The Hidden Transcript: Let’s Start The Revolution!

“The borderless of this country and advance of globalization rapidly makes interdependency among the country…”

Shabab Libya

Not a quite long time ago, when the issue about Libya’s War was hotly reported on every mass media all over the world, I logged in to my Facebook and got an event invitation from one of a friend who lives in Libya. It was subjected, “Bring Gaddafis’s Government Down Already!” A second later, another invitation was coming. It was from another friend from Egypt, with the same kind of subject. Both of those invitations were written: “Don’t worry, comrades. We’re not forcing you to go to Libya and join our rebellion movement. However, by just clicking “Attending” button, it’s the same like you’re fully supporting everything that we, Libyan youth, will do to save our country. Let’s start the revolution!” as the event description. I was spontaneously clicking the “Attending” button. I felt like standing in their troops to get Gaddafi’s government fallen off the office. I felt like I was literally Libyan youth. In addition, Gaddafi was on trending topic on Twitter that made people questioned, “What did Gaddafi do in the country he leads until his name skyrocketed up on trending topic?” The rebellion movement of Libyan youth is called Shabab Libya. You can visit their revolutionary page here

I immediately thought of Jean Baudrillard’s concept about simulacrum space, which means a space that full of duplication and recycle of many different kind of world’s fragments (in the figure of commodity) in the same space and time, for example, being directly updated with the actual news or what’s hot in London (Yasraf Amir Piliang, 1998). Now, everyone can fully and completely watch and feel the world by consuming television, internet, and social networks. They keep us being updated on everything. Internet is the greatest media to get into simulacrum space. Internet and its social networks can connect us with every single person in the whole world, with no worry about how far the distance is. I could have a discussion via Skype with my best friend who lives in Vancouver City, Canada, about the high tax in Canada to the latest issue like The Royal Wedding as if the world is being folded between us.

The power of Libyan youth was triggered by the formerly youth revolution in Tunisia and Egypt. They combined that simulacrum space concept with James Scott’s concept about the “hidden transcript”. On one of Scott’s book, Dominant and the Arts of Resistance: The Hidden Transcript of Subordinate Groups (1990). He uses the term public transcript to describe the open public interactions between dominators and oppressed and the term-hidden transcript for the critique of power that goes on offstage, which power holders do not see or hear (James C. Scott, 1993). The hidden transcript concept is usually used by the oppressed. It was emerged by a critique about the conventional revolution, such as Labor Revolution and French Revolution. On that concept, an oppressed should constantly do efforts to get what they want. But these days, the effect of this concept is usually stronger than the public transcript or the conventional one, like mass demo.

An awesome Libyan fella

My friends in Libya were having political crisis in their country and wanting to end it up with a revolution. They didn’t want to do a foregone conventional revolution because they were smart enough to think about asymmetric war between them, as oppressed who didn’t have any military power, and the government’s military as dominators. Libyan youth smartly used discussion forums on the internet to collect and to gain their power because they knew that if they gave any bad comment or critique explicitly over Gaddafi’s government, Gaddafi’s executors or military commandos would kidnap them and put them into the prison in the middle of the night.

In this 20th century, older people usually consider us, the youth, as hedonic or consumptive generation, generally. But if we think of what happened in Tunisia and Egypt, that judgment seems so wrong. Youth still has a big concern about their country. They have their own way to express it. Youth has been transforming day by day. In the early 19th century, we had Labor Revolution in Russia and French Revolution. In 1945, Indonesian youth had to fight against the colonial just to get our freedom, our independence as a nation. In the recent days, youth seems really into new technology when they want to express their concern about their country. Not because they are too lazy to be conventional, but the new technology is what they consume everyday. They can support their country and they can express their opinion through popular media, like social networks and discussion forums on the internet.

The conventional revolution that is really explicit like what happened in the World War I and II between capitalism and socialism is no more relevant and interesting. The non-conventional wars, or like what James Scott’s called as “hidden transcript” such as intelligent war, information war, economical war, communication war, and cultural war, are the popular ones and mostly being used by both dominators and oppressed, for example the United States of America to spread their domination over the world.

Youth is the history narration of world’s glories. Numerous splendid stories of civilization’s turnover were said that youth was the key of it. Youth is a shield of world’s alteration. Youth potential is like dynamite. The youth formed the backbone of a civilization. What is a nation without youth, without the youth to contribute, without a conscious youth who love their country? There will be no history of Indonesia, there will be no French Revolution, and there would be no struggle to uphold the truth. With all respect to the role of older people (even older people are the guides of the younger generation to finds its star), nobleness value in youth suggests a glimmer of hope for this nation to rise up, to defend the homeland and nation, to realize the national security of the country, and to raise the country from the abyss of adversity.

Inference
The hidden transcript of the Libyan youth in making new movement through modern and popular social media is the example of youth role on inventing the world peace, especially on their own country. They use Facebook, Twitter, discussion forum on the internet to express their support and concern over their country’s government crisis. Their way to express their support to their country represents the role of the youth in the whole world on contributing themselves for their own country. Youth power is still unbeatable.