Words have power. They live and breathe and sometimes—when
powerful men decide they don’t like the sound of them—they die. Or try to.
I’ve seen it happen before. Christ, we all have. Sometimes a
word just up and vanishes like old Mrs. Carmody’s cat that wandered off one
winter in a dusty little town outside Tulsa and was never seen again. Other
times, they’re dragged kicking and screaming into the night, never to return.
That’s what happened to “buruh” in Indonesia. And brother,
it wasn’t pretty.
1. THE WORD
Back in June 1947, during the Second Amir Sjarifuddin
Cabinet, “buruh” wasn’t just any word. It was a badge of honor, for Christ’s
sake. Cabinet ministers wore it like a crown. When President Sukarno
inaugurated Surastri Karma Trimurti—folks called her Mak Ompreng—as Minister of
Labor that October, nobody batted an eye at the word. It was as normal as apple
pie at a Fourth of July picnic.
But words, like people, can fall out of favor. And when they
do, they fall hard.
2. THE ALLERGY
When Suharto’s regime slithered into power, the word “buruh”
caught a terminal disease. Terminal, because Suharto himself was the doctor,
and he had a peculiar allergy to this five-letter arrangement. You could almost
see him break out in hives at the mere mention of it.
Christ almighty, the man didn’t just dislike the word—he
wanted to erase it from existence. Like a character from one of those dystopian
nightmares where they burn books and rewrite history on Monday mornings before
coffee.
He preferred “karyawan” and “tenaga kerja.” Nice, clean
words. Sanitized. Safe.
“Karyawan”—from “karya” meaning “work” and “wan” meaning “person.”
A neat little linguistic trick that would let him get his hands deeper into the
pockets of company men and office drones. Before his ass even warmed the
presidential seat, he’d already launched “Operasi Karya” back in 1960, pushing
laborers—buruh—to the margins of society.
David Reeve wrote about it in Golkar: Sejarah yang
Hilang, Akar Pemikiran & Dinamika back in ‘87. The military, like a
cancer, spread through every level of government, worming their way into rural
development programs and rehabilitation projects.
3. THE PURGE
When you want to kill something but can’t use a gun, you use
a replacement. That’s what SOKSI was—the Socialist Indonesian Employee
Organization Union, established in 1963 with the Indonesian Army pulling the
strings from behind the curtain. Their target? SOBSI—the All-Indonesia Labor
Organization Central—the biggest goddamn labor confederation in the country.
And after G30S, when blood ran in the streets and whispers
of communism were death sentences, SOBSI was dissolved faster than sugar in hot
coffee. Labeled as anti-Pancasila. Guilty by association with the PKI.
March 27, 1966. Remember that date. That’s when the
Department of Labor died, replaced by the Department of Manpower. Suharto didn’t
just change a name; he performed an exorcism on language itself.
Awaloedin Djamin, who became Minister of Manpower from ‘66
to ‘68, called it “a dark department” in his autobiography. Dark like the space
under your childhood bed. Dark like the thoughts that come at 3 AM when you can’t
sleep.
4. THE ERASURE
Suharto’s regime didn’t stop at changing words. They banned
Labor Day—May Day—in 1967. Imagine that. Taking a day of celebration and pride
and making it disappear like a magician’s trick. Only there was nothing up his
sleeve except fear and control.
The word “buruh” began to rot from within. No longer a
simple term for a worker seeking compensation, it morphed into something dirty,
something low-class. It became tainted with the stink of physical labor,
stripped of intellectual dignity.
Organizations fell in line, marching to Suharto’s linguistic
drumbeat. The All-Indonesia Labor Federation (FBSI) transformed into the
All-Indonesia Workers Union (SPSI) in 1985, shedding its old skin like a snake
in spring.
Labor unions that survived the initial purge—Sarbumusi,
Gasbiindo, SOB Pancasila—weren’t officially banned, but try running an
organization when every door slams shut in your face. Meanwhile, SOKSI—Suharto’s
pet project—thrived like mold in a damp basement.
5. THE LANGUAGE OF POWER
Words are never just words, are they? They’re loaded guns,
and the one who controls the ammunition controls the people.
“Buruh” underwent what fancy academics call pejoration—its
meaning twisted and corrupted until it stank in people’s nostrils. Meanwhile, “tenaga
kerja” (“man power”) rose like a phoenix from the ashes, carrying a shiny new
connotation.
In semiotic terms—the kind of shit professors love to throw
around at cocktail parties—“tenaga kerja” meant “someone who works must be
capable.” It ranked higher on the linguistic food chain than poor, abandoned “buruh.”
Look at the dictionary definitions, for God’s sake. “Buruh”
became “a person who works for others and receives wages.” Clinical.
Transactional. But “tenaga kerja” was “a person who is able to perform work,
both within and outside of employment relationships, producing goods and/or
services.” Noble. Creative. Human.
Christ on a bike, even the etymology was rigged. “Buruh”
became an industrial metaphor, while “tenaga kerja” was painted as a noble
human quality, like courage or wisdom.
6. THE INDOCTRINATION
In Yudi Rachman’s book, the shift from “buruh” to “pekerja”
was described as happening under “strong pressure.” That’s like saying the
Titanic suffered from “minor water damage.”
Suharto’s regime used SPSI to watch laborers like a hawk
watches field mice. They preached “harmony,” a concept as peaceful and gentle
as a loaded gun against your temple.
Suhardiman—the puppet master behind SOKSI—didn’t even try to
hide it. He forced union members to quit, dragging them instead into his own
creation, the State Enterprise Employee Association (PKPN), which later became
SOKSI.
His henchman, Adolf Rachman, became chairman of the Labor
Functional Group Concentration (Kongkarbu), using laborers as pawns in their
political chess game. Those same laborers were forced to finance ballot papers,
threatened by gun barrels and bayonets to vote for Suharto’s cronies.
And Suhardiman? He had the balls to admit SOKSI was involved
in deciding which workers stayed employed and which got the boot. Those with “leftist”
sympathies found themselves on the street faster than you could say “unemployment.”
7. THE PRESENT GHOSTS
Today, the ghost of this linguistic massacre haunts every
workplace in Indonesia. May 1st is still Labor Day, not Manpower Day or
Employee Day, but it’s celebrated almost exclusively by those in manual labor.
We’ve got “blue-collar” workers toiling in factories and “white-collar”
folks in their air-conditioned offices. Terms first coined by Upton Sinclair
back in 1920 that now carry the weight of class division like pallbearers at a
funeral.
On May Day, these worlds collide and repel like opposing
magnets. The white-collars look down their noses at the blues, thinking
themselves better, higher, cleaner.
The irony—and there’s always irony in these stories, ain’t
there?—is that Law Number 13 of 2003 concerning Manpower treats them the same.
Same working hours, same holidays, same layoff procedures. Hell, even teachers
and lecturers fall under laws related to laborers. Even civil servants are,
legally speaking, laborers.
Words may die, or seem to die, but their ghosts haunt us.
They whisper truths we’d rather forget as we sit in our comfortable offices,
typing away on keyboards, pretending we’re something more than what we are.
In the end, we’re all buruh. And sometimes, just
sometimes, the dead return.
—THE END—
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