KOMAP Movement Class: Defining the Student Movement

Yogyakarta, August 27th 2021─The Student Corps of Politics and Government (KOMAP) of FISIPOL UGM held a movement class with the title “Defining the Student Movement” with moderator Cindy Aulia, a student of the Department of Politics and Government class 2020. This class was held online by presenting two presenters namely Gendis Syari Widodari as the Minister of Analysis and Strategy of BEM KM UGM 2018 , and the second speaker Muhammad Fakhurrozi from the Social Movement Institute. This event was attended by 50 participants from various backgrounds, and in general this discussion class discussed topics about the student movement ranging from definitions, developments, and various challenges and obstacles for the student movement today.To open the event, the moderator gave a little introduction to start the discussion. In her speech, she said that history assesses how students and movements have produced significant changes that are in line with social, political, community and state dynamics. In its development, the student movement experienced a fairly long and complex dynamic, the movement was not only a matter of guarding existing issues and as extreme as opposing the apparatus, but more than that.

Then entering the main session, the first sharing of material was delivered by Gendis Syari with several important points, namely starting from why people move, how to place positions in a movement, and how we build awareness. Starting from the material about why people move, Gendis made an analogy with a simple case, in general people move because there is hope and there is an interest where they do not get their rights as they should. We need to map out who are the actors who are powerful and who are powerless, to determine alignments in a movement. Building awareness in a movement can be done by learning which further differentiates the student movement from other movements is how we present an academic perspective in the form of studies, writings as the basis for why we move.

Complementing the previous speakers, the second speaker presented the topic of how to interpret a student movement. In this case, Ozi, who is familiarly called by the second speaker, said that the student movement requires a deep breath in its dynamics, in fact the student movement requires political education which unfortunately is still quite minimal so it is quite easy for a movement to be broken. Changes can be made and it takes a long breath, one of which can be done by fellow students. Therefore, real actions are needed as a form of learning as well as building a movement that can have an impact on society as a whole.