After many years of heated debate over whether January 26 is an appropriate date to celebrate Australia Day — with some councils and other groups shifting away from it — the tide appears to be turning among some groups.

Some local councils, such as Geelong in Victoria, are reversing recent policy and embracing January 26 as a day to celebrate with nationalistic zeal.

They are likely emboldened by what they perceive as an ideological shift occurring more generally in Australia and around the world.

• READ MORE: Other Australia Day reports

But what of young people? Are young Australians really becoming more conservative and nationalistic, as some are claiming? For example, the Institute for Public Affairs states that “despite relentless indoctrination taking place at schools and universities”, their recent survey showed a 10 percent increase in the proportion of 18-24 year olds who wanted to celebrate Australia Day.

However, the best evidence suggests that claims of a shift towards conservatism among young people are unsupported.

The statement “we should not celebrate Australia Day on January 26” was featured in the Deakin Contemporary History Survey in 2021, 2023, and 2024.

Respondents were asked to indicate their agreement level. The Deakin survey is a repeated cross-sectional study conducted using the Life in Australia panel, managed by the Social Research Centre. This is a nationally representative online probability panel with more than 2000 respondents for each Deakin survey.

Robust social survey
With its large number of participants, weighting and probability selection, the Life in Australia panel is arguably Australia’s most reliable and robust social survey.

The Deakin Contemporary History Survey consists of several questions about the role of history in contemporary society, hence our interest in whether or how Australians might want to celebrate a national day.

Since 1938, when Aboriginal leaders first declared January 26 a “Day of Mourning”, attitudes to this day have reflected how people in Australia see the nation’s history, particularly about the historical and contemporary dispossession and oppression of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

In 2023, we found support for Australia Day on January 26 declined slightly from 2021, and wondered if a more significant change in community sentiment was afoot.

With the addition of the 2024 data, we find that public opinion is solidifying — less a volatile “culture war” and more a set of established positions. Here is what we found:

This figure shows that agreement (combining “strongly agree” and “agree”) with not celebrating Australia Day on January 26 slightly increased in 2023, but returned to the earlier level a year later.

Likewise, disagreement with the statement (again, combining “strongly disagree” and “disagree”) slightly dipped in 2023, but in 2024 returned to levels observed in 2021. “Don’t know” and “refused” responses have consistently remained below 3 percent across all three years. Almost every Australian has a position on when we should celebrate Australia Day, if at all.

Statistical factors
The 2023 dip might reflect a slight shift in public opinion or be due to statistical factors, such as sampling variability. Either way, public sentiment on this issue seems established.

As Gunai/Kurnai, Gunditjmara, Wiradjuri and Yorta Yorta writer Nayuka Gorrie and Amangu Yamatji woman associate professor Crystal McKinnon have written, the decline in support for Australia Day is the result of decades of activism by Indigenous people.

Though conservative voices have become louder since the failure of the Voice Referendum in 2023, more than 40 percent of the population now believes Australia Day should not be celebrated on January 26.

In addition, the claim of a significant swing towards Australia Day among younger Australians is unsupported.

In 2024, as in earlier iterations of our survey, we found younger Australians (18–34) were more likely to agree that Australia Day should not be celebrated on January 26. More than half of respondents in that age group (53 percent) supported that change, compared to 39 percent of 35–54-year-olds, 33 percent of 55–74-year-olds, and 29 percent of those aged 75 and older.

Conversely, disagreement increases with age. We found 69 percent of those aged 75 and older disagreed, followed by 66 percent of 55–74-year-olds, 59 percent of 35–54-year-olds, and 43 percent of 18–34-year-olds. These trends suggest a steady shift, indicating that an overall majority may favour change within the next two decades.

What might become of Australia Day? We asked those who thought we should not celebrate Australia Day on January 26 what alternative they preferred the most.

Among those who do not want to celebrate Australia Day on January 26, 36 percent prefer replacing it with a new national day on a different date, while 32 percent favour keeping the name but moving it to a different date.

A further 13 percent support keeping January 26 but renaming it to reflect diverse history, and 8 percent advocate abolishing any national day entirely. Another 10 percent didn’t want these options, and less than 1 peecent were unsure.

A lack of clarity
If the big picture suggests a lack of clarity — with nearly 58 percent of the population wanting to keep Australia Day as it is, but 53 percent of younger Australians supporting change — then the task of finding possible alternatives to the status quo seems even more clouded.

Gorrie and McKinnon point to the bigger issues at stake for Indigenous people: treaties, land back, deaths in custody, climate justice, reparations and the state removal of Aboriginal children.

Yet, as our research continues to show, there are few without opinions on this question, and we should not expect it to recede as an issue that animates Australians.

Dr David Lowe is chair in contemporary history, Deakin University; Dr Andrew Singleton is professor of sociology and social research, Deakin University; and Joanna Cruickshank is associate professor in history, Deakin University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Samoan Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa says the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) is focused on how they will approach the next seven years to achieve the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Addressing the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development in New York on behalf of AOSIS, PM Fiame said world leaders needed to leave nationalism behind and urgently put action to the rhetoric they had been propagating for the past eight years.

“Climate change, the global financial crisis, the covid-19 pandemic and geopolitical tensions have taught us that we are even more closely connected than we wish to acknowledge, and that choices made on one end have far and wide reaching devastating impacts on those of us who are many, many miles away,” told the UN High Level Political Forum.

• READ MORE: Other UN SDG reports

“If we are going to uphold and deliver on our strong commitment to ‘leave no one behind’ and ‘reaching the furthest behind first’ we will have to leave nationalism behind and urgently put action to the rhetoric we have been propagating for the past eight years.”

PM Fiame said it was “time to stop kicking the can further down the road and doing bandage fixes”.

“We have to begin to earnestly address our global development issues, if we are going to begin speaking of a ‘summit of the future’ and ‘for future generations’.

“The sad reality is if we do not take care of today, for many of us, there will be no tomorrow or future.

‘We can do this together’
“We believe we can do this together, as the international community, if we return to the strong resolve, we had following the MDGs and knowing that if nothing drastic was done we would be worse off than we were as a global community in 1992 in Rio when we spoke of “the future we want,” Fiame said.

Faced with continuous and multiple crises, and without the ability to address these in any substantial and sustainable way, SIDS were on the “proverbial hamster wheel with no way out”, the Samoa Prime Minister said.

Therefore what was needed was to:

“Firstly, take urgent action on the climate change front — more climate financing; drastic cuts and reduction in greenhouse emissions, 1.5 is non-negotiable, everyone is feeling the mighty impacts of this, but not many of us have what it takes to rebounded from the devastation.

“This forthcoming COP28 needs to be a game changer, results must emanate from it — the Loss and Damage Fund needs to be fully operationalised and financed; we need progressive movement from the global stocktake; and states parties need to enhance NDCs.

“Secondly, urgent reform of the governance structure and overall working of the international financial architecture. It is time for it to be changed from its archaic approach to finance.

“We need a system that responds more appropriately to the varied dynamics countries face today; that goes beyond GDP; that takes into account various vulnerabilities and other aspects; that would look to utilise the Multi-Vulnerability Index, Bridgetown Initiative and all other measures that help to facilitate a more holistic and comprehensive insight into a country’s true circumstances.

‘More inclusive participation’
“This reform must also allow for a more inclusive and broader participation.

“Thirdly, urgently address high indebtedness in SIDS, this can no longer be ignored. There needs to be a concerted effort to address this.

“As we continually find ourselves in a revolving door between debt and reoccurring debt due to our continuous and constant response to economic, environmental and social shocks caused by external factors,” Prime Minister Fiame said.

“I appeal to you all to take a pause and join forces to make 2030 a year that we can all be proud of,” she said.

“In this vein, please be assured of AOSIS making our contribution no matter how minute it may be. We are fully committed. We invite you to review our interregional outcome document, the ‘Praia Declaration’ for a better understanding of our contribution.

“And we look forward to your constructive engagement as together we chart the 10-year Programme of Action for SIDS in 2024,” she said.

Fiame said the recently concluded Preparatory Meetings for the 4th International Conference on SIDS affirmed the unwavering commitment of SIDS to implement the 2030 Agenda as they charted a 10-year plan for a “resilient and prosperous future for our peoples”.

A ‘tough journey’
“We do recognise that the journey for us will be tough and daunting at times, but we are prepared and have a strong resolve to achieve this. However, we do also recognise and acknowledge that we cannot do this on our own.”

The summit marks the mid-point of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It will review the state of the SDGs implementation, provide policy guidance, mobilise action to accelerate implementation and consider new challenges since 2015.

The summit will address the impact of multiple and interlocking crises facing the world, including the deterioration of key social, economic and environmental indicators. It will focus first and foremost on people and ways to meet their basic needs through the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.

This is the second SDG Summit, the first one was held in 2019.

Republished from Pacnews.

Up to 193 million eligible voters in Indonesia will go to the polls today, in what will be the world’s largest single-day election.

The election will see incumbent president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo go head-to-head with Prabowo Subianto, a former general in the Indonesian armed forces who lost to Jokowi in 2014.

This election is also significant as for the first time in Indonesia’s history, the presidential and legislative elections will be held on the same day.

READ MORE: Indonesia’s political system has ‘failed’ its minorities – like West Papuans

Why should New Zealand care? We put the question to some Indonesia experts…

Lester Finch, Director, AUT Indonesia Centre:
“Which country is New Zealand’s most disregarded Pacific neighbour? An archipelago of 17,000 islands, more than 300 languages spoken and 260 million people. Yes, it’s Indonesia.

“This large country is full of economic and social development opportunities for entrepreneurial Kiwis yet we don’t know what’s going on there. Many don’t know that the presidential elections are to be held this month and the outcome of those elections will have an impact on New Zealand.

“Indonesian language is a doorway to the culture. Australia has around 20 institutions teaching the Indonesian language while New Zealand has just one. Why? We just haven’t yet realised the opportunities Indonesia has for us.

“Indonesia is an exciting country with fine traditions and culture, especially its vibrant music and dance. Let’s pay some attention and step out of our comfort zone to get to know wonderful Indonesia and find out about the two individuals vying for the presidency.”

Natasha Hamilton-Hart, Director, New Zealand Asia Institute:
“For New Zealand, the election carries two major points of relevance. First, there are the implications for Indonesia’s future trajectory with regard to human rights and civic freedoms. While neither candidate is a liberal democrat, Prabowo’s platform, history and allies clearly speak to a greater willingness to espouse illiberal limits on individual and minority freedoms.

“Second, there are implications for Indonesia’s trade policy. Both candidates endorse strongly nationalist programmes, including a policy of self-sufficiency in food – which directly impinges on New Zealand’s export prospects in key products, including meat and dairy.

“There is at least a rhetorical difference, however. In the campaign, Prabowo has strongly criticised rising food imports in 2018, leaving Jokowi to defend these imports as necessary to maintain food price stability.

“Jokowi’s administration has been forced to allow these import increases despite an underlying commitment to an ostensibly pro-farmer self-sufficiency strategy. Imports have risen when food prices spiked, but the longer term strategy is likely to be here to stay.”

Sharyn Graham Davies, Associate Professor of Social Sciences at Auckland University of Technology:
“Given New Zealand’s recent overwhelming support of its Muslim community, including women donning the head scarf on the Friday following the Christchurch massacre, it is a shame that New Zealand will not find a kindred spirit in the next president of Indonesia.

“Both of the front-runners have poor track records when it comes to human rights. New Zealand rightly finds it difficult to ignore human rights abuses on the diplomatic stage.

“While the incumbent, Jokowi, is perhaps not malevolent, he has done little to support women or the LGBT community since his election in 2014. While Jokowi’s lacklustre presidency may not be a huge cause for concern, his appointment of vice-presidential candidate, Ma’ruf Amin, is an ultra-conservative Islamic hardliner who thinks Indonesia should be cleansed of its LGBT community.

“Distressingly, though, the Jokowi-Ma’ruf ticket almost looks almost benign compared to the other front-runner, Prabowo. Having married the daughter of former authoritarian ruler Suharto, Prabowo is implicated in a number of mass murders.

“New Zealand needs to pay attention to the upcoming Indonesian election to get to grips with how it will deal with our most populous neighbour when further human rights abuses occur.”

Indi Soemardjan, Chairman of the New Zealand-Indonesia Friendship Council:
“New Zealanders can start looking at the size of this election. There will be 800,000 polling stations, six million election workers, and the most complicated single-day ballot in global history.

“Altogether, there are more than 245,000 candidates running for more than 20,000 national and local legislative seats across hundreds of islands, in addition to the headline presidential contest.

“Paper ballots and nails are simply the method. No electronic nor digital ballots used.

“Unfortunately, this has also been considered the most divisive presidential election in Indonesia due to the fact that both candidates have effectively used social media channels (and millions of chat/WhatsApp groups) to create public opinion regarding their ‘ideological differences’, if any.”

Dewi Fortuna Anwar, Research Professor, Indonesia Institute of Sciences:
“With its population of over 260 million people, its strategic location at the crossroads between the Indian and Pacific Oceans and between Asia and Australia and its dynamic economy, Indonesia is the largest member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and plays a pivotal role in promoting regional peace, stability and prosperity.

“Indonesia is also the world’s largest Muslim nation, the world’s third largest democracy as well as a member of the G20. Indonesia prides itself as a country where Islam, democracy, modernity and women empowerment walk hand-in hand.

“Indonesia’s legislative and presidential elections serve to affirm its identity as a vibrant democracy, while at the same time the rise in identity politics and the proliferation of fake news have become serious concerns as both can undermine democracy. The results of Indonesia’s elections are clearly of interest to Indonesia’s neighbours, including New Zealand, as they will determine the direction that Indonesia will take in the next five years.”

Chris Naziris, lawyer at MKK Jakarta and Wellington:
“The 2019 election will be defined by competing populist policies, economic nationalism and rising religious conservatism. These could significantly impact New Zealand’s $1 billion worth of exports, the security of the region and the safety of New Zealanders.

“Indonesia has been a pluralistic and largely tolerant nation but continued low mineral prices (Indonesia’s extractive economy mirrors Australia’s) and increasingly ineffective nationalistic economic policies have failed to lift millions out of extreme poverty.

“This has led to frustration and resentment among many, especially outside Jakarta. In a time of growing US-China tensions, BREXIT, and European economic stagnation, the stability of Indonesia, as the largest economy in Southeast Asia is vital to New Zealand.”

Siah Hwee Ang, Chair in Business in Asia:
“Indonesia is a close neighbour to New Zealand and its economic ties with New Zealand have strengthened in the last couple of years. Indonesia’s trade and investment policies might adjust depending on the outcomes of the coming election.

“This will have an impact on New Zealand businesses either currently trading with our Southeast Asia neighbour or those with the market in sight.

“Even intermediaries that engage with Indonesian counterparts will have to keep themselves abreast of the potential change in political and business climate in Indonesia. More broadly, Indonesia’s election will have ramifications for ASEAN as a whole and the wider Asia-Pacific, which New Zealand is a part of.

“There will be ripple effects on trade and investment fronts, even if trade agreements may have ring-fenced some of these potential effects. Overall, clearly the election in the largest economy in ASEAN would have both direct and indirect effects on business engagements with the country and the wider context of the Asia-Pacific.”

Compiled by the Asia New Zealand Foundation’s Asia Media Centre.

• Indonesia election: Widodo, Prabowo vie for presidency

By David Robie

A human rights defender and researcher has warned in a new book published on the eve of the Indonesian national elections tomorrow that the centralised political system has failed many of the country’s 264 million people – especially minorities and those at the margins, such as in West Papua.

Author Andreas Harsono also says a “radical change is needed in the mindset of political leaders” and he is not optimistic for such changes after the election.

Harsono is author of Race, Islam and Power: Ethnic and Religious Violence in Post-Suharto Indonesia, a book based on 15 years of research and travel between Sabang in Aceh in the west and Merauke in West Papua in the East.

READ MORE: Indonesian elections – environment a missing topic

Founding President Sukarno used the slogan “from Sabang to Merauke” when launching a campaign – ultimately successful – to seize West Papua in 1961.

But, as Harsono points out, the expression should really be from Rondo Island (an unpopulated islet) to Sota (a remote border post on the Papua New Guinean boundary.

Harsono, a former journalist and Human Rights Watch researcher since 2008, argues that Indonesia might have been more successful by creating a federation rather than a highly centralised state controlled from Jakarta.

“Violence on post-Suharto Indonesia, from Aceh to West Papua, from Kalimantan to the Moluccas, is evidence that Java-centric nationalism is unable to distribute power fairly in an imagined Indonesia,” he says. “It has created unnecessary paranoia and racism among Indonesian migrants in West Papua.

‘They’re Melanesians’
“The Papuans simply reacted by saying they’re Melanesians – not Indonesians. They keep questioning the manipulation of the United Nations-sponsored Act of Free Choice in 1969.”

Critics and cynics have long dismissed what they see as a deeply flawed process involving only 1025 voters selected by the Indonesian military as the “Act of No Choice”.

Harsono’s criticisms have been borne out by a range of Indonesian activist and watchdog groups, who say the generals behind the two presidential frontrunners are ridden with political interests.

The Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) and the Mining Advocacy Network (JATAM) have again warned that both presidential candidate tickets — incumbent President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and running mate Ma’ruf Amin as well as rival Prabowo Subianto and Sandiaga Uno — have close ties with retired TNI (Indonesian military) generals.

These retired officers are beholden to political interests and the prospect of resolving past human rights violations will “become increasingly bleak” no matter who is elected as the next president.

Kontras noted that nine out of the 27 retired officers who are behind Widodo and Ma’ruf have a “problematic track record on human rights”.

“Likewise with Prabowo Subianto and Sandiaga Uno where there are eight retired officers who were allegedly involved in past cases of HAM violations”, said Kontras researcher Rivanlee Anandar.

Prabowo himself, a former special forces commander, is implicated in many human rights abuses. He has been accused of abduction and torture of 23 pro-democracy activists in the late 1990s and he is regarded as having knowledge of the killing hundreds of civilians in Santa Cruz massacre in Timor-Leste.

90,000 killed post-Sukarno
Harsono’s 280-page book, with seven chapters devoted to regions of Indonesia, documents an ”internally complex and riven nation” with an estimated 90,000 people having been killed in the decade after Suharto’s departure.

“In East Timor, President Suharto’s successor B. J. Habibie agreed to have a referendum [on independence]. Indonesia lost and it generated a bloodbath,” says Harsono.

“Habibie’s predecessors, Megawati Sukanoputri and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, refused to admit [that] the Indonesian military’s occupation, despite a United Nations’ finding, had killed 183,000 people between 1975 and 1999.”

Harsono notes how in 1945 Indonesia’s “non-Javanese founders Mohammad Hatta, Sam Ratu Langie and Johannes Latuharhary wanted an Indonesia that was democratic and decentralised. They advocated a federation.”

However, Sukarno, Supomo and Mohammad Yamin wanted instead a centralised unitarian state.

“Understanding the urgency to fight incoming Dutch troops, Latuharhary accepted Supomo’s proposal but suggested the new republic hold a referendum as soon as it became independent. Sukarno agreed but this decision has never been executed.”

The establishment of a unitarian state “naturally created the Centre”, says Harsono. “Jakarta has been accumulated and controlling political, cultural, educational, economic, informational and ideological power.

Java benefits
“The closer a region to Jakarta, the better it will benefit from the Centre. Java is the closest to the Centre.

“The further a region is from the Centre, the more neglected it will be. West Papua, Aceh, East Timor and the Moluccas are among those furthest away from Jakarta.”

The centralised political system needed a “long and complex bureaucracy” and this “naturally created corruption”, Harsono explains.

“Indonesia is frequently ranked as the most corrupt country in Asia. Political and Economic Risk Consultancy Ltd listed Indonesia as the most corrupt country in Asia in 2005.”

Harsono also notes how centralised power has helped a religious and ethnic majority that sees itself as “justified to have privileges and to rule over the minorities”.

The author cites the poet Leon Agasta as saying, “They’re the two most dangerous words in Indonesia: Islam and Java.” Muslim majority and Javanese dominance.

Harsono regards the Indonesian government’s response to demands for West Papuan “self-determination” as “primarily military and repressive: viewing Papuan ‘separatists’ as criminals, traitors and enemies of the Republic of Indonesia”.

He describes this policy as a “recipe for ongoing military operations to search for and destroy Papuan ‘separatists’, a term that could be applied to a large, if not overwhelming, portion of the Papuan population”.

Ruthless Indonesian military
“The Indonesian military, having lost their previous power bases in east Timor and Aceh, ruthlessly maintain their control over West Papua, both as a power base and as considerable source of revenue.

“The Indonesian military involvement in legal businesses, such as mining and logging, and allegedly, illegal businesses, such as alcohol, prostitution, extortion and wildlife smuggling, provide significant funds for the military as an organisation and also for individual officers.”

Pro-independence leaders have called on West Papuans to boycott the Indonesian elections tomorrow.

Andreas Harsono launched his journalism career as a reporter for the Bangkok-based Nation and the Kuala Lumpur-based Star newspapers. In the 1990s, he helped establish Indonesia’s Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) – then an illegal group under the Suharto regime, and today the most progressive journalists union in the republic.

Harsono was also founder of the Jakarta-based Institute for the Studies on the Free Flow of Information and of the South East Asia Press Alliance (SEAPA).

In a separate emailed interview with me in response to a question about whether there was light at the end of the tunnel, Harsono replied: I do not want to sound pessimistic but visiting dozens of sites of mass violence, seeing survivors and families’ who lost their lost ones, I just realised that mass killings took place all over Indonesia.

“It’s not only about the 1965 massacres –despite them being the biggest of all– but also the Papuans, the Timorese, the Acehnese, the Madurese etc.

“Basically all major islands in Indonesia, from Sumatra to Papua, have witnessed huge violence and none of them have been professionally understood. The truth of those mass killings have not been found yet.”

• Andreas Harsono will visit Auckland on August 21-24 and attend the Melbourne Writers Festival in Australia in late August.
• Andreas Harsono (2019). Race, Islam and Power: Ethnic and Religious Violence in Post-Suharto Indonesia. Melbourne: Monash University Publishing. 288 pages.
• Are Chinese-Indonesian voters key to the election?
• Indonesian double standards over press freedom endanger safety of Papuan journalists

Professor David Robie is director of the Pacific Media Centre. This review is republished from Pacific Journalism Review with permission.

It all started with Yayak Yatmaka writing Militarism for Beginners, an Indonesian picture book intended for younger audiences that he wrote years ago when he lived in Germany.

Then, last year a member of a discussion group, consisting mostly of young idealist intellectuals, students, artists and activists like Yayak, became born-again after reading a book about the history of communism in Indonesia.

To make a long story short, the artist stumbled upon a historical fact that it was the Indonesian Communist Party’s (PKI) anti-colonialist and nationalist spirit in the early 1920s that fired up our founding fathers’ struggle for independence.

The reading gave the artist a whole new perspective that was never available to him at school — the PKI was in fact a significant movement in laying down the foundations of Indonesia but its contribution is nowhere to be found in history books.

“The only communism the youth know comes from the propaganda created by the New Order [regime], which stigmatised the PKI as a frightening party worthy of nothing but loathing,” says sculptor-cum-activist Dolorosa Sinaga, referring to Suharto’s authoritarian military-backed regime that controlled Indonesia between 1965 and 1998.

Dolorosa was the lead organiser of the Turn Left Festival that was disrupted by a bunch of intolerant thugs with the apparent backing of the police, with the latter then forcibly dispersing attendees when the event was just about to begin at Taman Ismail Marzuki, a government-owned cultural center in Jakarta on February 27.

Scores of people from an alliance of Islamic and nationalist groups chanted slogans, intimidated the organisers and accused them of being sympathetic to the PKI.

No official permit
The police argued that the gathering should be banned because “some groups” had raised objections and the organisers had failed to obtain the official permit.

The ban, which forced the organisers to relocate the festival to the premises of the nearby Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation, was only the latest incident in a string of banned events that include seminars, film screenings and publications containing anything that smacks of “leftist” activism (see “Left out in the cold”).

Instead of cowering, the festival organisers have vowed to extend the festival — that features discussions, leftist books sales and art shows — every weekend “until the nation has transformed for the better”.

They will be marching on with the battle cry of “resist Suharto’s propaganda”.

The more than 32 activists that spearheaded the festival have a noble purpose of making a better Indonesia that is free from fear, which has been deeply rooted due to the corrupt culture built by the Suharto regime, since he seized power on the heels of the 1965 deadly aborted coup, blamed on the PKI.

“Until today, we all see the continuing reproduction of the New Order [regime’s] culture and values,” Dolorosa says.

“With the Turn Left Festival, we want to resist the whole legacy of the New Order that managed to cling to power for so long thanks to their effective propaganda.

Suffering now
“Intolerance as we [festival organisers] are suffering now is an example of the New Order political culture I’m talking about.”

The main event was the launch of a provocatively titled book History of Indonesian Leftist Movements for Beginners and discussions about leftist movements that “few young people know about”.

“The festival aims to inspire the young and make them aware of the need to learn history that hasn’t been twisted, [in order] to build a better Indonesia. I’m wondering why the government is so afraid of the festival,” Dolorosa said.

It is not that the activists want to promote the “isms” as some government officials may suspect.

In fact, they believe that communism, Marxism and Leninism are dead and irrelevant. They seek to rewrite history, which they say has been distorted.

The Turn Left Festival is a major collective project mostly by and for younger activists who strive for greater freedom of speech. With the preparatory work having begun a year ago, the canceled event was hosted by 40 volunteers aged between 18 and 40 from major cities across Indonesia in addition to the 32 authors of the 527-page History of Indonesian Leftist Movements.

Among familiar names that co-authored the book are Ayumail, Harry Waluyo, Iwan Gunawan, Kuncoro Adibroto, Tsoe Tjen Marching, Usman Hamid and Yayak Yatmaka, just to name a few.

‘Education city’
Dhyta Caturani, one of the organising committee members, said Turn Left was only one of many similar events initiated by young people.

In Yogyakarta, an “education city” where activism has always been vibrant, the city held a discussion on the 1965 tragedy.

In Salatiga, Satya Wacana University students published Lentera despite a ban on its August 2015 edition on 1965.

The young want the state to allow them greater room to exercise their freedom of speech and have a say in policymaking.

“Our aim is to encourage young people to exercise critical thinking. We are targeting the young […] many of them quench their curiosity about what actually happens to their rights through the internet.”

The Indonesian Military (TNI), which officially quit politics after Suharto’s downfall but still wields clout in the government, retains its strong stance against communism as it believes the ideology still poses a threat to the state ideology, Pancasila.

A week after the festival was banned, Defence Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu told a media gathering that communism was one of the four main ideologies in the world that the military closely watched, with the other three being radicalism, socialism and Leninism.

Adopted liberalism
“It’s not that they are bad but it’s just because they are not suitable for Indonesia. The US may not be as strong as it is now had it not adopted liberalism. Communism is good in China. In Indonesia, radicalism began only after the Bali bombing [in 2002].”

Sharing Ryamizard’s concern, the Home Ministry’s director-general for political affairs and general administration, Sudarmo, warned that the danger of leftist movements were that they “lurk in the dark and wait for the right time to come into the open”.

Leftist ideologies, Sudarmo said, provoke civil organisations — especially the Islamic ones — to come forward and oppose activities they see as adverse to Pancasila.

Sudarmo, who also formerly worked at National Intelligence Agency (BIN), acknowledged most of the various hard-line groups that helped disperse the Turn Left Festival were registered with the Home Ministry and that the police did not use them to intimidate organizers as many suspected.

“Supporters of the festival may hold a grudge against the New Order but remember that everyone living in the country must follow the rules.”