Indonesia’s Military-Democracy Interplay is a Lesson Never Learned

Indonesia’s Military-Democracy Interplay is a Lesson Never Learned

by Meryem BahadirNo Comments
By Guest Writer Rafsi Albar Image by Arkananta Dhimas Naufal For 31 of its 78 years, Indonesia was ruled by the iron fist of the “smiling general,” Suharto. His leadership, known as the “New Order,” originally focused on economic development in order to make up for the losses suffered as a result of President Sukarno’s political manoeuvres. Despite being arguably successful in improving the welfare of its more than 100 million people across three decades, his military background eventually found a way to intervene in the young nation’s supposed democracy. The dual function of the armed forces, more commonly known locally as Dwifungsi ABRI, is a doctrine developed around the same time as Suharto’s rise to power following the political upheaval caused by the Indonesian Communist Party’s insurgency in 1965. The armed forces—or ABRI—then encompassing both the military and police, saw civil administration as ineffective. As such, they believed that former and active ABRI personnel should be able to assume strategic positions in...
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Understanding the LGBT Rights Movement in Indonesia

Understanding the LGBT Rights Movement in Indonesia

by Larissa PeltolaNo Comments
By guest contributors Harsh Mahaseth* and Ishita Goel*   Although homosexuality is legal in most parts of Indonesia, it is widely believed that the unitary state of the Republic of Indonesia is anti-lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT), with government officials making the four-letter acronym a toxic symbol. In November, Indonesian police arrested Millen Cyrus, a trans-woman Instagram influencer, for alleged drug possession. Police placed her in a male detention cell at the Tanjung Priok Port Police Station, a move that received criticism from Indonesians and the international community. Millen Cyrus was arrested on November 22, 2020, after police raided her hotel room and discovered 0.36 grams of crystal methamphetamine in her possession. Police revealed later that Cyrus had been placed in a male detention cell because her I.D card identified her as a male. She was moved to a special cell following public outrage, not because police realised their mistake. They removed her from the male detention cell in order to “stifle anger,”...
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A Review of The Act of Killing (2012): Trauma, Memory, and the Power of Filmmaking

A Review of The Act of Killing (2012): Trauma, Memory, and the Power of Filmmaking

by Editor1 Comment
By Daniel Golebiewski, graduate student of human rights at Columbia University ___________________________________________________________________________ On March 8, 2014, Columbia’s School of the Arts, in collaboration with the Institute for the Study of Human Rights (ISHR), screened Joshua Oppenheimer’s 2012 documentary, The Act of Killing. This film was shortlisted for a 2014 Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary. On this evening, the audience had the chance to see the Director’s Cut and ask Oppenheimer questions regarding trauma, memory, and the power of filmmaking. In 1965, Anwar Congo and Adi Zulkadry—Indonesian “gangsters” deriving their label from the English “free men” meaning to live on without punishment from the criminal justice system—accepted their role as leaders of the most well known killing squad in North Sumatra. In The Act of Killing, Oppenheimer invites these two gangsters and their comrades to reenact their assassinations of Chinese communists. They seem eager to create a film that uses humor and romance, as well as inspiration from their favorite movie genres like...
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Notes from the field: Indonesia’s water justice movement

by Editor1 Comment
Reza sits on the couch in the reception area of KRuHA’s shared office in South Jakarta, chatting with two visiting PhD researchers about the current state of Jakarta’s water crisis. KRuHA is the Indonesian language acronym for the People’s Coalition for the Right to Water, and, with the help of an SYLFF Summer Research Grant, I travelled to Jakarta in August to research Indonesia’s small, but vocal, water justice movement. Specifically I was interested in how this movement was engaging the human right to water (see another blog post of mine on the evolution of this new right) as an advocacy tool, and the sorts of opportunities and challenges the human rights framework might present organizations like KRuHA.   Meeting KRuHA It’s common for students, journalists and fellow NGO activists to drop by this small office and discuss the country’s ongoing water woes, particularly those faced by Jakarta – drought, worsening pollution and decreasing quality of drinking water, increasing tariffs, and intermittent supply....
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