Note: A wave of nationwide protests has erupted in Indonesia, triggered by public outrage over a proposed salary increase for parliament members amid a struggling economy. The unrest, which has resulted in casualties and arrests, reflects deep-seated frustration with corruption and perceived injustice.
The road to the presidential palace in Bogor (a city in West Java, known for its colonial-era heritage and lush botanical gardens) is a route I have traveled countless times. It’s a route that, for me, embodies a profound contradiction. Just a stone’s throw from the palace gates, I recently saw a very old man, his back bent with effort, struggling to pull a garbage cart up a steep hill. His labored breathing was a stark and painful sound, a testament to the fact that for many, life is a relentless physical struggle just to survive.
A short time later, I found myself thinking of a different man, a young man who lives in a small room in my housing complex. He has never taken the train to Jakarta, a city only two hours away, because for him, the capital is not a place of opportunity but a distant, unattainable world. This generational cycle of quiet, grinding poverty is what I have come to call "emptiness."
These two men are not just individuals; they are a living indictment of our unfinished nation (a concept explored in Max Lane's Unfinished Nation). History, we’re told, is defined by grand political upheavals—moments like the fall of Suharto, the dictator who held power from 1967 until 1998. But what if the true measure of our freedom lies not in these fleeting moments, but in the persistent struggle against the systems of power that have endured? The tragic death of Affan, the motorcycle taxi driver whose death became a rallying cry, is a painful reminder that for many, life is a relentless physical struggle just to survive.
The Counter-Revolution's Legacy
To an international audience, the story of Indonesia’s liberation often appears complete with the end of formal colonial rule. Yet, the deep structures of power persisted. After 1945, the master was no longer the Dutch state, but a domestic comprador elite—an alliance of military, police, and civilian capitalists who functioned as local agents of global economic interests. This elite took concrete form in military-linked business conglomerates, palm oil and logging tycoons, and bureaucrats brokering foreign investment in mining and plantations.
This new elite, under Suharto’s authoritarian New Order, implemented a systematic counter-revolution. This was a two-front war: a war on mass action (aksi) and a war on memory. The regime rewrote history to erase the meaning-making of national liberation and the memory of the mass movements that had fought for social justice. Yet survivors of the 1965–1966 mass killings, along with peasant organizations and women’s groups, kept fragments of these memories alive—often at great personal risk—preserving alternative narratives of Indonesia’s revolution. This "historical amnesia" left us without the intellectual and praxis tools to understand our own past, let alone fight for our future.
The tragic flaw of the 1998 Reformasi movement (mass protests that ended Suharto’s rule) was that it was a victory of a specific method of struggle, not a comprehensive victory over the system itself. It toppled a dictator but did not dismantle the very structures that allowed a new elite to rise to power. The "emptiness" I see today is the direct result of this unfinished work.
A Dialectic of Action and Organizing
My own journey taught me that a single, explosive event is never enough. In May 1998, as a young student, I felt we could tear down the old system with our righteous anger. But the chaotic years that followed humbled me. I learned that merely shouting at an oppressive system is not enough; we must also build something new in its place.
The current protests, fueled by outrage over parliamentary allowances and the death of Affan, are vital. They are the visible manifestations of a people’s frustration, the force that can shatter the facade of a complicit state. The collective defiance of the 1990s was a necessary step to create a crack in the system. However, these moments of grand action, on their own, cannot complete the revolution. For true and lasting change to occur, this mass defiance must be complemented by the patient, deliberate work of popular education and organizing.
The antidote to this emptiness, this generational cycle of poverty and apathy, is found in the footsteps of anti-colonial architects like Puang Lattu. He was a grassroots organizer from South Sulawesi who understood that the work of liberation is not about seizing a distant palace, but about building power in one's own backyard. His method was simple yet radical. He didn't arrive with a manifesto. He started with a simple question: "What do you need?" This is the fundamental act of popular education. It rejects the colonial logic that outsiders know best and instead centers the community's own wisdom and needs.
Puang Lattu's goal was not to make people dependent on him, but to make himself unnecessary, cultivating leaders from within so they could be the heroes of their own stories. He understood that true freedom is not given; it is built through collective self-reliance. This approach teaches us that the most effective resistance to the grand, exploitative systems of coloniality is the quiet, persistent work of fostering communal self-sufficiency.
A Call to Praxis: The Roadmap for a Movement
The unfinished business of our independence is not a task for a new president or a single movement. It is a daily practice that allows every Indonesian to become the author of their own destiny. This is the work of praxis: where theory and action become one. Here is a roadmap for our movement:
- Research for Emancipation: We cannot just react. We must go to the field not just to protest, but to learn with the people. Our research must focus on identifying the specific agents of dispossession—be they corrupt officials, exploitative corporations, or unjust laws—and the processes that enable them.
- Education for Liberation: Instead of simply telling people what to do, we must help them ask critical questions about their situation. For example, we must ask: "Why are taxes rising while our wages are stagnant?" and "Why does the state protect a palm oil company but not our ancestral land?" This process of questioning and reflection is the foundation for collective action.
- Action for Systemic Change: The final step is organized action based on the knowledge gained. This is not about spontaneous protest; it is about building long-term campaigns against specific targets. The movement's goals should be to strengthen self-reliance in both rural and urban communities through alternative economic models and to challenge the political structures that perpetuate injustice. Today, this spirit is carried forward by peasant unions, independent labor federations, and urban poor movements that experiment with collective economies and mutual aid. We must not only demand change but also begin creating the alternative society we want to see. In doing so, we must recognize that Indonesia’s struggle is deeply intertwined with the broader trajectory of Southeast Asia and the Global South, where peoples face parallel battles against dispossession, authoritarianism, and dependency on global capital. From land struggles in the Philippines to memory battles in Latin America and resource dependency in Africa, these parallels remind us that Indonesia’s unfinished revolution is part of a shared Global South history of resisting empire and capital.
The Work Begins Now
The current crisis presents a moment of profound danger, but also one of immense opportunity. We've seen with our own eyes that the state is not a neutral arbiter; it is an instrument of power that will defend the system to the very end. The rage of the people is the raw material, but it is not enough on its own. It is our job to ensure that this energy is not wasted, so that Affan's death, and the pain of so many others, was not in vain.
So, the choice before us is clear. We can remain a reactive force, forever susceptible to being co-opted or crushed. Or, we can choose the path of praxis: the patient, difficult, and essential work of popular education and organizing. This path is not ours alone—Indonesia’s fate is deeply intertwined with that of Southeast Asia and the Global South, where peoples share parallel struggles against authoritarianism, dispossession, and dependency. Our collective liberation depends on linking local organizing with regional and global action.
The hope for a new Indonesia lies not in a distant city, but in the collective consciousness and power that we must now build. The work of true liberation is not a task for someone else. It is a struggle that begins with us, in our own communities, with our own hands.
The time for conversation is over. The work begins now.
Further readings:
- Eka Kurniawan – Beauty Is a Wound (New Directions, 2015). A satirical, mythical novel confronting colonialism, the 1965 massacres, and authoritarianism.
- Pramoedya Ananta Toer – This Earth of Mankind (Penguin, 1996, trans. Max Lane). The first volume of the Buru Quartet, chronicling Indonesia’s unfinished struggle against colonialism and injustice.
- Rachmi Diyah Larasati – The Dance That Makes You Vanish (University of Minnesota Press, 2013). A feminist study of how Suharto’s regime appropriated art and culture as instruments of power.
- Suraya Afiff – Selected essays on agrarian transformations and forest struggles. An environmental anthropologist whose English-language works explore land conflicts, indigenous rights, and rural resistance in Indonesia.
- Farabi Fakih – Authoritarian Modernization in Indonesia’s Early Independence Period (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). A historian’s account of how authoritarian institutions were forged in the early independence era within global Cold War developmentalism.
Hasriadi Masalam is an Indonesian scholar and grassroots organizer, co-founded ININNAWA and KITA, and now helps The Freedom Fund build power from the ground up.
Editor's note: The ideas expressed in this blog are not necessarily those of the Othering & Belonging Institute or UC Berkeley, but belong to the author.