesson to improve this nation forward. It is also time to test the leadership of the campus activists to seize and build the villages. Because, the face of Indonesia is actually the face of today\'s villages which are full of various problems which await the touch of former campus activists.

In order to settle that, Indonesia needs the former campus activists to become village activists who are able to complete the five agendas that await in the villages. First, Indonesian villages are rich in food (73.14 percent of 74,958 villages have the agricultural typology), but the irony is that Indonesia is a food importing country. In this condition, the village leadership must be able to prove that Indonesia should be sovereign in food because the problem of food is a matter of the death-life of a nation!

Second, agricultural villages are identical to villages with backwardness. It means that Indonesia experiences a sovereignty crisis that becomes a threat in the future. The village leadership in this context is the ability to bring the villages into the villages with excess food.

Third, villages in Indonesia are experiencing the problems of poverty and rural economic management,  which has not been optimal. Based on the record, there are 14-20 percent of pockets of poverty, which are concentrated in eastern Indonesia, the southern coast of Java, and the west coast of Sumatra, as well as 183 disadvantaged regencies. This is where the proof of village leadership is needed as a track record exemplary.

Fourth, the position of young people as the subject of poverty and the phenomenon of lost generation of the village youth. In the future, 50 percent of the population in developing countries are youth-class and 70 percent of them are expected to experience extreme poverty in living in rural areas. This agenda implies that Indonesia will experience a situation where the village as the source of life of the Indonesian nation will be abandoned by the village youth. Therefore, the village leadership driven by the former campus activists must emerge as agents of change that give confidence to the youth that seizing the villages is a historical task.

Finally, the fifth, the agenda to solve the corruption of village funds. One of the 1998 reform demands was the eradication of corruption, collusion and nepotism (KKN). It seems that this national agenda penetrates the villages as the heart of Indonesia\'s defense. Allowing such a situation to persist will cause a big problem in the future. The former campus activists must be present to restore this dignity.

Sofyan Sjaf, Head of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development Study (PSP3)at the Bogor Agriculture Institute (IPB)