Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming during their final campaign at Gelora Bung Karno. Photo: Indra Yoga
“Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K. He knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested.”
That was Franz Kafka’s “The Trial” opening line, first published in 1925.
Now change the name to a slate of Indonesian activists and you might find it eerily fitting. The protagonist of Kafka might never know what he was charged with. But with the activists, we know the bogus charges thrown at them.
Ananda Badudu was detained for crowdfunding. Ravio Patra taken in for incitement of violence; Fatia Maulidiyanti and Haris Azhar on trial for defamation. Those were just the ones who made national headlines. There were many whose names we did not even know. And one should note, the aim is not necessarily arrest, but rather a destruction of morale.
In 2016, my sister Ivonne Kristiani sent me a draft of a paper she wrote that was to be presented at a political conference in Istanbul. She tried to understand the best metaphor to describe the New Order. In the paper titled “Neither Orwellian Nor Huxleyan: The Authoritarian State in Indonesia”, she branched out from the orthodoxy of comparing an authoritarian state to the two literary giants: Orwell and Huxley.
Instead, she made the comparison between the Suharto era and Kafka, especially Kafka’s novel “The Trial.” But her work doesn’t just describe the mechanical works of the state, in which Orwell and Huxley can also be used to describe New Order, but also in the feedback given by its subjects.
In “The Trial”, protagonist Josef K (later simply mentioned as K) was visited by unknown officials who mentioned that he was under arrest. But under what charges? Well, it’s never clear throughout the novel. When K asked about his case, the cop answered in a rather chilling tone.
“…You’re under arrest, you’re quite right about that, but I don’t know any more than that. Maybe these officers have been chit-chatting with you, well if they have that’s all it is, chitchat. I can’t give you an answer to your questions, but I can give you a bit of advice: You’d better think less about us and what’s going to happen to you, and think a bit more about yourself. And stop making all this fuss about your sense of innocence; you don’t make such a bad impression, but with all this fuss you’re damaging it. And you ought to do a bit less talking, too. Almost everything you’ve said so far has been things we could have taken from your behaviour, even if you’d said no more than a few words. And what you have said has not exactly been in your favour.”
It reflected an eerily similar case in Indonesia where the police (and law enforcement) still dominate and intimidate the subject. It is a residue of the New Order that is still used by the police and one that is adhered by the people. It transformed law enforcers into the personification of the law itself which automatically turns anyone who might have differences with them as wrongful.
This is the reason we keep hearing people giving advice such as, “Just follow the legal process” or “If one is not guilty, the police will release them.” Or the rather cynical tone, “As an activist, one shouldn’t be a crybaby.” It shows that the status quo is the police being correct.
In a similar spirit, but on the flip side, we might have heard presumptive Vice President-elect Gibran Rakabuming Raka said that if there is any misconduct, people can simply report such findings. He said it when he talked about reports of election interference shown by documentary Dirty Vote, or when certain police members are positioning themselves to help a certain candidate.
In November, Megawati gave a video statement saying that an election fraud had happened (an allusion to Constitutional Court’s ruling). Gibran responded, “Regarding misconduct, once again if there’s any fraud or any misconduct, that can be reported to Bawaslu.”
Gibran’s response is not wrong. However, you might recall that Gibran himself was reported to Bawaslu on possible election law violation. During a car-free day event (CFD), Gibran handed out free milk to passersby. Since his policy proposal involved free milk for students, the act raised eyebrows as it can be considered as a political campaign.
The Central Jakarta Office of Bawaslu (Bawaslu Jakarta Pusat) deemed the action as a violation. However, the penalty is a mere slap on the wrist. Gibran did not violate election law, but rather, Jakarta’s regional law regarding CFD. Therefore, Bawaslu Jakarta Pusat simply recommended the findings to be followed up by the Governor of Jakarta.
Self-Censorship and Quashing of Opposition
In her paper, Kristiani connects Soeharto with Kafka through the concept of Tridharma (Three teachings). The three concepts are Rumangsa Melu Handarbeni or sense of belonging, Wajib Melu Angrungkebi or sense of obligation, and Mulat Sarira Hangrasa Wani or Self-control or self-reflection. This concept was poured in Soeharto’s views regarding labor demonstration.soeharto tridharma
Soeharto said that while he did not ban the strike itself, he is of the perspective that development should go ahead. If the three parties (labor, company, and government) had this in mind, there wouldn’t be a need for a strike in the first place.
Eventually, the concept of self-control here means a check on one’s position in society. Kristiani pointed out that any act of strike or demonstration is treated as a selfish act that halts such development. The public is conditioned to consider their every choice and out of exhaustion, chooses to follow the authority. The calculation to do so is not just birthed out of fear. It simply seemed rational. When self-discipline turns into self-flagellation, one does not need to send the police at every turn to keep people in line.
In Chapter 9 of The Trial, K talked to a priest who told him of a parable of the law. It tells the story of a man to access the Law only to be stopped by a doorkeeper. The man followed the instructions and waited. He kept being denied entry and kept waiting only to find out at the end of his life that the door was only meant for him.
In this parable, the man never asked why he was denied entrance. He simply obeyed the doorman. Kristiani noted that since the door was meant only for him, his entering the door should not be seen as breaking the law despite the attempts by the doorkeeper to deny his entrance. The man has lost sight. He forgot that it was the doorkeeper’s job to serve him and ushered him inside. The doorman is our bureaucrat.
For 32 years of the New Order Era, we have been conditioned to view authority as the synonym of harmony, and the past 10 years as development. Some parts of it might be true. The police and the army will always be necessary. However, we keep justifying their acts no matter how wrongful it is.
Are we really surprised that those in power can get away with impunity? We gave them the benefit of the doubt when they violated our trust and worse and yet when it comes to taking responsibility, we keep moving the goalposts. We say that it wasn’t that bad or others have had it worse, or it had to be done in the name of national security, or my favorite – it’s because they (the victims) create social unrest.
The byproduct of this is the circular reasoning we keep using on people who are dealing with the law: A man is arrested because he is guilty. He is guilty because he is arrested. There’s no need to add other factors.
It’s worth noting that the main motif of Kafka’s works is the entanglement of bureaucratic red tape in everyday life, one that stifles us into submission. In his other opus “The Metamorphosis”, the protagonist wakes up one day as an insect.
If we keep nurturing this mindset, it won’t be strange if tomorrow we’ll wake up as cockroaches only to be stomped by the authorities and as we take our last breath, only to see other cockroaches murmuring to each other how we deserve it.
It was a great read, Steven. Thank you 🤩