Outraged citizens are burning through the streets of Indonesia!
On August 25, hundreds of thousands of protestors took to the streets to protest against the new perks for MPs (members of the country’s national legislature, the People’s Consultative Assembly), such as the housing allowances that were nearly 10 times the average minimum wage in Indonesia. Indonesian President Prabowo has also implemented strict measures, such as cuts to education, health, and public works. This was announced just days after President Prabowo Subianto promised strict austerity measures and more efficient government spending. Demonstrators were also protesting against what they termed “corrupt elites” within the government and policies that benefit conglomerates and the military, according to a press release from the student group Gejayan Memanggil. Since then, Government buildings, police stations and parliaments have been vandalized and set on fire.
Protestors from other parts of the country, such as Bandung, Yogyakarta and Makassar, have started demonstrating their mass amounts of anger towards the government. Protestors have also demanded the repeal of numerous laws, including expanding the role of the military in governance, but were met with tear gas, water cannons, batons and riot shields.
Adding even more fuel to the fire, following the escalation of increasingly violent protests between demonstrators and authorities, 21-year-old delivery driver Affan Kurniawan was run over by an armored police vehicle and seven more people were killed during an intense protest. Footage from bystanders showed an armored police vehicle belonging to a team of elite paramilitary police officers driving through a group of protesters, and Kurniawan was unfortunately one of the many people who were killed during the protest.
“During the period of Indonesia’s protesting, I had to be more aware of the places I was going since most locations are flooded with protestors that break and disrupt facilities and streets, making it dangerous for most citizens to be around those areas,” Indonesian student and former classmate Jocelyn Soemantri (12) said. “This goes to the point that schools have to be held online to ensure safety. This affected my daily routine, and it also affects my weekend days since it wasn’t safe to roam around public places for the time being.”
Since late July, as an act of resistance towards the government, protesters have begun to raise a flag from the hit anime series “One Piece”, which is a version of the Jolly Roger flag. It has become a symbol of defiance against corruption and the choices President Prabowo Subianto has enacted, similar to the anti-authoritarian sentiment in the show. The symbol of resistance arose after a group of truck drivers, who typically attach the national flag in their vehicle every year for Independence Day, instead attached the Strawhat Pirates Jolly Roger flag for the special occasion, in protest of transportation reforms that they overlooked working-class drivers in favor of centralized, elite interests. It went viral, and others all over the country have started raising the flag in protest of the corrupt politicians and lack of reliability of the Government.
“I support the cause, but I feel like we could’ve done it in a more peaceful matter, such as not destroying public facilities [like] MRTs and [the] bus stations,” Indonesian student and former classmate Maynard Immanuel Sahetapy (12) said.
Tensions keep rising months later, even while violence has ebbed, with several videos going viral of Indonesian police improperly using water cannons and tear gas, and also protestors who were already immobilized being struck by batons and detained using unnecessary and excessive force. Amnesty International just released a report stating that police harassed and assaulted over four thousand protestors who were arrested between August 25 and September 1, and as of September 27, 959 of those were charged, while the rest were released.
While the Indonesian government has made some concessions, civic disobedience has largely quieted down due to the extreme security crackdowns that have since been enforced. Whether this relative peace endures remains to be seen.
