Jonathan Tehusijarana

Jonathan Tehusijarana (PhD in History, 2023), ‘Between the Pen and the Sword: Student-Soldiers and the Image of Ideal Youth in Indonesia’

Jonathan‘s thesis examines the tentara pelajar (Student Armies) of Indonesia that fought in the country’s war of independence (1945-1949), and whose veterans influenced a newly independent Indonesia afterwards. Using archival documents, news publications, memoirs, and regimental histories, the thesis argues that the tentara pelajar were influential in informing discourses of pemuda (youth), still a significant political category in Indonesia, throughout the war and beyond. It analyses the historical sources of Indonesian militarised youth, as well as the wartime identity-making processes student soldiers undertook to situate themselves in and distinguish themselves from other members of Indonesia‘s pemuda, constructing a student soldier identity based on the values of discipline, professionalism, and notional ‘apoliticism’. It continues with an examination of post-war circumstances where student-veterans were able to rise to important positions within Indonesia’s military and government, exercising their agency and influence on the construction of an image of ideal pemuda in support of the developmentalist project of the New Order regime (1965–1998).The thesis concludes by examining the agency of youth in interacting with the legacy of the tentara pelajar today.

Supervisors: Professor Kate McGregor, Professor Sean Scalmer