Candy Left: Youth Movement in Postmodern Era
Siti Aliyuna Pratisti
Department of International Relation, Universitas Padjadjaran, Bandung, Indonesia
Keywords: Political Identity, Postmodern, Youth Movement.
Abstract: Postmodern paradigm surely brings many consequences. One of the most significant phenomena is the
emergence of an abstract political aspiration that moves further away from the conventional political platform.
The Occupy Wall Street movement and the Arab Spring are suitable examples of how the distribution of
political aspirations is no longer based on the political party system. Today, in line with the evolution of social
media - politics are embedded in self-identity. Anthony Giddens indicates that in late modernity era, political
identities resulted from self-actualization process in post-traditional contexts. Therefore, identity is in constant
battle with global influences in the reflexive project of The Self. The process took place in cyberspace with
social media as a new channel the political platform. As the result, most of this political movement trapped in
the illusion and drowning in superficiality. For example, youth leftist movement in Indonesia, a Candy Left
– who run revolutionary movement in confusion. This global wide phenomenon also will be elaborated by
comparing Giddens' views on political identity and the postmodern context. Paralleled with analysis of social
media, this paper attempts to illustrate how the youth movement in Indonesia today took a different form of
political identity.
1 INTRODUCTION
The idea of this paper took its form about a year ago
when "Festival Belok Kiri" (Turn Left Festival)
organized in Jakarta. Held in March 2016, "Festival
Belok Kiri" raises a certain controversy considering
Indonesia’s dark history associated with the left
ideology. This event attracted the younger generation
to get to know the alternative history of their country
that has been repressed during the New Order period.
However, when media extensively review the
national fuss about how Pancasila ideologies being
threatened, the spectator of the festival seems doesn't
have a clue on how this event affected their self-
reflexive construction in the social world. This
festival becomes an apparent character, as Robinson's
depiction of postmodern perspectives on how
symbolic interaction changed today youth political
conception (Robinson, 2007).
Another interesting phenomenon of the youth
identity nowadays is the gap between theories and the
actual reality, which often leads to contradictions. For
example, some of the youth communities initiated
discussions regarding Anarchism and Marxism in
striking cafes. Both of these symbols, striking cafes
and leftist ideology, belong to a different set of ideas.
For the purpose of understanding this phenomenon,
this paper will compare the construction of the youth
movement in Giddens’s late modernity with the form
of youth movement constructed in postmodern
conditions. The comparison will be done through
diverse literature review, media monitoring and
informal interaction with the “left-leaning”
movements on various occasions. Of course, in
reality, deep-rooted movements and radical
understanding of Marxism still exist. However, when
compared them with the growth of left-wing youth
movements who boisterous the social media, these
radical thinkers have distance voice and hard to be
found.
2 POLITICAL IDENTITY TODAY
Identity is one of the most challenging concepts in
social science. It is a character, feeling, or outlook,
which can be differentiated to other groups or
individuals. In the study of identity, Anthony Giddens
has a strong influence in establishing basic merit to
explain the formation of non-traditional political
identity that moves away from the conventional
political party's platform. Giddens formulates his
286
Pratisti, S.
Candy Left: Youth Movement in Postmodern Era.
In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Sociology Education (ICSE 2017) - Volume 2, pages 286-290
ISBN: 978-989-758-316-2
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved

ideas based on two pillars: the predictive nature of
society explained by Durkheim and Weber's view of
the importance of individual narratives. This
amalgam of thoughts makes Giddens’ theory of
identity, bridging the two classical dichotomies in
sociology. According to Giddens (1991), the
interaction between macro and micro level are
shaping the pattern of individual behavior. He also
stated that the structure of society basically affected
by the behavior of its individuals. Based on this
reflective relation, Giddens (1991) argues that the
social condition occurs today is the repetition of
modernity that undergoes some changes. Cyberspace
undeniably brings significant change to social
construction and brought up the term of
postmodernism. But Gidden disagreed on the term
postmodern society – he insisted the term of late-
modernism to describe the current situation. His
reluctance to move further from modernity, made his
reflexive theories constantly being challenged to
explain the current phenomena which lie in the stream
of postmodernism.
In theoretical development, Giddens's view of
late-modernism faces many criticisms. Stjepan
Metrovic is a sociologist known as anti-Giddens for
initiating the polemics. In his book entitled Anthony
Giddens: The Last Modernist (Metrovic, 1998), he
criticizes Giddens's view which he thinks is far too
rational. Metrovic mentions that in the formation of
national identity, for example, includes an important
determinant of emotional factors (Metrovic, 1998).
As for Giddens, emotion is part of the traditional
value structure of society that has no significant role
in the formation of modern political lifestyles.
However, the current reality appears to be on the side
of Metrovic because the narrative of emotion begins
to remerge in social and political discourse. A number
of conflicts between identities (ethnic, racial or
religious) has its roots in the emotional context. Also,
the peculiar phenomena of Post-truth which based on
the fanaticism to particular ideas or figure often lead
to a biased truth that has a strong relation to emotion.
Post-truth is one indication that irrationality has
replaced rationality that highly valued in modern
society. Public opinion is no longer driven by logic,
but personal preference. This phenomenon leads to
the next consequence of the loss of reflexive process
in the forming of one identity. Reflexive, in Giddens’
study of the identity, has two main functions: First, is
to show the fluidity of changing identity to the point
of a daily basis. Second, it refers to the ability of an
individual to reflect on the conditions of society. Self-
identity, according to Giddens, is a person's own
reflexive understanding of their biography (Giddens,
1991). The flexibility of identity goes linearly with
the development of cyberspace, but the ability of
individual reflection upon the Self and social context
is somehow lost in oblivion. Today communication
does not provide fixed identity but offers the
possibility of constant recontextualization (Prosman,
2011). With this changing pattern of interaction,
political identity is no longer the result of one's
rational choice.
Another view on identity by Bernea (2003)
provides an alternative reading of the current
actuality. An identity which is resulted from the
lacking of authenticity leads to the natural discontent
of pseudo-identities. This blurry reading of the text
(of Self and social phenomenon) brings a huge impact
to the changing of social norms. Without the
existence of moral consciousness, the social system
of society is fragmented, generate social conflict
based on emotional ties and subjectivity. Regarding
this development, Giddens's theory of conscious
reflexive had the lack of acuity in capturing reality.
Therefore, identity requires a new reading. Goffman
(in Allan, 1997) predicts this condition by argues that
the Self, awaits individuals in every situation and
every situation is multi-situated activity system. The
virtual realities, as a multi-situated activity, bring the
greatest impact on identity in the term of atomism.
Lyon (in Hossain and Karim, 2013) describes
atomism as the replacement of social ties by a sense
of uncertainty and loss of direction. A portrait of
today identity – trapped in the illusion of
connectedness in an unconnected reality.
3 YOUTH MOVEMENT IN
POSTMODERN ERA
The dynamic evolution of society has brought us to a
previously unimaginable political mode. The
postmodern political movement itself is not
something new. Formed in the 1960s, these
movements emphasis on transforming the public
sphere and transform social institutions on the basis
of their subjectivity (Best and Kellner, 1991). But
only in the late 20th century, when the world wide
web is accessible for all, micropolitics formed into
political practice on a daily basis. The transformation
of communication technology has articulated the new
pattern and distribution of social forces in shaping a
postmodern political identity. Nowadays, political
discussions are open for the participants from various
backgrounds who shared the same political “cyber
Candy Left: Youth Movement in Postmodern Era
287

stage”. This transformation also has global impacts
for marginal identity to voice their own narratives.
This virtual political space is a milestone in the
youth movement in today's postmodern era. There are
two main forms of the youth movement in their
agenda to spread their agenda, namely through
activism and art performance. Activism is a form of
political participation in response to the existing
problems. In social theory, the youth movement has
its own place. Youth political perspectives who often
perceived as emotional and irrational, become
distinctive characters that distinguish them from
another socio-political identity in the other age
groups. In history, some of the robust movement is
driven by young people, including anti-war pacifism
to social transformation. At first, the youth movement
took the form of protest or disobedience to build
awareness and shaping the public opinion. The
presence of world wide web enables the youth to
spread their ideas by sharing, posting, or voice a
petition. This is how the social media changed global
activism operates, by gives way to the alternative
narratives driven by youth movements – ranging from
truthout.com that voiced the liberal social narrative,
rainforest.arkivert.no who speak out and concern
toward the burden of environmental protection,
fear.ink that discusses various issues of
Islamophobia, to mipex.eu who pay attention to the
process of integration of refugees with the
community.
In addition to the website, networking between the
youth movement also play a significant role in the
form of civic organization. Within a virtual basis,
youth organizations are able to have members from
various countries (de Jong, et al, 2005). This new
political platform brings specific character to the
youth movement today, that is a new form of non-
hostile civil disobedience in shaping public opinion
and convoy policy change. A civil disobedience can
be performed by cyber-based organizations known as
“electronic civil disobedience”. These tactics conduct
by hacking certain websites, or by flooding a certain
company with millions of emails (Pickerill 2001).
This new pattern of civil disobedience is very
effective in spreading ideas and building awareness
among the wider community. Such tactics transform
the internet infrastructure from a means of
communication into an instrument of action (Wray,
1998).
Another form of youth political movement comes
in the form of art, especially street art. Gravities
inscribed by Banksy, for example, are able to raise
social awareness of crucial matters such as child labor
to war criticism. The streets are chosen to be a
battleground to challenge government policy as well
as the hegemony of multinational companies. After
Trump won the presidential election, the streets in the
United States are filled with gravity protesting
Trump's anti-immigration policy. Or the gravity that
scattered in Berlin during the WTO meeting in mid-
2017. The spirit of street art captured the essence of
force within post-modernism politics. They are the
cutting edge in methods, attacking corporate
hegemony and their ideology (Suzuki, 2013). Street
art, by definition, is grassroots movement who trying
to expose various forms of abuse of power that
occurred. It seeks to expand the consciousness of the
average citizen to the harsh realities of our time. By
doing their “city guerillas” they mean to break
barriers between high and low culture, in order to
show our common humanity (Suzuki, 2013).
Street art showed a new process of political
articulation, transmission and dissemination of the
youth experience in the of these new spaces to various
audiences bring new sensibilities into everyday
practices (Featherstone, 2007). It is becoming what
Aronson called postmodern design, a juxtaposition of
elements within the unifying structure of the stage
frame, creating a referential network within the mind
of the viewer that extends beyond the immediately
apparent world (Aronson, 1991). These two forms of
youth movement speak the same language – the
language of moral consciousness. The Youth
movement has evolved into a global movement
capable of shaking the hegemonic order.
4 CANDY LEFT: A PERCEPTION
OF PROFANITY
Studying political identities can be very amusing, but
in the age of postmodern politics, political identity
shifts into a mere scene of profanity. Imagery is an
important point in postmodern which refers to
entirely cut off of any original meaning, from any
supporting base (Brann, 1992). Since it is only half
measured on thought or meaning, the image of
identity has never intact. This condition of profanity
in the postmodern movement has become two sides
of the same coin: on one side, it can become a very
resourceful social power, but on the other side, it
becomes the very base of the recent social problem.
Arab Spring, Occupy Movement, and the youth left
movement in Indonesia face similar dilemmas.
Arab Spring and Occupy Movement are bringing
the awareness of how profanity gives a thick color to
postmodern politics. Both of these movements
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managed to gather the masses in unbelievable
amounts to take action on the streets. At the
demonstration in Tahrir Square, there are more than
ten thousand people who join the rally and voiced for
democracy in Egypt. For those who watched only
from the television screen, this demonstration
indicates a major shift in the narrative of Egyptian
political power. However, when the news takes a
closer look by interviewing the activists and provide
depth report on the event, a profane reality burst to
the surface. Most of the participants did not have
holistic ideas or solutions about what kind of
government system they really wanted - they were on
the streets for a very simple reason: to be part of a
historic movement (Bayat, 2009). Of course, various
critics have been cynical to protest by declaring it as
a futile political movement with “a standstill
dialectic”. Or in other words, the movement goes in
vain. At some point, this criticism is irrefutable. The
absence of a common view on the Arabs Spring
movement gives an opportunity for political parties to
represent and revive the old narrative (now, the
military regime has regained control of political
power in Egypt). Occupy movement channel at the
same frequency - though it echoes in various parts of
the world, there is no significant change in the current
capitalist system. However, referring to the history of
the political movement, the condition of profanity is
a consequence of the stagnant political party system.
The disappointment leads to an anti-ideological form
of political participation and societies increasing the
distance from party procedures.
Indonesia is not immune to this contagious effect
of profanity. The most prominent example is the left
movement that emerged after the fall of the New
Order. The regime under Soeharto's held a very strong
political control so that any alternative narrative that
emerged would instantly repressed and the left
ideology, specifically in the context of communism,
is considered dangerous. After the fall of the New
Order in 1998, the previously silenced narrative,
having been able to breathe fresh air through a
democratization and recognition of the freedom of
expression. Driven by the dissemination of
information, the leftist regains its space in political
discourse (although in some extent it is still
monitored and restricted). One of the controversy
when abrupt when “Festival Belok Kiri” is organized
in Jakarta. By using this festival as an example, we
can illustrate how the study of the political identity of
Indonesian finds its way in the postmodern form.
While the term “Candy Left” is a self-made term to
distinguish these profane leftists with the radical
leftist.
“Belok Kiri Festival” gained much attention from
the younger generation shown by their enthusiasm to
attend the festival. Most of the attendance, ranging
from high school to college student, saw the event
with a different perspective. They came, took a selfie
and uploaded it on social media. The “only to be seen
on the scene” behavior that we found amongst the
Tahrir Square demonstrators, also visible at the
Festival. The narrative is functioned more as an image
than meaning. This is certainly different from the
purpose of the initiators. Yet, the result of the event it
is precisely trapped in the paradox of subjectivity:
that the morally conscious and the profane, are
sharing the same political stage. Subsequent to the
Belok Kiri Festival, there are several other events that
carry a similar idea, rangi (Placeholder1) from street
educational activists to anarchical discussions spread
in many cities in Indonesia. However, although the
left narrative is increasingly popular among
Indonesian youth, the risk of a self-image - a candy
left - still overshadowing the youth understanding of
political identity. This is obviously the side effects of
profanity – that the spread of political ideas
nowadays, can no longer be the basis of a reading of
political identity as proposed by Giddens. In the
process of understanding the recent phenomena, we
have to deal with the ugly truth - that we are also
responsible for social problems since the biggest
problem of postmodern age is our failure to uphold
the moral consciousness.
5 CONCLUSIONS
The current study of political identity stands on two
footholds - modernity and postmodernism. Giddens's
modern view is still very relevant to measure the
social dynamics. However, there is a fundamental
change in communication patterns that turns reality
into virtual mirrors. The similar condition also exists
in the context of the youth movement. When
modernity has a steady structure by provides
templates form of lifestyle, the transformation of the
postmodern society rests on the individual's
subjectivity in imaging the lifestyle. Faced with these
changing conditions, a new synthesis form is needed
to grasp the basic social relations patterns of our
current era. Both views, of course, have advantages
and limitations, and it is possible that through the
understanding of both can emerge a new construction
as what Hegel calls "differentiated unity". The
dynamics of social science provide space for the
existence of new constructs that are born out of social
and historical context. By taking the example of the
Candy Left: Youth Movement in Postmodern Era
289

development of youth movement, it is expected that
the changing in social paradigm can be clearly
outlined.
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