S

ome antigraft activists and bloggers are wondering if the Internet can mobilize people to create change in a nation where law enforcement appears impotent against institutionalized corruption.

Activists and some of Indonesia’s Twiteratti, as popular users of the microblogging website are called, discussed how to use social media to fight corruption at a forum organized by Transparency International Indonesia (TII) on Tuesday.

Participants agreed that a massive online movement to raise people’s awareness of graft was crucial.

“Corruption is intertwined with politics here. We can only fight it by upping the ante of civil society movements against the powers-that-be who are corrupt,” TII representative Wandy “Binyo” Nicodimus Tutoroong said.

“Such a joint effort among civil society groups will increase our bargaining position,” he added.

Binyo, known on Twitter as @wandy_binyo, sent tweets on the need for such a movement during the discussion.

TII’s official Twiiter account, @TIIndonesia, and another anti-corruption group, @bersihindonesia, tweeted similar sentiments.

The participants hoped that their messages would be forwarded, or retweeted by Indonesia’s millions of Twitter users.

According to the social media tracking website salingsilang.com, more than 5 million Twitter users were in Indonesia or used Indonesian to send more than 47 million tweets as of March 2010.

The website also recorded more than 5 million blogs in Indonesia as of May.

Enda Nasution, managing director of salingsilang.com and the so-called father of Indonesian blogging, said the case of Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) deputy chairmen Bibit Samad Rianto and Chandra Hamzah, who were allegedly framed by those who feared the KPK, was a success story for online movements.

“Everyone can be an activist now,” he said.

Several participants immediately took to Twitter to show support for movement, sending tweets that said the nation’s law enforcement agencies were unable to fight
corruption.

“In terms of combating corruption, law enforcement is less likely to succeed as the enemies are is powerful people,” Binyo said, adding that the TII or Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) alone were incapable of ending corruption.

KPK campaign specialist Dhedy Adi Nugroho welcomed the movement, saying that sending corruptors to prison was not enough to end the systemic corruption that has plagued the nation for decades.

“We need to make it clear that graft disadvantages everyone,” Dhedy said. “It will eventually ignite a collective anger at corruption as the common enemy.”

The ICW’s Febri Diansyah said that many activists were now using Twitter to support the ICW’s campaigns.

Only time will tell if the movement will create change or perish in a sea of banal and melancholic tweets. “Remember, it’s not a one-day job. The concept of the movement must be formulated as a participatory one,” Febri added.

“However, the most important thing is that we gather here today to find the spirit to start a movement.”