Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
語言:
English
Photo Credit: Meniirtjakarintan/WikiCommons/CC BY-SA 4.0
Starting in late August, protests have broken out in cities across Indonesia. The demonstrations initially broke out in anger against luxurious housing subsidies received by members of the legislature, to which Indonesian police responded with overwhelming force. But after a delivery driver, Affan Kurniawan, was killed by police, this led to a new wave of demonstrations. To shed light on the situation, New Bloom’s Brian Hioe spoke to Iftitah Sari, researcher at the Institute for Criminal Justice Reform.
Brian Hioe: Could you first introduce yourself?
Iftitah Sari: My name is Iftitah Sari, people usually call me Tita for short. I’m working as a researcher at the Institute for Criminal Justice Reform. We’re an independent NGO working for criminal justice in Indonesia. We’re part of the CSO coalition regarding democracy issues in Indonesia as well.
BH: Many images of the protests have circulated internationally. But it often happens that people see the images of the flames and protests without knowing what’s happening there. Can you talk a bit about why protests have broken out and why they’re taking place?
IS: It’s massive nationwide, it’s not just in Jakarta or big cities, it’s also in small cities in Java, in other islands outside Java, too. Before it began in Jakarta, there was a small riot in a small city in Java called Pati.
I don’t know if you were following this as well, but it started a couple of weeks before. There was a demand from people asking for lowering the rise of taxes, local taxes especially.
People in Pati started this movement. It started to receive attention nationwide because it was very chaotic. The regency, the leader of the city, was being protested in public. People started to throw their shoes in a public space. We can’t separate the movement from this riot there..
In looking at the overall picture, our government has demonstrated many irrational policies. There are policies that they try to promote, people have their say about it, and they try to retract it—especially regarding economic and tax policies.
But this is something that was happening for some time. This was the point at which people’s anger broke out. It’s accumulated dissatisfaction from the public toward the government and how the government runs policies. There is also an economic downturn. I’m not sure if it’s an economic crisis or not, at that level of crisis, but there is a scarcity of rice in some areas for some period of time, and high inflation.
It’s getting hard for people to meet their daily needs. It’s been perceived by the people from the middle to lower economic classes, so that is another reason as well from an economic perspective. And it is very hard for people to get a job. Unemployment rates are on the rise. It is higher than ever.
The insensitive and unsympathetic comments from some members of parliament who were mostly from those who are celebrities or have famous backgrounds and later became members of parliament. Politicians, too, though it is politicians that are problematic in statement saying people who call for the dissolution of parliament are moron/stupid (in Indonesian: “tolol”).
We don’t know who initiated the first movement on August 25th, but it’s organic, as we see in Pati and other small cities in Java. They’re trying to protest against their regency. And it’s widespread in other cities as well.
In Jakarta, they continued the demonstrations after the 25th and they continued to the 28th. That’s the main peak before the public unrest and violence. An ojol (ojek online) driver, Affan, was killed by the police when delivering their order, so that made people become more angry, especially with anger directed at the police.
Before, the focus was on the parliament. On their work and the government, as well. But since this incident on the 28th, with Affan’s death, anger turned toward the police. But in the past couple of years, and until today, the police was always a target of calls for reforms. People in civil society have always called for reform of the police, as police brutality was very unreasonable.
Now the demonstrations are getting more and more widespread in many cities in Indonesia.
BH: There have been a number of protests in recent memory in Indonesia. For example, Indonesia Gelap, then May Day. How does this fit in to the other protests? You mentioned the economic factor, but there also seems to be a lot of anger with Prabowo in power. Prabowo has, of course, been around for awhile and now he has finally taken power.
IS: As I mentioned, this is a peak of the people’s anger. Previously, the situation developed in a fashion where protests recurred many times in a short period. That is why many people are tired of this. But what is different with the previous demonstration is that, with May Day, we always have police brutality. There are always many people arrested and they are victims of police violence.
We also had a riot in 2020 during the pandemic. Maybe because of the pandemic, the wave of demonstrations was not as strong as now. Then there was also the Omnibus Law, as led to Indonesia Gelap. When it was May Day, it wasn’t the peak of anger. But this time, there is a new level of anger.
BH: What are the demands from the demonstrators this time? There are calls for ending the luxury perks that politicians have. Likewise, is it a central group coordinating the protests? Or is it very decentralized and spontaneous?
IS: There are many demands. We call it New Generation. They are civil society influencers and they are youngsters. They’re the young generation that cares about the political situation in Indonesia. They summarized 17+8 demands. It’s also available in English.
They are decentralized and each of the groups in different regions may have different demands. They try to recap and summarize what the demands of the people of this wave of demonstrations are. They also put a deadline in. There’s a week’s deadline until the 5th of September.
There is information that there will be more demonstrations that day, as well. So we’ll wait and see.
The 17+8 demands are about structural changes. This is a political movement, so there is a demand to change how the government chooses their competent or high-ranking officials. This movement is more political than technocratic, as we would call it, so we wouldn’t demand certain laws to be revoked, but demands more in a political way. Corruption is everywhere and we believe that this chaotic system is because of the people sitting in government who are not competent.
Nepotism is prevalent and who sits in government is not based on merit. This occurs not only in the hiring of government workers, but most institutions of government. Promotions in the police and other institutions are problematic, this may occur due to connections rather than on the basis of meritocracy. People believe that this is a cause of the chaotic policymaking process that is not in the public interest.
Another demand is, of course, about how to make sure that people get more from the welfare system, such as regarding employment, jobs, and in the sector of criminal justice. As we are also working on these issues, we demand police reform, but we also realize that the reform of the police will not be there before a change in the political system.
If the political system is like this, it’s not going anywhere. We see addressing structural problems as necessary.
BH: How has the government responded to demonstrators? One way has been, of course, violence in such a manner that has led to international condemnations. There has also been the attempt to depict the protests as deliberately engineered rather than spontaneous and organic.
IS: The president responded a few days ago. He made a statement saying that the people who commit acts of violence, such as arson against the parliament offices in some cities, he said it was treason and terrorism. Rather than seeing what the people demand.
It’s not clear who committed acts of arson. It’s not part of the civic movement, but we cannot deny that someone who is not part of us wanted there to be more chaos. They have their own aims.
We don’t really think Prabowo has really responded to us and understands what we are worried about. Instead, he only responded to events as the arson, and one or two members of the police that were attacked. He mentioned the promotion and his support of reforms in the police that we think will make them more violent, since they have an incentive to arrest, and see civilians as enemies. Because they will be promoted if they get hurt in the protests. I don’t think that’s an appropriate action for the government.
BH: What comes next for the protests? The government doesn’t seem ready to back down and, on the other hand, there is a very clear set of demands.
IS: This is a marathon movement. It’s going to be long. What we see and what we project is that it is a political movement. If there is no political commitment to reform from the government, then the movement will not cool down.
We’re also concerned about how some groups and people want to create more chaos in the protests. We’re worried that at some point, the government will take measures to declare martial law. Which is in our expectation, which would lead to another strategy because we won’t have free movement as now. It will lead to more and more shrinking civic space as well in this situation.
But we start to be careful of the endgame or exit plan of the government, that they would start to declare martial law. We don’t know when, but considering this situation, which is getting more and more intense, that could be a likely outcome.