The state-controlled historicity of social changes directly affects the existence of a novel. In that context of control, novels perform various transformations both in the context of affirmation, confirmation, and resistance to the way the state manages the social change. In the New Order era, ways to perform transformations in novels are mostly done through compromise manner by taking various security strategies of storytelling techniques.
This was said by Drs. Aprinus Salam, M. Hum., lecturer of the Faculty of Cultural Sciences UGM during his Graduate Program's open exam on Tuesday (21/12) at the RM Margono Djojohadikusumo Building. Aprinus conveyed, novels show that the existence of the state in society is the discursive relations of the state as a frightening helper figure, since the novel indirectly presents phenomena and the state apparatus in two contradictory faces. "On one side, the state is shown as gracious, while on the other hand the state is shown as a punisher. But the scary face punisher seems more dominant," he explained.
According to the man born in Riau, April 7 1965, novels which were published in the 1980s and 1990s illustrate that the factors of social change, such as religion, education, economy, politics, technology, tradition, human resources, and sex that are controlled by the state have become disintegrated, overlapping and ambiguous. As a result, the story about the state project to construct citizens to become a complete person in a just and prosperous society is a conflicting manipulative project. In such situations, people will not be complete because they become a rival of the state hegemony or domination.
While maintaining his dissertation entitled The State and Social Change: Discourse and Sociological Studies on Indonesian Novels of the 1980s up to the 1990s, Aprinus mentioned, at the ideological level the novels provide options other than modernism/traditionalism, but rather a creative osmosis that practices two different situations and historical conditions. "Novels are on the side of the human casuistic situation differently to each situation and diverse conditions," he explained.
Said by the husband of Sri Pristiwaningsih, the story of the novel which was published in the 1980s until the 1990s tends to compromise as a strategic choice to secure the stories in dealing with the interests of the state symbols. "Nevertheless, in general the stories in the novel suggests a somber appearance as an expression of unhappiness that is seen almost in every story, leading to a sense of disappointment, hurt, doubt, loneliness, and pretense," said Aprinus.
Furthermore, Aprinus said that the novel showed the state as someone who failed to understand and implement modernization and human development principles completely. This is seen in the disintegrated understanding and praxis of modern man and human being.
Aprinus added that stories about the state, society and social change are a veiled criticism that is not detected by the apparatus of state and society. "That is why the novels were not successful in building a rival discourse because the criticism in the novel was not detected. The novel became a tool of legitimacy for the authority in carrying out their development programs," he concluded.