Dark Indonesia

As the fourth-largest nation in the world and (at least for now) the world’s third-largest democracy, Indonesia has grappled with the legacies of authoritarianism and free-market discipline since the people power revolt that overthrew Suharto’s dictatorial New Order.

Over the past week, diverse acts of dissent, long simmering beneath the surface, coalesced into violent mass actions across the archipelago. With unprecedented ferocity and velocity, thanks to social media, thousands upon thousands of disillusioned citizens erupted in defiance.

Tension have been building through 2025. In February, a series of student demonstrations across Indonesia challenged Prabowo. Organized under the hashtag #IndonesiaGelap or #DarkIndonesia, the protesters opposed a range of policies, including massive budget cuts, the role of the military in domestic governance, nepotism, corruption, and a controversial free school lunch program.

The youth movement joyously embraced a punk DIY aesthetic and adopted Sukatani’s “Bayar, Bayar, Bayar” (“Pay, Pay, Pay”) as their anthem. The mixed-gender duo’s song blended punk, goth, and retro New Wave sensibilities in a raucous condemnation of police corruption.

While these demonstrations eventually dissipated, the pessimistic sentiment of Dark Indonesia spread. Many spoke about leaving their homeland. The hashtag #KaburAjaDulu, or “Just Run Away First,” went viral, reflecting widespread dissatisfaction among young Indonesians faced with weak domestic job opportunities and career prospects.

Prabowo and his administration reacted harshly, dismissing the trend, mocking the youth, and suggesting that it was part of a conspiracy. The opposition MP Charles Honoris countered by describing the hashtag as “a wake-up call, not a reason to label young people as unpatriotic or discourage them from returning. . . . Instead of reacting negatively to this trend, the government should focus on strengthening worker placement and protection programs.”

Rewriting History

In May, minister of culture Fadli Zon, a long-term Prabowo sycophant and rabid Sinophobe, appalled many Indonesians when he announced that he was writing a new national history. The project was an obvious exercise in the whitewashing of Suharto-era human rights violations. Zon then made dismissive remarks about the mass rapes of Chinese women during the chaotic last days of the New Order, implying that rumors had exaggerated the extent of these well-documented crimes.

The 1998 anti-Chinese violence was part of a strategy to redirect popular anger away from Suharto and toward a reliable scapegoat. Prabowo, then a high-ranking general and Suharto’s son-in-law, was dishonorably discharged for his role in kidnapping, torturing, and disappearing activists. In a committee hearing, opposition politicians Mercy Chriesty Barends and Bonnie Triyana publicly condemned Zon for trying to erase these crimes from the record.

Faced with dissent from various directions, Prabowo decided to unite the nation by literally rallying around the flag. As August 17 would mark eighty years since Sukarno’s declaration of independence, he ordered everyone to fly the red and white national flag in an act of patriotism. Flags and patriotic light displays quickly went up all over the nation’s 17,000 islands, weeks ahead of the date when communities would normally decorate for the holiday.

But then, something strange happened on Indonesia’s infamously busy roads. Truck drivers who were frustrated with long hours and burdensome regulations refused to fly the national flag. In a cheeky act of dissent, they flew the “One Piece flag,” a modified piratical Jolly Roger from a popular Japanese anime. After images of the truckers went viral on social media, the flags began to appear everywhere.

Prabowo was furious. In an act of pettiness comparable to Donald Trump’s various obsessions, Indonesia’s coordinating minister for political and security affairs, Budi Gunawan, warned of criminal consequences (such as five years in prison or a US$30,000 fine) for those who dared raised the comical skull and crossbones adorned with a straw hat. The absurdity of Prabowo’s overreaction only fueled flag sales.

In contrast, the Speaker of Indonesia’s House of Representatives, Puan Maharani, suggested a more conciliatory approach to the good-natured protest: “These expressions can be in the form of short sentences like ‘Kabur Aja Dulu,’ sharp satire such as ‘Dark Indonesia,’ political jokes like ‘Konoha country,’ [another anime reference] and new symbols like the One Piece flag and many more that are widely circulated in the digital space.”

As well as being the first female Speaker, Puan is the daughter of Indonesia’s first female president and the granddaughter of Sukarno, its first leader after independence. She reminded her listeners that democracies must allow dissent and criticism.

Flash Point

As Independence Day neared, frustration with the government took a violent turn in Central Java’s Pati Regency. Between August 10 and 13, at least 85,000 people poured into the streets to reject an outrageous 250 percent increase in land and building taxes. What began as a protest against regressive taxation metastasized into demands for the resignation of Regent Sudewo and the rollback of multiple unpopular local policies.

An indignant Sudewo taunted the demonstrators but soon found himself overwhelmed with popular anger. When he called in riot police — the infamous Brimob, or Mobile Brigade — to rescue him, he and the officers were pelted with garbage and chased from the town center. After several days of clashes between protestors and Brimob, the local legislature canceled the tax hike and began the impeachment of Sudewo. This rare victory empowered the activists in Jakarta.

By most accounts, the celebrations for Hari Merdeka, marking eighty years since Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta’s declaration of the end of Dutch rule, were large and joyous events. Admittedly many activists chose not to take part. Prabowo hosted a massive celebration at the Istana (the neoclassical presidential palace, formerly the headquarters of the governor of the Dutch East Indies), complete with military parades, honor guards, and a cavalry procession but also multiple coordinated dance routines with soldiers, officers, bureaucrats, and oligarchs joining in. Non-VIPs turned out for a large parade and aircraft flyovers around Monas, the national monument.

A week later, on Monday, August 25, the mood in the national capital was dramatically different. A dam broke when revelations surfaced that the 580 members of the House of Representatives had been receiving a monthly housing allowance worth 50 million rupiah — over US$3,000, or nearly ten times Jakarta’s minimum wage — on top of their salaries and other benefits. Student protesters, incensed at such grotesque displays of entitlement, moved to storm the parliamentary compound. Riot police unleashed tear gas; students retaliated with stones and set fires beneath an overpass. Roads were blocked, and the city convulsed.

The protests quickly widened and deepened. On August 28, labor unions joined the fray. Thousands of students, workers, and green-jacketed motorcycle rideshare (ojol) drivers marched demanding a halt to outsourcing, higher minimum wages, and protection from mass layoffs. The confrontation with police escalated into full-blown street battles. Using tear gas and high-pressure water cannons, Brimob battled protestors in the areas around parliament, spreading to malls, expressways, and train stations, and paralyzing Central Jakarta.

Uprising

A horrific death dramatically increased the stakes. On Thursday evening, outside Indonesia’s House of Representatives, an armored police vehicle struck and then proceeded to run over Affan Kurniawan, before fleeing the scene at high speed. The twenty-one-year-old victim was working as an ojol, an exhausting and dangerous low-wage job. The death was caught on video and immediately uploaded to social media. In a similar way to the 2020 police murder of George Floyd, the heartbreaking video went viral, producing sorrow and rage.

Suddenly the uprising spread out of Jakarta. More than twenty-five cities from Aceh to Papua became theaters of revolt. Protesters in Medan burned tires and erected barricades; in Pontianak, student leaders were arrested (then released on condition that they promised not to repeat their actions). In Makassar, a blaze engulfed the local parliament building, killing three public servants and injuring five in a horrific spectacle.

Youth in Lombok also burned the regional legislature, while in Surabaya, the governor of East Java’s offices were looted and set ablaze. In Yogyakarta, the provocation culminated in the burning of an integrated driving-license service building — a defiant act of symbolic resistance, even as the region’s sultan sought to quell tensions through dialogue. The violence echoed across Java, with buildings torched, police posts destroyed, and malls shuttered.

In most cases, the police completely lost control of the situation. Out of anger or panic, scores of officers responded with seemingly indiscriminate violence. Tear gas, water cannons, and gunfire has become common in all major cities and some smaller towns. There have been thousands of injuries, many serious, throughout the country. More deaths have been reported, and sadly more are expected as the violence does not seem to be abating after almost a week.

With evidence of police misconduct and acts of mass defiance being uploaded to social media, TikTok temporarily shut down its services in a vain effort to slow the rapid escalation and stop the spread of misinformation. Yet on all social media platforms, rumors are spreading of agent provocateurs encouraging the crowds in order to justify police violence.

In an all-too-familiar antisemitic trope, Russian media speculated that George Soros was behind the unrest. Left-wing activists have pointed out that attacks have focused on PolRI, the national police force and spared the army (Indonesian National Armed Forces, TNI). Considering the long and at times violent TNI-PolRI rivalry, it is possible that some elements within the military might use this opportunity for their own purposes.

Others note that as the unrest is tarnishing the reputation of both Prabowo and the House of Representatives, failed 2024 presidential candidate Anies Baswedan has the most to gain. Considering his past opportunistic use of Islamic identity politics, mass mobilizations, and Sinophobia to destroy the careers of rivals such as Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, the point is worthy of consideration.

Conciliation and Coercion

On Saturday, the violence continued. Multiple police stations in Jakarta and elsewhere came under attack, including groups throwing stones but also Molotov cocktails. The East Jakarta police station was burned to the ground. Social media was filled with hundreds of videos of skirmishes, some with alarming acts of violence.

In Jakarta’s wealthy enclaves, hundreds of people forced their way into gated communities and attacked the homes of particularly notorious politicians. Eko Patrio, who had posted messages on social media mocking the demonstrators, had his house looted. Videos showed people carrying chairs, lights, suitcases, studio speakers, and mattresses out of the house.

Lawmaker Ahmad Sahroni’s home was invaded and vandalized, the perpetrators making off with luxury bags, a large safe, a television, fitness equipment, a piano, and a life-size Iron Man statue. Finance minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati’s home was ransacked. Echoing the plot of the recent film Mountainhead, the attack on her residence may have been sparked by an AI-generated video of her allegedly ridiculing public school teachers.

Faced with a swarming revolt, President Prabowo canceled a scheduled trip to China to directly confront the crisis, expressing condolences and promising investigation. In a dramatic change from his response to similar unrest in 1998, he immediately visited Affan Kurniawan’s family and professed deep regret.

On Sunday, August 31, he delivered a mostly conciliatory speech that promised to eliminate excessive parliamentary stipends and other benefits. However, he did also encourage police to hunt down miscreants: “The rights to peaceful assembly should be respected and protected. But we cannot deny that there are signs of actions outside the law, even against the law, even leaning toward treason and terrorism.”

The state is cracking down on the demonstrations. Jakarta alone witnessed over a thousand arrests. With thousands more detained elsewhere, one wonders how the overburdened police and courts will handle due process. National police and the military were staged to restore “order” — a shorthand term increasingly used to justify suppressing dissent. Social media continues to document the heavy-handed tactics.

Usman Hamid, executive director of Amnesty International Indonesia, rejected the president’s speech as insensitive and missing the point. He urged Prabowo to seriously consider the people’s complaints.

Crisis Snapshot

The 2025 protests have thus become a snapshot of a broader crisis: austerity measures hitting civil institutions, the elite’s inexorable enrichment, and the underlying fragility of Indonesia’s democratic fabric. Citizens — notably youth, laborers, and gig-economy workers — posed a blunt question: Who exactly is this government serving?

These uprisings lay bare the fundamental contradictions of Indonesia’s political economy: the gap between the ruling class and the governed, the collusion of austerity and excess, and the simmering resentment of a generation that is seeing its future mortgaged.

The state’s twin impulses, concession and crackdown, expose its insecurity. Victories in Pati or the softening of rhetoric in Jakarta do little to change the structural tensions. If unchecked, the backlash could accelerate a collapse of democratic accountability. Neighboring countries such as Thailand, Cambodia, and the Philippines offer object lessons on the fragility of democracy.

In this sense, August 2025 is not just another cycle of protest. It is potentially a turning point at which Indonesia’s civic spirit collided, head-on, with elite impunity. How will the state respond? Repression or reform? Indonesia’s future has never been less clear.