Membentuk Citra, Menegaskan Identitas

Kehidupan Para Pelajar- Perantau Batak di Batavia (1907- 1945)

Abstract

This research aims to elaborate the role of Western education which in a short time transformed the ethnic Batak from an isolated group and backward ethnic groups into modern urban society. This study is about the lives of Batak migrant in the beginning of the 20th century up to World War II. During that period, the Batak people were trying to shape the image as an educated group with the purpose of dismantling negative stereotypes that labeled Batak society while they also aligning themselves with students from other ethnic group who have formed a new layer of urban society and actively involved in national movement. Through the establishment of various ethnic-based organizations, Batak students did not just create the medium of activism of the struggle for their strategic interests, but they also asserted cultural identity which been deliberately hidden. Nevertheless, as shown in this research, those tendencies resulted into the dissolution of the established solidarity among Batak students and immediately replaced it by creating a more specific and tight criteria that lead into the denial of their cultural identity since it is considered to have been dominated by Batak-Toba ethnic group.