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Independence Day observed: When will our people be free?
Internal colonization has been masquerading as national development for decades.
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Internal colonization has been masquerading as national development for decades. (Shutterstock/File)
T
here is cause to be happy with the way Independence Day was celebrated this year. The choice to convey a message through the sporting of regional dress by the elite has been widely lauded by the majority of Indonesia’s citizens.
Aug. 17 is the time for us to be grateful for all our blessings. However, it also behooves upon us to remember our less fortunate kin, and try yet again to give voice to the marginalized — those terrorized into silence by officialdom and non-state actors alike.
I was struck by the report on the statue in Kupang depicting president Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “The Four Freedoms” — freedom from fear, freedom from want, freedom of worship and freedom of speech. Let us chart our progress in gaining these freedoms by attempting to conduct a cursory foray into each of them.
Freedom from fear. This malady spares no one. The 1965 massacre didn’t just affect landless households fighting for their constitutional rights, as corroborated by the Agrarian Basic Law of 1960, but traumatized society at large.
In addition to forced disappearances and detention without due process, the authoritarian regime denied the basic rights of victims’ progeny and relatives. Minority activists campaigning for equal rights also disappeared into the night.
More than half a century later, certain elites remain in a state of denial. Fear is still perpetuated by those expounding “alternative facts” a la Trump supporters, labeling human right activists attempting to heal our wounds as “communists” working against the state.
We continue to hear reports of female students being “terrorized” for not donning religious garb as prescribed by certain sects. Non-state actors have murdered in broad daylight those considered to be enemies, invoking “the Almighty.” That the majority continues to remain silent could either indicate complicity or fear. In short, there will be no freedom from fear as long as impunity reigns.
