Hypocrisy in The Leadership of BEM (Student Executive Board) of UMS.

(Surakarta, 2 August 2023) Students are essentially not only as knowledge gainers, but students are also expected to be “cogs in the wheel” as well as “troops at the forefront” for the community in case of abuse of power by the government. Students should also understand the system of good governance and apply it in the campus environment. But what happens if students cannot apply it even within the university?

That’s what happened in the student government of Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta. BEM UMS (Student Executive Board) should be a miniature benchmark of good governance, but the reality is not what is expected.

On Thursday morning (2/8/2023), BEM Faculty of Psychology held a seminar on education at the seminar room of Siti Walidah Central Building, with several influential figures as speakers at the event. Rocky Gerung as a political observer, Saut Situmorang as a former KPK chief, Andi Sinuligga as the initiator of the Jakarta Collaboration and Aad Satria Permadi as a psychology lecturer. But what was interesting about this event was the presence of Firdaus Rizkia, student president of BEM UMS, who was also a speaker. At the beginning of the event, things were going normally and smoothly. Until, during the question and answer session, a speech critical of BEM UMS was loudly delivered by the ‘Green Man’.

The term ‘Green Man’ refers to activists from the HMI (Islamic Student Association) organisation, who often give speeches criticising misguided policies, one of which is against BEM UMS. The presence of the ‘Green Man’ is intended to convey the alarming state of miniature government on the UMS campus. They also directed their criticism directly at the student president of BEM UMS, who was seen as unable to deliver on the promises he made when he ran for office. The Green Man is not afraid to call the student president a hypocritical leader for failing to deliver on his promises.

One of the seminar participants, Aqill Adhitya, said that the oration was an initiative of the HMI activists themselves and took advantage of the right momentum where Firdaus Rizkia as Student President appeared in front of all the students present.

“This ‘Green Man’ took the momentum when the President (Student President) was getting a stage, indeed if we think about what the essence of our President, participating as a speaker at the event (seminar) even though as we know, he was left behind by his cabinet, his reign was dilapidated, his term of office passed, extended. Well, it was at that moment that the ‘Green man’ stood up to deliver the speech.” Said Aqill Adhitya as one of the seminar participants.

The oration voiced by the ‘Green Man’ contained criticisms of the Student President, reminding him of the promises that Presma (Student President) made when running for office. For example, his promise to fix the internal BEM UMS, to strengthen coordination with each faculty well, but all of that has not been realised so far. Therefore, ‘Green Man’ did not hesitate to call the current UMS Student President a hypocritical leader. ‘Green Man’ also said that the miniature government at UMS was damaged and alarming.

The reactions reaped from this sudden oration action by HMI (Islamic Students’ Association) activists also varied, from the speaker of the seminar, who paid close attention even though they were not  aware of the real problems of the internal UMS. Likewise with the audience of the seminar, which was dominated by UMS students themselves, became aware of the internal problems of their Student Government. Some of the audience also supported to the ‘Green Man’ to continue voicing their speech.

Aqill Adhitya, one of the seminar participants also gave his opinion on the sudden speech action by the ‘Green Man’ (HMI activists). Aqill said that the action was not wrong, in fact it was a brilliant action because it applied democratic values in the campus environment.

“If I respond to this, there is nothing wrong, we students uphold democratic values. What is called criticism is indeed scathing, sharp. After all, the way it might be considered unethical by some people is because the student president is also like that (problematic), like tarnishing leadership values, like there is no shame. Also, the name of criticism is not limited to places, criticism can be anywhere as long as it is informal or in public places, meaning except places of worship,” Aqill said.

Aqill also said that the role of students, who should be the mind, tongue and heart of the society, can be trained through democracy in the miniature government of the campus environment or can be called the student government. As students, we should have been good at implementing the correct democracy in the miniature government first, especially students are considered to be more aware of the problems that might occur in the real government.

The existence of this problem is actually a very fatal problem due to the dilapidation of the Student Government at UMS (Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta) and Aqill strongly supports the sudden speech action by the ‘Green Man’ because they are taking a very groundbreaking momentum for the better changes.

Writer : Fadiya Shofar Rosyidah (Communication Science ‘20)

Reporter : Muhamad Iqbal Aris Syah Putra (Mechanical Engineering ‘22)

Editor : Shafaa Azka Indradi (Psychology ’21)