Indonesia 2025, Militancy and Synthesis
The recent events in Indonesia have been very exciting for me to follow along through the internet on the other side of the globe, in part due to my proximity to this country as a Chinese citizen. But it is always exciting to see people rebelling against the system, especially in a country like Indonesia where there is a not insignificant anarchist presence. According to Bima Satria Putra, an Indonesian anarchist writer currently in prison, there are two main “revolutionary” sets of demands alongside the liberal ones: one from the socialist party Perserikatan Sosialis and the other from “a loose, informal, and decentralized network” of leftists titled “Proclamation of the Indonesian Federalist Revolution 2025.” For some reason, I could not find much information at all on this Perserikatan Sosialis, and even their demands, which I found on Facebook, were posted by an account seemingly run by a socialist party in the Philippines. The demands themselves seem to be quite tepid, including items such as “cut the salaries of state officials” and “raise workers’ wages.” On the other hand, the Proclamation of the Indonesian Federalist Revolution 2025 was a radical set of vague democratic confederalist demands that are obviously meant as the beginning of a revolutionary platform instead of actual demands for the state to install. However, an actual revolution is not close to being likely, since there just isn’t enough of an anarchist presence. It is the same in Indonesia as the rest of the world.
While digging into the anarchist scene in Indonesia, I discovered “Dark Nights,” an “anarchist / anti-capitalist information clearing house and DIY media network for social war” that publishes lots of articles from Indonesian sources, such as the FAI division there, and a lot of anarchist media. It is quite admirable, and I hope something similar can be established for China too, like an anarchist version of Chuang. Of course, that requires an actually existing anarchist scene in the country, of which there is none. For now, we have to settle for class reductionist libertarian Marxists. Not that that’s a bad thing, of course.
While reading about the Indonesian protests, I couldn’t help but reflect on some general questions one would have to have answers to as a radical in an event of this scale. I’ve recently been reading Another War Is Possible: Militant Anarchist Experiences in the Antiglobalization Era by Tomas Rothaus, which is a memoir recounting the life-long anarchist’s experiences doing protests and organizing work. His perspective working in black blocs in the antiglobalization protests is quite thought-provoking for someone who has never done any political work. Specifically, what should you do to maintain the relationship with locals as a militant? How do you cooperate with authoritarian socialists? The current conditions in Indonesia have people of different ideologies united like in the antiglobalization protests, but the ideological environment in Indonesia does not really offer a viable militant option outside of anarchism (democratic confederalism), which makes it uniquely exciting. I think we just have to wait and see where this all goes. Although a revolution won’t come as a result of this, I hope this can be an opportunity for the anarchist movement in Indonesia to grow.
Read more about the August 2025 protests from an anarchist perspective: https://crimethinc.com/2025/09/04/voices-from-the-uprising-in-indonesia-affan-kurniawan-lives-on-in-the-streets-1
