THUKUL'S POEMS OF RESISTANCE IN AKU INGIN JADI PELURU

Abstract

Those who attempt to voice critically about the injustice
done by the state frequently face the government's" iron hands ".
Indonesia history has noted how some Indonesian critics from various
fields are accused of threatening national stability so that they have
to be culturized through many kinds of terror. Conscience writers
(Mangunwijaya s term) are the easy targets of state violence because
they portray the powerless, "wong cilik" (the common folk/little
people) as the victims of development, and the inappropriateness of
the elites' behavior. For an authoritative regime. such criticism doesn't
sound good because it makes look bad in front of the public. In the
New Order regime. Wiji Thukul is one of Indonesian poets who does
an advocacy for "wong cilik ". His poems are screams of the people
from huts,factories. and graves.