No less than Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, the country’s two largest Muslim organizations that champion moderation, on top of human rights and democracy campaigners, have talked tough about the newly enforced Presidential Regulation No. 7/2021 on a five-year national action plan for the mitigation and prevention of violence-based extremism that could lead to terrorism.

Their concern — if not fear — is real, given the clear-cut social and political division the nation has endured since the bitterly contested presidential election in 2014. The wound, instead of being healed, reopened in the following race in 2019, with more or less the same tactics in which the goals justified the means on both warring sides.

So-called national reconciliation occurred after the 2019 election, marked by the inclusion of the erstwhile opposition force Gerindra Party in the ruling coalition. Not only was the peace agreement transactional and pragmatic, but it also engaged only the political elites. On the grassroots level, the acrimony has not ceased, as vividly demonstrated on social media.

The pro and antigovernment camps have been fighting each other on almost every issue; even a trivial matter like the birth of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s third grandchild sparked an unnecessary war of words between them. The contemporary political landscape of Indonesia only knows pro-Jokowi and anti-Jokowi, regardless of his efforts to fulfill his pledge to be a president for all Indonesian citizens.

In this critical juncture, when unity is all the nation needs to escape from the COVID-19 shackles, the government has initiated policies that could justify oppression by individuals or groups against others, only because of differences of opinions or views.

The presidential regulation allows ordinary people to watch and report individuals they believe are committing acts of violent extremism and terrorism in their neighborhoods and will reinvigorate the concept of community policing. Rights groups are worried the regulation could potentially lead to wrongful arrests, or perhaps witch hunts, because of its broad definition of extremism.

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