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Student rally: Reason, naivety and ignorance
It would be a safe assumption that a vast number of students demonstrating that day had no real understanding of the issues they were so adamantly protesting about.
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Rallying cry: Members of the Islamic Student Association (HMI) rally outside the regional Legislative Council in Kediri, East Java, on Monday. Students in a number of cities around the country were protesting the rising prices of fuel and cooking oil, and talks of plans to extend the presidential term. (Antara/Prasetia Fauzani)
J
ust recently, a good friend of mine Ade Armando was severely assaulted by a mob that infiltrated an otherwise peaceful student demonstration. However depressing it was to see a dedicated intellectual supporting a peaceful expression of academic youth end up beaten up by ignorant hoodlums, there was a more sinister undercurrent running through this incident, which involves how ignorance can turn into violence.
I truly believe that among those students demonstrating that day, many (albeit not all) held an idealistic view and a genuine desire to build the nation, and in their naive reasoning, a protest against what they perceived as the government’s wrongdoing was the only means of achieving their end.
There is value in this sort of naivety, the students have idealistic goals but their contribution to the cause is still limited by a lack of knowledge and experience. Ade, as a dedicated and respected lecturer at the University of Indonesia, definitely has more knowledge and experience, and is vocal and articulate in expressing his views. His naivety however is that he believes that anybody – even the ignorant – can settle differences of opinion through civil discourse.
Ade – like many other critical figures – has been on the receiving end of hate speech, threats, lawsuits and now even physical attacks precisely because of his public criticism, on issues concerning radical fundamentalist narratives and/or the questionable conduct of government officials, among other issues.
When people like Ade speak through the media it is easy to see that the negative comments received in response are rarely constructive or based on facts, but are rather ad hominem or straw man arguments that do not serve as valid counterarguments. Just as natural phenomena are proven or disproven by means of scientific experiments, opinions are verified by means of discourse.
A healthy debate based on good faith aspires to achieve new knowledge as the end, rather than one party winning over the other. Whether through a clear-cut winning argument, a Hegelian synthesis or anything in between, an ideal result is a better understanding of an issue, with one being closer to the truth (although people are still debating whether there is such a thing as a universal truth anyway).
So why is there such hatred and enmity, which has recently manifested in brute force used against an opinion? I believe it is due to ignorance and a lack of reason.
