Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 349

6th International Conference on Community Development (ICCD 2019)

War Metaphors in Political Contestation Prior to

2019 Presidential Election
Ajang Budiman
University of Muhammadiyah Malang, Indonesia
ajangbudiman99@gmail.com

Abstract. This paper is intended to describe the use of The incident is probably an extreme case when
war metaphor in Indonesian public discourse prior to differences in a presidential choice lead to physical
the 2019 presidential election. The data were collected conflict resulting in death. However, this clearly
by using Google's search engine from the statements illustrates the Conceptual Metaphor Theory saying that
of the candidates of the president and the vice metaphor is not just a matter of language but is primarily
president and of their success teams, which are a conceptual phenomenon which is not only regulating
related to war metaphors. The collected data were thoughts but also influencing actions. In the incident
then processed using the conceptual metaphor theory. above, the perpetrator and the victim were entirely
Based on data analysis, it was found that there was affected by the rhetoric of fight and battle in the political
indeed a strong indication that the war metaphors contestation of the presidential election. Therefore, the
were underlying the discourse of political competition supporters of one candidate see the others as the
in the presidential election. This was prominently opponent to be defeated. Lakoff and Johnson firmly
manifested in the use of the word berantem (fight) stated that "Our concepts structure what we perceive,
spoken by the presidential candidate and incumbent how we get around in the world, and how we relate to
president Joko Widodo. The phrase total war was other people. Our conceptual system thus plays a central
declared by the vice spokesperson of Joko Widodo's role in defining our everyday realities" [2]. Therefore, a
success team, General Muldoko. Also, the phrase metaphor indirectly influences human perception,
battle post was used by the other presidential conception, and action. Also, it can be said that a
candidate, Prabowo Subianto. These words/phrases metaphor is not merely an ornament of language that can
and their respective cognates strongly suggest that the be discarded when it is not needed. A metaphor is
presidential election is a war of metaphors underlying indispensable and works at the conceptual level as a way
the public discourse prior to the election day. of thinking that understands something through
something else: "The essence of metaphor is
Keywords: war metaphor, presidential election, understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in
cognitive linguistics terms of another" [3]. It is not surprising that a metaphor
as a conceptual system underlies the use of language in
INTRODUCTION various fields ranging from the field of religion and
science to the daily usage terms.
It is undeniable that politic always contains an aspect One famous metaphor is that of war, which is a
of contestation to win the people' attention. The aspect of metaphor that views certain human activities as a war.
contestation is proven through war metaphors, which are Human activities commonly associated with war are
expressed in various phrases by the presidential and vice- argumentation [4], love [5], sports [6], politic [7], and
presidential candidates and their successful teams. One business [8]. Thus, we have the metaphors argument is
well-known phrase stimulating debate is berantem (fight) war, love is war, sport is war, politic is war, and business
which was once said by Joko Widodo, the presidential is war. The influence of war metaphors occurs because
candidate when delivering a speech in front of his the concept of war is rooted in the experience of human
supporters. Another phrase that was also quite well- life itself. Explaining the argument is war metaphor,
known and became the subject of controversy is the Lakoff and Johnson [9] explained that this metaphor
expression markas pertempuran (battle post) spoken by allows us to conceptualize rational arguments in terms of
the other presidential candidate, Prabowo Subianto when a more directly lived experience, namely physical
expressing his plan to establish a winning post in Central conflict (fight). Fights are rooted in human evolution
Java. These expressions do not seem to be just a matter from the animal world; animals fight to get what they
of language, but a matter of perception and conception of want in the form of food, sex, territory, and control
political competition which may eventually influence because other animals want the same thing. In humans,
concrete actions. In this connection, it might not be a these physical fights get institutionalized in the form of
coincidence that there was once an incident when two war. Despite the differences between physical fights and
different groups of supporters of the presidential war, the basic structure remains the same, for example,
candidates mocked each other on social media and starting with conveying challenges, establishing and
continued to attack each other physically so that one of defending territory, attacking, defending, counter-
them died [1]. attacking, and giving up. However, as rational beings,

Copyright © 2019, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). 43
 Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 349

humans also develop institutions of verbal RESULT

argumentation. Although verbal arguments have far
surpassed physical fights, humans have become Based on data analysis, it was found that the use of
accustomed to understanding verbal arguments as war metaphors in political discourses prior to 2019
physical fights with the vocabulary of attacking, presidential election is manifested in some linguistic
defending, winning, giving up, and so on. expressions. Among the prominent expressions getting
In the political sphere, one of the manifestations of public attention is the word berantem (fighting) which
war metaphor is the metaphor politic is war [10]. Politic was spoken by Joko Widodo, one of the presidential
is a field of life where humans struggle to gain power; candidate and also the phrase markas pertempuran
because power is limited while the hunters of power are (battle post) spoken by the other presidential candidate,
almost unlimited, so humans inevitably have to struggle Prabowo Subianto, and perang total (total war) declared
to get it. In a democratic system, this political by General Muldoko who is the vice-chairman of
contestation is channeled through free elections, where winning team of Joko Widodo.
every citizen has a right to choose and be elected. The first metaphor pulling public attention was the
However, because this war metaphor comes from the word berantem (fighting) from Joko Widodo during a
subconscious, people often do not realize the welcoming speech at a public meeting with Jokowi's
metaphorical nature of this political discourse. For volunteers at the Sentul International Convention Center
example, war metaphors may make people to be deluded Bogor (04/08/2018). In his speech it seems that the
by the assumption that in the war the winner takes all and sentence containing fighting is uttered as an addition to
people get misguided by the false assumption that the main topic because the topic of the speech itself is not
negotiations and compromises are not allowed in war. about fighting, but suggestion not to do disrespectful
Thus, fanatical voters can be trapped in actual hostility deeds: "Don't build up hostility, don't build hate speech,
caused by war rhetoric in politics. don't create slander, don't condemn, no need to disparage
For this reason, it is hoped that the examination of the other people. However, if you are invited to fight, you are
nature of war metaphors in politic can make us realize brave too. "(Emphasis added.)
that war metaphors are actually just one way of talking In the above welcoming address, Jokowi did not
highlighting certain aspects of reality, but at the same explain what he meant by the word fighting. This arouses
time they may hide other aspects. Thus understanding the different interpretations, pros and cons. His rival in the
metaphor is expected to make us more open to other presidential election, represented by Andre Rosiade, The
discourses. Moreover, we understand that politic is not spokesperson for the Prabowo-led Gerindra Party,
merely a matter of competition, but it is also a matter of regretted Jokowi's remark asking his volunteers to be
cooperation. brave if invited to fight because the statement could lead
to violence.
METHOD Responding to this objection, Budi Arie Setiadi, the
chairman of pro-Jokowi group PROJO, saw nothing
To achieve the purpose above, this paper relies on wrong with Jokowi's statement. According to him,
Cognitive Linguistics as its theoretical orientation, Jokowi only advised the volunteers not to seek enemies
especially on conceptual metaphor theory, which sees during the campaign period, but also they should not be
language as a cognitive/conceptual phenomenon and a feared or afraid. Budi added that "even President Jokowi
means of communication. Seeing language as a was surprised when finding that all volunteers said they
conceptual means of communication is rooted in bodily were ready to fight proving Jokowi's volunteers were
experiences [11], [12], [13]. The method of investigation very militant and never feared because they were
was basically descriptive qualitative, describing the use activists and militant fighters," Budi said. (Emphasis
of metaphors in language of a daily basis. The source of added.)
data was news stories of online media on the internet. So, even though the fight statement was defended, but
Data were collected through Google's search engine in the defense strengthened the war metaphor, by adding
the form of statements taken from the candidates for the some additional vocabulary: not to be feared or afraid,
president and the vice president and their success teams, very militant and never afraid, ready to fight, and
which are related to war metaphors. The collected data militant fighters.
are then processed using the conceptual metaphor theory, The second metaphorical phrase that also got much
which holds that "The essence of metaphor is attention is the use of the term battle post or combat
understanding and experiencing one thing of terms in command post by the Prabowo-Sandi pair. This term was
another" [14]. In this connection, political competition used in connection with the plan to move the Prabowo-
(presidential election) is understood and experienced as a Sandi National Winning Board (BPN) headquarters from
war or a battle. The data were analyzed by highlighting Jakarta to Central Java.
lexical units containing metaphors by following the Responding to the news that the BPN will move its
guides given by Schmitt [15] and Pragglejaz group [16]. headquarters to Central Java, Darma Setiawan, BPN
Both guides have similarities in that both rely on the Chairman of the DIY (Special Province of Yogyakarta)
differences between literal and contextual meaning for province, straightened out that it was not the physical
the identification of metaphorical words/expressions. transfer of the BPN central headquarters from Jakarta to

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Central Java, but the establishment of a winning post Fadli Zon, criticized the total war term said Moeldoko.
which is called battle post and combat command post. He mentioned that the term was created by one of the
"As to the BPN itself, it stays in Jakarta in Kertanegara leading figures in World War II. "The term was started
No. 6 because it is there that all of the success team by Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's right hand from the Nazi
coordinate at the national level. However, we will later Party," Fadli said. Fadli said that in a 1943 war
make some sort of battle post (in the middle of Java campaign, Germany was almost lost. Then the term total
Island)," he said. "Initially our target was 55:45 in DIY, war emerged as part of the propaganda and an effort to
then it changed to 60:40. Now in our calculation to reach mobilize all effort, whatever was left of the Nazi Party's
60:40, one of the strategic steps that must be taken is power.
(forming) a combat command post in Solo," said
Setiawan. Darma Setiawan explained that the choice of CONCLUSION
Solo as a battle post was based on national political
considerations, namely the need to immediately establish From the data analysis of language use, which is
a battle post in the middle of the battlefield (Java Island), considered as an expression of the war metaphor above,
and in the middle of it is Solo. several important conclusions can be drawn. First, the
Responding to the establishment of the Prabowo presidential election and its various activities, especially
battle post, Bambang Wuryanto, PDIP chairperson of the campaigns, are expressed metaphorically in various
Central Java region responded that this would actually forms ranging from fighting to battles and wars. That can
wake up the sleeping bulls. Bambang even stated that the trigger physical conflict. Secondly, the metaphor of war
bull party cadres were ready to fight against the seems to form a system that includes various actions
Prabowo-Sandi camp in capturing the hearts of the (such as fighting, fighting, attacking, counter-attack,
people of Central Java. "As a party leader in the region, I attacking each other, anticipating opponent's movements,
will hold a meeting soon. Of course, to anticipate the strategic steps, capturing people's hearts; airstrikes,
opponent's movements. However, this will lead to a good, ground attacks, infantry activities, penetration,
more solid dialectic aspect. Especially later if there canvasing , micro-targeting, man to man, body to body,
comes an order from the commander-in-chief Megawati winning the presidential election, not to let any inch of
Sukarnoputri and Puan Maharani, the bulls will soon ground left untouched by the attack), the perpetrators and
hone the horn," he said. Those expressions, such as a bull their qualities (such as militant fighters and not feared
cadre ready to fight, the bulls will soon hone the horns, and afraid and ready to fight, opponents, commander in
anticipate the opponent's movements, and the chief, and losing and depressed parties), and their place
commander in chief, indirectly refer to "fighting." Also, (post / battle post, battleground, attack target, defense
the words, supporting figure of Joko Widodo above, area, enemy area). Besides, there are also terms related
were added. Those are bull cages and bulls ready for to the animal world such as bull cages, sleeping bulls,
combat and bulls honking their horns. wake up sleeping bulls, bulls sharpen their horns, and
The atmosphere of the war was present more clearly bulls are ready to fight.
when the use of the phrase total war was echoed by the
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