This is a relatively new phenomenon in Indonesia, which can be traced back to the 2014 presidential election. Many decide to unfriend and unfollow, block their ex-friends, even break up with their boy or girlfriends for several reasons.

Among other reasons was because of posting statuses endorsing unfavorable candidates, the use of harsh tones, and the boredom of seeing the opinion of the growing number of amateur “political experts” on social media.

Regardless of the fact that both the winners and losers showed their willingness to accept the election result and made peace with one another, the broken friendships between rival supporters on social media were rarely recovered.

This unfriend and unfollow phenomenon once again is rearing its head, now in the Jakarta gubernatorial election that has three candidates competing for the capital’s top position.

The recent alleged religious blasphemy committed by non-active governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama has divided netizens into three major groups in social media: those who support Ahok with all his weaknesses, those who think that Ahok should be jailed over blasphemy against Islam and those who do not care.

Some try to rationalize the unfriending decision by saying that it is for the sake of maintaining mental health. However, while at some point the decision can be justified, the growing unfriend and unfollow attitude shows another reality: the inability of some of us to tolerate those with opposing views.

Rising intolerance in Indonesia has been pointed out by several surveys. The Wahid Institute in August this year released the results of a survey involving 1,520 respondents across the country that showed more than half the Indonesian population harbored dislike toward some groups, including non-Muslims, the ethnic Chinese and communists. Most of these respondents disagree to having members of those groups as their neighbors, let alone having them elected as leaders.

While in reality we cannot easily choose our neighbors, we are free to choose “our neighbors” in social media with the friend request and unfriend buttons.

This intolerance against outgroups, both in real life or social media, should not be assessed separately from the culture of the nation. Indonesia, according to social psychologist Geert Hofstede, ranks high on collectivism. It means there is high preference for individuals that can confrom to the ideals of the ingroups to which they belong.

To put this in the context of the Jakarta election, the border between in-groups and out-groups might be set up based on faith or based on the candidate. If Ahok insults Muslims, it means Ahok and his supporters are the enemies of all Muslims and vice versa.

Collectivist culture tends to hold to the principle of “the friends of our friends are our friends” or in this context, “the supporters of our favorite candidate are our friends”.

Unfollowing can also be understood as being part of Indonesia’s high-context culture. While some Indonesians comfortably state their views on other’s timelines in times of disagreement, the majority within the high-context culture tend to keep their feelings to themselves and prefer codes or indirect language to show disagreement. In this case, they do it by secretly by clicking on the unfollow button.

While it is easier to comprehend this phenomenon with those cultural dimensions — high-context culture and collectivism — it cannot be generalized to the whole population. The traits of the culture are not the only things that determines people’s decision in social life. People might have personal traits that might not be the same with their cultural traits.

Jakartans, or Indonesian citizens at large, can contemplate and decide: Do we act like this because most of my in-group members do the same? Is it rational to hate someone because their views contradict ours? Is the election worth a broken relationship? Are we not supposed to live in harmony as the nation’s motto is “unity in diversity”?

Unless friends in social media have gone beyond the acceptable limit, the failure to appreciate other opinions reveals the seed of intolerance in us. So what if our friends think that Ahok has insulted Islam? So what if our friends are Ahok diehard fans?

If we consider ourselves tolerant, we should also tolerate those with different viewpoints. As long as they do not ignite hatred or violence, the willingness to walk along with those who oppose our views will be beneficial in improving our intergroup and cross-cultural communication skills.

As the boundaries of countries and cultures are getting increasingly permeable, the skill to accept difference is needed to prevent unnecessary conflict.

 

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