School Gangs of Yogyakarta: Mass Fighting Strategies and Masculine Charisma in the City of Students

Abstract

In Yogyakarta twenty-three school gangs including secular, Catholic, Christian and Islamic school gangs were identified in 2007/2008. Gangs not only proliferated in city settlements or kampong after the fall of the New Order regime in 1998, but they also developed in urban secondary schools and many are beholden to political parties. The growth of gangs is due to a number of conditions, including weakening authority of the state, absence of state surveillance and the reduction in social control from families and schools. This article addresses three questions: how and why did schoolboy gangs emerge in Yogyakarta; what is the pattern of hostility and what drives the young men to confront each other through violence and; how do the leaders of the gangs express their identities and charisma both in front of their enemies and in front of their anak buah (followers)? The first part of this essay gives an overview of the emergence of Indonesian youth gangs; the second considers contestation and hostility including tawuran (mass fighting) and stealth and attack strategies, such as nglitih (a sudden attack by a few); and the third addresses the nature of charismatic leadership through depictions of gentho (the powerful leader). I also describe how a student builds prowess as a leader during the preparation of tawuran and when carrying out attacks on the enemy school.