These are highly sensitive times in Indonesian politics, with stories of people facing criminal charges of defamation against public figures, religions and even the state dominating local headlines for the past few months.
Perhaps that is why Indonesian Home Affairs Minister Tjahjo Kumolo felt the need to urge the public to respect their leader. But his choice of analogy left many scratching their heads.
“We should follow [the example] of smaller countries, like North Korea. There, from children to adults, they fervently respect the state founder and the state’s ideologies,” Tjahjo said, as quoted by Detik yesterday.
What Tjahjo failed to mention was how leaders in North Korea won their public’s “respect” (by creating a climate of fear and committing horrific human rights abuses towards their own people, particularly dissidents of the government).
Hopefully this isn’t a warning sign that Indonesia might one day transform into a totalitarian state like North Korea. Would we have to call Soekarno the “Eternal President” then? Or would we have to address President Joko Widodo as “Glorious Leader”?
Maybe it will never get that far in Indonesia, but Tjahjo used this supposed lack of patriotism in Indonesians to justify the controversial Bela Negara (Defending the Nation) program, which aims to instill patriotic values in children as young as primary school through state ideology studies and even makes military service mandatory for some civilians.
Tjahjo did give his assurance Indonesia was not going to turn into a totalitarian military state. For one, he said, the public is still allowed to criticize the government, as long as it’s done in a non-insulting way.
That’s all well and good, but what constitutes “insulting” is very subjective. For example, North Korea recently banned sarcasm because Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un fears that people could use sarcasm to agree with him “ironically”.
