Membentuk Citra, Menegaskan Identitas: Kehidupan Para PelajarPerantau 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.