#B18 indopol

[b66clematis]

closed space with mirror

from this week, we learn that social media:

is difficult to be used to show nuance, much less when you have limited characters, due to it being text only and not being super real-time, a la talking face to face

all social medias are just bubbles, man. usually it's the algo doing it

i'm so tired... these days, i'd rather read books instead. may still be bubbly due to personal preference on books and not face-to-face, but at least books are long enough to explain nuance thoroughly... plus because it's long form text, hopefully it combats the lack of critical thinking, reactionary behavior, and reading attention span issue from social media.

really, if you want to be enriched, it's best to just read long form writings and talk to people one on one... sigh. i suppose the amount of doxxing i see in twitter and lembong were the nail in coffin to me, the very thing that made me realize why i actually hate being in twitter for following up politic stuffs sometimes..... and it grows worse these days

[b66clematis]

september: where are they now, and where are we?

in the midst of boredom during waiting for my delayed airplane, i visited a bookstore to buy a magazine, after receiving a good amount of angpao. a book caught my attention: the jakarta method by vincent bevins. i've heard of it before because, well, INDONESIA MENTIONED!!!, but i wasn't interest in it. however, thanks to whatever the presidential election was, i was intrigued to know more about our forgotten history, and decided to buy it out of impulse. "ha ha... will i even finish this... a nonfiction, historical, 200+ pages long book in english? this will probably just go unread..." i thought.

surprise, i finished it somehow, wowie! despite not really getting the full grasp of it due to my very limited history knowledge and english being my secondary language (tragic enough, i found out later that a local publisher has translated this book. what was all that effort and money for, man), i think it was enlightening and captured the emotions well. what hit me the most personally was the last 2 chapters of it, which is what i want to talk about here, also in honor of september, AKA the month of the 1965 extramination.

i finished the book on a mall park. the last chapter, which is the title for this post: where are they now, and where are we?, made me sat for a while, reflecting about where are we now. compared to the point this book is at, we are not doing any better. we're actually doing worse! none of our dark history are being told truthfully, history lessons are being trimmed, faults being overwritten by their own narratives, preparators are being forgiven.

to start the book, bevin took us to seminyak beach in denpasar, bali. little locals nor tourists know that in 1966, seminyak beach was a gravesite where they stack the bodies of those who were slaughtered during PKI extramination. wayan badra, a hindu priest, witnessed it happening. it was so unknown, that according to wayan, a beach club was build near his home, named ku de ta (kudeta means coup d'etat). the skulls were still found over the years.

for the next town, bevin traveled to solo to meet magdalena kastinah, now all alone and ostracized by her neighborhood. in 1965, she was taken by the police for being involved with the feminist and socialist (also nationalist) organization gerwani (indonesia women movement). during the extramination, gerwani was propagandized as an witchy organization that mutilates military commanders' genitals for ritual. magdalena was not part of this, yet she was still taken and imprisoned. as a result, all of her connections were cut, leaving her in such situation.

from wayan's story, we learned on how forgotten indonesia's history is. it was quickly swept away by turning bali into a tourist destination. bevin also added a comparison on how in cambodia, tourists could have a better chance on knowing the country's mass murder, as their killing fields museum is a big tourist destination. and from magdalena's story, we learned one of the impacts of this: innocent people being falsely marked wrong for all their life, because people don't know the truth.

and such thing only gets worse in the present. as we're in solo, bevin brought up about joko widodo, who was the mayor of solo. bevin actually talked about how jokowi was supported by human rights activists for promising resolving 1965 extramination and many other human rights issues, then was accused as PKI, responded to the accusation with "if the PKI comes back, just beat them up," and reelected on 2019. but my mind wandered to something else: what happens after that reelection, AKA how jokowi helped prabowo, guilty for the kidnapping of activists during 1998 protest, to become a president.

after winning in 2019, jokowi made prabowo into his minister. so i asked my parent back then, who voted for prabowo: "was prabowo involved in 1998?" they said no, it was a false accusation. everytime this was talked about, most people would either say a) they don't know that happened, or b) he was forgiven. it angers me that the country successfully buried prabowo's sins, when the victim's family still orates weekly in front of the presidential palace (called kamisan), demanding justice for them. heck, even some of those people would say "just move on". and similar to kamisan, when bevin tried to arrange meetings with his sources, a priest that knows 1965 extramination told him that any attempts to fight for it has resulted in nothing much.

in the previous chapters, bevin acknowledged this too:

[...] for more than fifty years, the indonesian government has resisted any attempt to go out and record what happened, and no one around the world has much cared to ask, either.

i don't remember where this was written too so i might be wrong, but bevin also pointed out how indonesia's history tend to not be documented really well, compared to other countries' history. as a result, other countries rarely pay attention to indonesia. in case of united states, for example as bevin wrote it, indonesia's submission into a "quiet, compliant partner" of the united states' anti communism crusade resulted in how americans barely heard about indonesia.

this is very true: i have never heard prabowo's name being brought up during history lessons, when we learned about 1998 protests. if anything, i think it was told quite brief, not too detailed. another thing i noticed about for example was the process of getting papua back to indonesia. other area acquisition was explained very thoroughly, all that succeeded and failed agreements and military aggressions. but when papua's part come, it was as simple as "papua was given back 2 years later". none was written on the struggle, or how questionable the referendum was.

it's very unsettling to think about. ironic even, when you put it into perspective: indonesia history is gate-kept and falsely told, to the point that the one that came up with this book is a westerner, not a javanese, balinese, any other kinds of indonesians (i believe bevin also wrote this, but i couldn't find the quote), who should have been able to give a more authentic experience by default. and funny addition to this, bevin tried to visit the monumen pancasila sakti, only to be denied for entry because he's a foreigner. bevin later knew that it was an attempt to cover up indonesia's propaganda efforts to the outer world.

indonesians were thought so much about nationalism during school. but what happens when you find out that a good chunk of indonesia's history is actually not that patriotic and great? what if it defies indonesia's own ideologies? it's as if indonesia is so afraid that people will not be proud of their country. maybe fear of indonesia will crumble and united no more (see provinces with separation movements). but i think, doing this isn't making them any prouder either. or, even if they're proud, it's... a hollow one. an union glued by lies.

history should be told as is, so we can avoid all the tragedies and irony mentioned above, and learn from the mistakes. for example, besides the gerwani propaganda, the murder was also escalated by spreading the propaganda that communists are infidels, sending muslims to kill them. like, this reminded me so much about the many conflicts we had just because of religion and belief differences, such as 212 for one (the segragation and racism has grown worse ever since, though it's somewhat more chill... and KM 51, another human violation done possibly by the government, was ironically also the product of that).

for the final story in solo, bevin visited sakono praptoyugono, who was also imprisoned for taking interest in communism and having several PKI friends (he himself wasn't), and had to witness his imprisoned friends taken to be executed (not related, but because i liked this part, i want to mention that they sang maju tak gentar in prison). he's not seeking for revenge, but there's someone that seeks one - or, more like, being made to seek it because government doesn't want to, as he says:

[sakono] wants no vengeance and is at peace with his past. but he's equally adamant that the country is not at peace with this history. "the solution is for this nation to recognize its sins and repent. i value even the most difficult experiences i went through, because they taught me to show love to everyone," he said. "if we can recognize what our nation has done, and ask for forgiveness, we can move foward."

oh yeah... because this topic may risk me into unfortunate things: i don't write anything about supporting any political beliefs nor movements. to be honest, i'm not super knowledgable about it to form any opinion about them. i'm just writing what i read from the book.

[b66clematis]

if i say this on twitter about that lebak bulusian guy, will i get my ass beaten? i dunno... that's scary...

considering this site is shutting down, this feels like the right place to say it, and i'm just gonna say it right to the point:

i don't like the "anies baswedan fanclub" vibe in indonesian twitter lately... yeah.

look. i'm not against this guy. as someone who commutes to jakarta daily, i would like to thank him for cutting a good chunk of my transportation expenses with mikrotrans. i also enjoyed christina martha tiahahu park. he has been funny so far (see my write up about jokowi's supernaturals). we could have worse.

but... i don't know. something just feels... off. uncanny? probably due to 2 reasons:

personal reasons. i used to like a public figure. then he became cocky, failed to prove the thing he was boasting about. and that caused him to be ridiculed. it goes on for a good 4 years. it was not fun at all, and this public figure is not even a politician, nor big superstar. what he did wasn't something grave either, yet it was the worst 4 years in my fandom career. taught me to never like real life people anymore. they're imperfect, and getting attached too close to them means, it's also likely harder to deattach when they trip.

people keep on saying to never trust politicians. they all hide something bad in them, only cares for their interests, yada yada. so when you see a politician that appears to defy this rule... it's gonna stand out in a badly suspicious way. even people like, say, mahfud MD, still gets blamed for his stance on kanjuruhan tragedy and passing the omnibus law bill (he's more like an enabler than actually the cause, need to be noted). or ganjar pranowo, who still has the wadas mining site haunting him at times (although weirdly enough, i don't see conversations about this often during pemilu either on twitter).

you may object "what are you on, he has mistakes too! remember his 2017 winning speech during pilkada jakarta?" this is true. twitter also have talked about some of his "mistakes", like how his pinisi overpass have no roof (they need to put that roof), not continuing LRT (apparently another saga of "government hates anies", see this debate between ahok's guy VS anies' guy about it), or the "tiktok users are implied to have no common sense" phrasing thing*. but in the overall indonesian twitter climate... it doesn't seem to impact him greatly. there are still many people willing to defend them. unlike mahfud, which no one tried to defend his blunders, or even ganjar who still have most accounts doubting his defense. the 212 thing? it has been debunked often with a picture of prabowo in the mass event. his mistakes are overall not really prominently seen around.

he's also really the perfect recipe for what (twitter) people picture as an ideal leader. charismatic, soft and well spoken, open to criticism, interacts a lot to people both in real life (you gotta see his house, it's very open to people, both in planning and function) and the internet (kinda too chronically online lately), transparent history (i know too much about this guy at this point, thanks twitter), an overall consistent idealism, and so far has been aligning with the opposition's demands. he feels very close and reachable to the people, unlike most politicians here. someone that can give people hope in these dark times of democracy.

i don't write this to wish downfall for anies. if he is just actually that good and all of his mistakes are still arguable, then i suppose it's mostly fine. if anything, i'm actually kinda on a suspertitious doubt that he's having one anytime soon. in my belief, someone that has been disgraced so hard will one day receive the reward, and someone who is on a high place may fall soon so that no one will deify them. in the past years, anies has received a lot of blame, hoax, and defamation**. so by logic of this suspertition, this is probably god's reward for anies, for enduring such hardships.

... or is it? what if it's actually the other one, being "currently on a high place?" i don't know, this is kinda hard to gauge. anies is HELLA popular in twitter, but also HATED in the indonesian people in general. so, he is popular, but also not popular...?

but yeah. what i anticipate is, whether god will expose his fatal faults one day, or trips himself, and people end up defending him instead. creating another joko widodo. especially when every of his faults have counters that you just don't hear anyone complain about it anymore, or when some people start to say "this guy really have no weaknesses, don't he? imagine passing a leader like this." and so on. even when you preface it with "not to idolize him, but-" or "i know we have to praise the idea and not the person". it's kinda hard to buy in the current climate.

heck, i even have seen some people going "if i write down this anies criticism or scandal*** that once happened to him, i will get my ass beaten". that's... not really good indicator? if anies is open to criticism and the people are also welcome to the idea of scolding anies when he does wrong, then no people should be worried to post it. i think overall, what i want to say is that... it's kinda hard to tell how good anies actually is, because all that blow up is the good things. most criticisms are usually debated over in twitter's harsh style. it starts to give out an imagery that anies is an utopia dream.

prove me right, twitter. when the time unfortunately falls upon us****, prove that you are all here for anies' idealisms, and not anies as a person.

FOOTNOTES (tumblr, please put support for footnote formatting. thanks!)

*i'm aware that none of these is as grave as omnibus law bill, or wadas. 

**he kinda did this to himself, IMO, but he appears to have been learning from that mistake and starting to reestablish his reputation. 

***i, of course, also wish this to not happen, hence "unfortunately". 

****something about how he become the rector in paramadina. apparently involved some insider sabotage thing (he's not supposed to be the rector), but i haven't seen any full dicussion on this other than paramadina people hearsays, and my friend who went there during his era didn't know either. so i'm not sure about how true is it.

too many footnotes...

[b66clematis]

they be fun and happy on my politics: the 2024 indogov elections discourse

i just seem to never catch a break when it comed to vibing in any fandom or community, ever! so i'm writing it down. and despits being in english, i'm not prefacing this with the issue background. so this post isn't exactly meant for international viewers, either. if you still want to try keep up, i suggest to just read any news about indonesia elections from your local news outlets, like this one for example. doesn't give out the full thing, but tapped it just enough. i have been wanting to post this for so long, but i just kept on rewriting it again and again, due to it being too long mostly. and how the situation evolves from time to time. thank, it's finished now. i'm just going to jump in.

the younger generations here do have apolitical issue (also other groups, but that's not what are we focusing at). very apolitical, that we really end up winning the most controversial candidate to be our president, as you can read above. i'm not sure, but this is also probably the reason the phrase politik riang gembira (happy and fun politics) exist? the previous elections was harsh. and younger generations need a "friendlier" approach to politics, in which i'm sure is the goal for any of the candidates here, as they're the biggest age group in the voters.

but, should politics even be happy and fun, in the first place? what if it's never meant to be?

(spoiler: this is not answered, as i am still in the dilemma myself. you decide.)

inbetween the things that spawned during campaign period, there are 3 forms of internet content, from what we call indogov, the actual "fandom' side of indonesia politics: 1) memes, 2) account parodies (ex/: anies bubble, tim penguin nasional), and 3) comics/illustration of imagining the candidates (and their more known campaign team) in a highschool AU. and this is how the discourse started, causing a debate whether such thing should exist.

for the pros, they see this "fandomization" as a good starting point to get interested in politics, and probably getting the context of the current political climate. making things lighter, as the younger ones tend to see politics as scary and complicated. if they sidetracked to the government's side, they'd just ditch the guy anyway (like sandiaga uno, when he announced that his party may move to PAGI's coallition). another thing, they see what they write as satire, not a fanfiction. it's simply another form of art expression to criticize. as a bonus, anies from AMIN himself responds to the fandomization phenomenon postively (IDN article).

for the cons, there's nothing funny or fandom-ish about politics, it affects you. and this is no different to what PAGI did: woobifying politicians, erasing their dirty records away, no critical substance whatsoever. they only portray/see what's good or funny from them, and not so much (or none) about their negative sides. such as how muhaimin was a government person before being paired with opposition anies as VP, or how they see sandiaga as a cinnamon roll, while he decided to open the tourism gate during COVID-19. and it's real people anyway, not fictional characters, and that's weird to do. oh yeah, and this criticism extends to the parody accounts too.

as someone who has meme-d the candidates too from the debates and tweets, i posted my cynicism and regret on my private account. i sided with the dislikers, for 4 reasons:

i have experienced being a fan a public figure myself. it didn't end well, and sent me into a possibly everlasting burn out to this day. the only lesson i got was that, you should never root for any kind of public figures. they're not perfect, and their imperfections will only destroy your sanity. you either live in a dilemma, or be delusional enough to stand up for their mistakes - parasocial poison. and the subject we're talking about here now is a politician. someone whose priority is their interest, and may screw you over for it. and when i said that politics is just a public figure fandom, there's a catch: there IS a major difference to it - politics has a direct impact you and millions others lives, public figures do not.

[on another quick OOT note (i just can't contain this feeling inside me too, sorry), this is also why i don't really want to associate myself to gerakan perubahan (change movement), perbaikan (correction/improvement), whatever. i mean, it's a good cause, i appreciate it. but the fact that it's initiated by a politcian, or a public figure, makes me reluctant with it. i don't want to be trapped in that sanity limbo anymore. more power to everyone who wants to, though! i genuinely wish you well, and i hope you know when to and can quit, whenver your leader figure goes too far.]

i feel... very disgusted, honestly, when the cons equalized making silly funny politic sh*tpost drawings to PAGI's gemoy gimmick disgusts me, a lot. i loathe how PAGI won the elections by making a fool of the people with stupid dancing, "savage" gestures that's just cringe and disrespectful, cutie grandpa persona, basically things with no political substance whatsoever, and just relying how uncritical we are. if i do the same, what's the difference then? you're not any better than them, you only come in a different cover.

i just... man, some of the con people also say "get a normal hobby, man". making an AU of people who are still alive, not familiar with fandom culture (as for anies' article news above, i'm sure he's not familiar with the fandom culture as a whole. that man is like, your average clueless, boomer, grass toucher guy.), and can mess with your life trajectory is just... weird. i could say this, because my previous public figure fan experience in point 1 really makes me question myself, "what the hell am i doing?"

some of the indogov election tweets/contents are just... concerning, blurring the lines of reality and projection and fictional imagery. besides high school AU, i also have seen a few others, like star wars or spider-man, and they're usually centric to the "good" presidential candidates, which are ganjar and anies... quite a lot and popular that they have a pair name: ganies. "well, i guess it's fine," i thought. treading the grey area, but these people are just taking it as platonic kind of thing. as long as they're aware of what's real and not, it's not too bad. but then... well, i'm just going to break it here: i once saw someone posted on wanting a ganies ABO fic. you read that right, yeah. there's a few more like janggar-anisa, but that one circulates in a more public space, so i would assume that this one in particular is also fine. but the ABO one is... uh, are you okay? they're real living people, with married partners and a whole family... it's good that they censor the names, but... yeah. still hoping these people are not taking it super seriously, but it's kinda disrespectful, at least.

those are my 4 reasons.

but also, i tend to think negatively way too deep and too much. like hey, it does make younger generations become more aware on how politics work, the people, how it affects them, and how to research your candidates. "maybe you're just projecting your own trauma too much, fear of being dissappointed and mistakes," i think to myself.

so, taking some steps backwards and seeing things as a whole... what if, instead of rejecting it as a whole, you do "fixes" to the contents itself instead? seems to be more pacifist, i think. it's arguably inappropriate to do this, as it could fall to the unsolicited criticism category. but considering the problem itself, i think the good outweighs the bad effects. so, here are some suggestions i can think of:

incoporate more of the politician's negative traits and bad track records. one of the posts that started this entire mess was an "looks like a cinnamon roll/can kill you, is actually a cinnamon roll/will kill you" meme that assigns the election politicians to that chart. one of the politicians among it was sandiaga uno, who was notoriously known to open the tourism gate in the midst of early COVID-19 mass outbreak. yet, he was assigned to the "looks like a cinnamon roll, is actually a cinnamon roll" column, due to his weird, funny, and... fruity behavior? whatever, but go google some sandiaga videos if you don't believe me. anyway, that incident sparked a criticism for these kind of contents, that they're woobifying them too much, especially for candidates like muhaimin (AMIN) who was known to be with the government, rather than opposition. so, i was thinking if you can incoporate their bad side to these AU comics. maybe they can make muhaimin easily tempted to quit the main gang, mahfud (GAMA) to be a misogynist/too much traditional conservative values (along with ganjar (GAMA) i suppose, but... i don't know, that man is a WEIRD case. he seems to always have some feminist values in him, but he only shown this during the campaign period. however, he's the opposite of a feminist before that (see: UGM mata najwa panel)? i digress.), lembong to not only be that "private school student with an asian mom", but also to have some weird ideas in him (reflecting his questionable policies as a ministry), or anies to... uhhh... be an opportunist? i think? ha... ha? but yeah, you got the idea. i think i saw one AU series planning to ditch sandiaga from this team, after he stated that his party is open to be on the government's side. so, i think they're not uncritical - but it could be done better, i suppose.

however, say, this idea does not work, as it still involves in utilizing people who are still alive. so, i propose a second, stricter solution: editorial illustrations. if you prefer a total eradication of "politik riang gembira" genre of indogov election contents, then this is your only option left (besides illustrations in a neutral nature, like a simple portrait). it could be actual satire comic that does not involve the AU things, or those illustrations in new york times, the new yorker, or tempo for local example. i have a thought that has sticked with me for long, and should be reviewed after this incident: editorial illustration is just politic fandom fan art. yes, politics fandom, you read that right. all those politic observers and panelists that shows up on your TV are just your fandom's well known fans. rumors on where a politician sides by observing their body gesture is, pretty much, like guessing whether your favorite singer is dating with someone from pap photos. opinion columns on magazines and newspapers are fan analysis essays on their favorite shows. and so editorial illustrations are: you could draw politics as is, or draw them in a more figurative nature. just like when you draw akechi as a doll because his life was controlled by shido and/or maruki. it's similar. the only difference is, once again, politics directly affect your life.

deep down to my heart? i honestly don't know, even when i'm familiar with this kind of thing since i was a junior high. rationally speaking, i would pick 2. but reality has proven us that 1 (minus the fixes) do actually work - so it's not as horrible as the cons side said. but again, there's another dilemma from this: would you rather sustain this mixed method that works, and does make politics more accessible to younger generations, or change it into something that's morally better, but likely less friendly to receive, preserving politic's harsh nature?

to preserve, or to change/correct?