Jakarta calling

On Aug. 28, as the Asia Sentinel reported, ongoing protests in Indonesia “entered a new and dangerous phase … with at least six officials’ homes looted by mobs.” The Sentinel said viral videos captured scenes that were nothing short of surreal. At two luxury residences belonging to lawmaker Ahmad Sahroni, mobs looted high-end items—from branded handbags to expensive watches, while others stomped on his collection of luxury cars. In another clip, crowds forced open a safe and began distributing bundles of cash found inside. The vandalized homes included that of Sri Mulyani Indrawati, “the internationally respected finance minister.”

The ongoing protests are fueled by many issues. Erin Cook, in her newsletter, sums it up: “Like just about everywhere, Indonesians are being squeezed and squeezed on cost-of-living pressures and housing, specifically, is a large part of that. This is only going to get worse as the US tariffs hit major industries and have a domino effect across the entire economy.” Rice is at its highest price in years, and taxes have been raised.

But one deed was the tipping point: a decision by lawmakers to vote themselves a 50-million-rupiah ($3,057) housing allowance (an amount 20 times the minimum wage). It didn’t help that other allowances and perks were justified by lawmakers because, for example, they experienced difficulties commuting, while other lawmakers made the mistake of trying to sound clever, which poured gasoline on the fire: calling protesters “the dumbest people in the world.”

As protests have grown, so has the ferocity of the police, coming on the heels of increasing police heavy-handedness in recent years.

Then, last Thursday, a Brimob (Mobile Brigade Corps) vehicle deliberately ran over a 21-year-old Gojek driver, “one of the army of ojol (ojek online, or ride-share motorbike drivers), across the country,” as Cook reported in her newsletter.

His death was caught on video, became a viral sensation, and helped ignite the wave of attacks on officials’ homes. Cook places his death in its proper political context, too: “An important thing to get across here is to understand what role the ojol plays in Indonesia … in their green (and sometimes orange or yellow) jackets, the drivers are ubiquitous and many … Indonesia’s ojol, as a group, runs the country, delivering people and packages across the archipelago. A secondary function of theirs is … they are eyes and ears in every single community in the entire country. With posts to rest at (and recharge phones) and enormous group chats, the intel gathered and capacity to organize is unlike any other labor group I’ve ever seen.”

The political class seems stunned, unable to even officially respond to the attacks on the homes of parliamentarians. Writes Cook, “Show me someone who loves a member of parliament and I’ll show you a weirdo.” In rallies, the public has begun calling for the dissolution of parliament.

President Prabowo Subianto, who is, so far, not the target of protests, canceled a foreign trip and appeared on TV with the heads of the major parties, announcing they’d agreed to revoke perks parliamentarians had given themselves, including a moratorium on overseas travel.

But he also warned against looting, adding that destruction of facilities would be severely punished. Government offices, police outposts, and regional legislative buildings have been put to the torch.

The police have announced they will exercise what Filipinos like to call “maximum tolerance.” Brownouts have started to occur, and there are widespread allegations that internet traffic has slowed and is spotty in some areas. Older Indonesians have started to refer to the May 1998 riots, which brought down Suharto and led to ethnic massacres in Jakarta.

Here at home, there is indignation and outrage aplenty, but the storm, so to speak, remains a virtual one. Neither Jakarta nor Bangkok (where people have been protesting their recently ex-PM’s slavish phone call to the ex-PM of Cambodia) has gone through 12 years of deep deprogramming to brainwash their population into believing that not only is public protest wrong, it is somehow the cause of the public’s misery.

Jakarta calling!