Mass Protest and the Two Worlds of Indonesian Politics

Prabowo Subianto greeted by parliamentarians at his pre-Independence Day address, August 15, 2025 | Photo: Kementerian Sekretariat Negara

In an article by New Mandala, Edward Aspinall asserts that Indonesia’s recent anti-government protests highlight the growth of a subculture of street protest that echoes the anti-Suharto activism of the 1990s. In opposing the new form of patronage politics Reformasi gave rise to, today’s protesters pursue goals no less daunting than those of the movement that brought down the New Order.

Working in the Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith obediently repeated the INGSOC slogan, “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”

While I can’t confirm that Fadli Zon, Indonesia’s minister of culture, has read George Orwell’s 1984, it seems likely that he would have at least encountered it during his high school education in Texas or on his path to a PhD in Russian literature. In any case, his record in President Prabowo Subianto’s increasingly authoritarian administration has been shockingly Orwellian. Nowhere is this more evident than in his previously secret project to revise Indonesia’s official national history.

Originally set for release on August 17, 2025, a “gift” to mark eighty years of Indonesian independence, the planned ten-volume oeuvre will radically distort the historical record. Fadli’s project will consign significant contributions from women, ethnic minorities, and left-wing political movements to a memory hole, along with acts of treason and horrific human rights violations committed by prominent right-wingers.