Why are demonstrators against Indonesia's Omnibus Law in awe of Thailand's protesters? It's all about perseverance
On October 20, a year to the day after Indonesia's President Joko Widodo was sworn into his second term in office, hundreds of protesters gathered at a prominent road in Jakarta. They were students, civil activists and members of labour organisations, wearing colourful jackets and T-shirts representing their various groups.
They mostly sat on the road, idly listening to speeches and chatting with their peers or eating meals sold by street food vendors - but ears pricked up when a speaker from a labour group, on a makeshift stage atop a pickup truck, said: "Protesters in Thailand are still taking to the streets to demand for change!"
Sharing this awe and respect for the perseverance of Thai protesters was Yazid Zinaidin Saputra, an architecture student from a university in Jakarta.
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"I really respect the Thai students because their struggle is harder than the struggle faced by Indonesian students," the 21-year-old said, referring to the view that in Thailand demonstrations continued even after the use of deterrents such as water cannons, while in Indonesia many protesters would scatter. "It is inspiring to see, but our situation here is different. If we were to use their strategy, we need to make adjustments and improve it so that we can be more organised."
Indonesia's protest movement has one goal in mind: to push Widodo to repeal the Omnibus Law, also known as the jobs creation bill, which was passed on October 5 in a bid to boost employment by cutting red tape that has long deterred foreign investors.
Critics say the bill, which amends more than 70 existing laws, will erode the rights of workers and indigenous people, reducing their income and weakening environmental protections. Its passing was met with huge protests across the archipelagic nation, driven by university students, labour unions and civil groups.
On October 8, police clashed with protesters in Jakarta after some threw rocks at the authorities, and a number of public facilities, including bus stops and police posts, were burned down. Police used rubber bullets, tear gas, and water cannons to disperse the crowds, while footage also emerged of the authorities beating protesters and journalists.
Yazid Zinaidin Saputra (right) with his friends during a protest in Jakarta on October 20. Photo: Resty Woro Yuniar alt=Yazid Zinaidin Saputra (right) with his friends during a protest in Jakarta on October 20. Photo: Resty Woro Yuniar
The demonstrations are still going on in Indonesia, though the number of participants has dwindled in recent days. In Thailand, however, the protest movement calling for the ouster of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha's government and the reform of the monarchy continues to escalate, in defiance of a ban on gatherings, long-held taboos about publicly criticising the royal family and the arrests of more than 70 people, including prominent protest leaders.
To Edward Aspinall, a long-time Southeast Asia watcher and professor of politics at the Australian National University's Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, the Thai protesters' persistence is a sign of the movement's potential longevity.
"Those are the moments when student mobilisations can really sustain themselves, whereas the typical pattern in an issue-based protest in a democratic country is that you will see the protests being more episodic," he said. "It sort of rises and falls and is in sync with a particular issue. And when an issue comes up, in this case the passage of [Indonesia's] job creation law, you can often see a rapid spike of protest, but that could be difficult to sustain when it's not as bad as the fundamental issue of the design of the regime."
Aspinall pointed to the so-called Reformasi Dikorupsi - or "Corrupted Reformation" - protests in September last year against a law that diminished the independence of Indonesia's Corruption Eradication Commission, which had been consistently voted the country's most trusted institution. Thousands of people took to the streets in the first few days, but the rallies died down soon after.
"The Reformasi Dikorupsi protest was only last year. It seems that student activism could enter a new phase in Indonesia and could give rise to the further way of street mobilisation, but I wouldn't be surprised if now [the protest against the Omnibus Law] starts to die," Aspinall said.
PROTEST PARALLELS
However, analysts say there are both parallels and a chance for shared learning between the protest movements in Thailand and Indonesia, particularly the student-led overthrow of former Indonesian dictator Suharto's three-decade-long regime in 1998.
"Indonesian students have more flying time in terms of protests, they experienced [large protests in] 1998 [that saw students killed by soldiers in the] Semanggi and Trisakti [University] riots," said Awani Irewati, international politics development researcher at the Indonesia Institute of Sciences.
"What [the Thai protesters] are demanding now is parallel with what the Indonesian students demanded in 1998, when they also rejected political elites who had been in power for too long."
Indonesian student protesters being sprayed with a water cannon during a November 1998 clash with security forces as troops. Photo: AFP alt=Indonesian student protesters being sprayed with a water cannon during a November 1998 clash with security forces as troops. Photo: AFP
Aspinall from the Australian National University said student movements in different Asian countries had learned from each other since the early 1970s.
"I think there's an indirect effect, where students sort of draw inspiration from each other, and historically that's always been the case," he said. "Even back in the late 1990s when student protests were big in Indonesia, there were also student movements in South Korea, and even way, way back in the early 1970s, there were connections between Thai and Indonesian student protesters, so that history of connection and inspiration is there, but it never becomes the main driving force of the protests."
The relative calm of the Thai protests has also drawn admiration, with one Indonesian activist's tweet going viral after they pointed out that a recent protest in Bangkok that went on into the night without tear gas being used was a "dream".
"How come there is no one burning things down, hurling stones, firing tear gas, getting beaten? It is my dream to have a protest this neat and comfortable," wrote another Twitter user in response.
Yazid, the student protester in Jakarta, said he appreciated Thai students' spirit and determination to be the agent of change in their country. "Maybe what I can learn [from Thai protests] is their fight to represent the people's voices, their fight to deliver the public concerns to their government or monarch, and that they are not doing this for personal gain," he said.
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
In lieu of massive street protests in Indonesia, investigative magazine Tempo on October 17 ran an editorial calling for other forms of civil disobedience in objection to the "dead end, hopeless" Omnibus Law - a rare move for the publication, which was twice shut down during the Suharto regime for its perceived anti-government stance in closures that galvanised protesters and paved the way for the dictator's fall.
Activists in Surabaya hold a banner that reads "Get rid of the Omnibus Law". Photo: AFP alt=Activists in Surabaya hold a banner that reads "Get rid of the Omnibus Law". Photo: AFP
"The situation has become increasingly chaotic after illiberal groups such as the [opposition] Save Indonesia Coalition and the 212 [Muslim hardliner] movement piggybacked on the protest against the job creation law to achieve short-term political gain.
"Workers, students, civil society activists, and those concerned about the decline of the quality of legislation behind the passing of the law are forced to choose between two dichotomies, the residue of the 2019 elections: to be for or against [Widodo's] leadership," it wrote.
"Cornered at the end of the road, the public should not just stand idly by. Civil disobedience should be conducted as respectfully as possible. This is not a perfect move, but a wise person once said: 'If bad people created bad laws, it is the duty of the good people to ignore them.'"
However, analysts say Tempo's call is unlikely to bear fruit, despite the magazine's significance in Indonesia's media landscape.
"I doubt that Tempo has that sort of influence on individuals, it's more of a dangerous sign of middle-class alienation rather than in and of itself a significant call to action, no one's going to go to the streets waving a copy of Tempo or anything," said Aspinall from the Australian National University.
"The significance of it is the urgency with which many middle-class democrats view the deterioration of Indonesian democracy. [Even] forces who would historically be quite politically moderate, [are voicing] their concern, even as far as calling for civil disobedience against what they see as a serious decline in the quality of Indonesian democracy."
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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