Indonesia’s central bank, Bank Indonesia (BI), launched a new set of rupiah bills and coins on December 19. The new currency, named the NKRI (Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia) edition, is quite a departure from its predecessor, namely because all of the bills (excluding the Rp 100K note) and coins are now adorned by the faces of a new set of national heroes.
Did some people have a problem with that? Absolutely. It’s hard to be surprised of that fact anymore considering how fast hoaxes and conspiracy theories can spread in Indonesia (and anywhere else, really) thanks to social media.
Here are some of the most ridiculous and mind-blowing conspiracies surrounding Indonesia’s new currency that have emerged lately:
“Kafir heroes”
One thing we learned from the whole Ahok blasphemy case is that some staunchly conservative Muslims feel it’s within their right to brand those who support Ahok (even other Muslims) as kafirs (infidels), even though Islam actually discourages its followers from doing so.
This has created an ‘Us VS Them’ mentality of paranoia among some Muslims – ‘Us’ being the Muslim majority and ‘Them’ being everybody else looking to usurp the majority’s power. Many even believe in the conspiracy theory that the government is actively trying to undermine Islam in Indonesian society.
This kind of thinking has become quite prevalent in social media lately, as exemplified by this woman who became the talk of Twitter in Indonesia yesterday after posting this tweet about the new rupiah:
This majority Muslim country is extraordinary. Out of hundreds of national heroes, 5 of the 11 who were chosen [for the currency] were kafirs.
Needless to say, Dwi Estiningsih’s tweet infuriated many, as other netizens reminded her that she might not be able to tweet had it not been for the sacrifice of those heroes, kafir or not.
Who is Dwi Estiningsih? Well, she is a Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) politician who once made the news after she started a hoax that female employees at state-owned enterprises were forbidden from wearing sharia hijabs. So it’s probably wise to take anything she says with a grain of salt.
“Looks like the Chinese yuan”
There have been growing conspiracy theories that our current government is a puppet of China. The people who believe this theory think that Jokowi’s administration is allowing an influx of Chinese workers to come and steal Indonesian jobs and are protecting Ahok because he’s a person of Chinese descent.
Those people were given another issue to be suspicious about as the new rupiah apparently looks identical to China’s currency, the yuan.
Never mind that, unlike the rupiah, the yuan features the face of one historical figure (Mao Zedong) on ALL of its bills, there is also no correlation between the denomination and colors of the bills between the rupiah and yuan.
Guess who else prints their currency in a rainbow of pretty colors?
Case closed?
“Cut Meutia is not wearing a hijab in the Rp 1,000 note”
A cool piece of trivia about the new rupiah bills is that it’s the first time that a woman (in this case Acehnese war heroine Cut Meutia) has been featured on a rupiah banknote since Cut Nyak Dien was placed on the Rp 10,000 note on the 1998 and 1999 series. Surely everybody’s going to applaud this show of appreciation for one of the nation’s greatest heroines?
Wrong.
Asrizal H Asnawi, a legislator for the National Mandate Party (PAN) at the Aceh Regional Council, is one of many people who took offense at the fact that Cut Meutia was pictured on the bill without wearing a hijab. He called on banks in Aceh to not release the Rp 1,000 note and accused the central government of trying to undermine their sharia way of governance.
Asrizal’s concerns might have been valid, IF Cut Meutia had worn a hijab. But a quick Google Image search shows that she didn’t. She was even featured on old stamps and books without a hijab and nobody made a fuss back then.
Can we get on with our lives now?
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