This Anger Liberates: Reflections from the 29 August 2025 Protest in Senayan

[This is an expanded and translated version of the original essay written in Bahasa Indonesia]

On one occasion some time ago, I remember a friend asking me to become one of the informants for her research on the dynamics of young activists on social media. It felt strange (aneh sekali rasanya) to refer to myself as a “young activist”, especially since I had only recently immersed myself in grassroots organising (gerakan akar rumput). It also felt somehow undeserved (rasanya tidak layak) to introduce myself as an activist when much of what I did on a daily basis was to criticise the movement itself. At times, those criticisms were laced with cynicism, shaped by the sense of betrayal I had experienced within it.

I once believed that being an activist meant constantly speaking out loudly, fists raised, spreading the fire of enthusiasm among comrades (kawan-kawan seperjuangan). At other times, I believed that being an activist meant never ceasing to voice opinions and take positions on everything. Over time, however, and through several unpleasant experiences (pengalaman tidak mengenakkan), my perspective shifted. I began to realise that imposing fixed standards on what activism should look like risks reproducing a colonial way of thinking, one that ultimately hegemonises our freedom to think as ordinary human beings.

Long before deciding to leave a feminist movement, I continued to observe a political climate that increasingly threatened the safety of activists. I began deliberately searching for alternative forms of grassroots organising that shared the values I believed in, which I came to think of as “silent activism” (aktivisme sunyi, literally: silent or withdrawn activism) because I no longer chose to be openly vocal. In the end, I was fortunate to encounter a community of health workers with a strong sense of class consciousness and political awareness. As a former midwifery student, I had once buried my desire to work as a health professional, believing that few health workers cultivated critical awareness of the social issues surrounding them.

At the protest (aksi unjuk rasa, literally: act of showing or expressing feeling) on 29 August 2025, I joined for the first time as a medical volunteer alongside friends from Jarnakes Indonesia. The protest emerged from public anger over the increase in parliamentary allowances and from civil society’s solidarity following the death of Affan Kurniawan, who was killed after being run over by a police tactical vehicle. Amid the collective mourning (rasa berkabung kolektif) felt (dirasakan) by all layers of society who took to the streets that day, this moment of grief was also exploited by infiltrators and provocateurs linked to political elites. Even so, it was the first time I witnessed a protest that was not marked by the usual speeches or orations. What filled the air instead was a raw expression of anger directed at the brown and green institutions, the state apparatus that has long been used to fracture the voices of civilians, until Affan was made into a martyr and left us all carrying the trauma.

Participating as a medical volunteer pushed me into a very deep process of reflection. I experienced firsthand (merasakan sendiri) how real the repression against medical volunteers could be. I was struck by a rubber bullet, reportedly fired by paid thugs believed to be working on behalf of the brown uniformed forces. The incident unfolded just as evening approached. It was around six o’clock when the sky began to darken, heavy rain fell suddenly, and the crowd descended into confusion as provocateurs began carrying out their strategy. Tear gas was fired, making it difficult for us to see clearly as we tried to find our way toward the exit near the Semanggi flyover. The streetlights were turned off, seemingly to trap us and push us further away from Polda Metro Jaya. I still remember the tightness in my chest and the burning in my eyes, not to mention the pain (rasa nyeri) in my lower back. I cried out in pain (merintih kesakitan) for help from fellow medical volunteers and eventually had to spend the night at a friend’s rented room before going to the emergency unit the next morning.

I still struggle to make sense of why state officials and security forces would choose violence and manipulation in responding to the public rather than dialogue and careful listening. Everything happened so quickly that I am still processing it. At the same time, as someone involved in a grassroots collective (kolektif akar rumput), I realised that I needed to learn quickly how to read situations like this. It turns out I was not as prepared as I thought. A friend who is more experienced in protest situations told me that incidents like this are not unusual. As part of a protest crowd, we must be attentive and careful in recognising who is a friend and who is an adversary.

This experience led me to conclude that expanding the scope of struggle beyond explicitly feminist circles is just as important as the work I once carried out with feminist friends. After finishing Transformation Now!, I realised that opening myself to stand and move alongside groups that do not label themselves as feminist can be a first step toward slowly breaking through the boundaries of exclusivity I had long carried within myself. For a long time, I had been sceptical of people who did not explicitly identify as feminist or affiliate themselves with feminist movements. As it turns out, it was not as bad as I had imagined.

Rather than being able to balance these two spectrums of activism, however, things unfolded differently. Partway through the journey, I was disappointed (aku dikecewakan) by the feminist movement that I had once joined wholeheartedly (sepenuh hati) with a friend. Ironically, my decision to leave that movement stemmed from fundamental differences in values. It became even more difficult when the movement began demanding and measuring “success” through matrices, numbers, and KPIs, as if we were living under the logic of a corporation shaped by strong capitalist and neoliberal currents.

A conversation with a friend later helped me recognise something else: the movement itself had come to embody what Karl Marx described as “disposable workers,” labour that can easily be replaced. The arrival of artificial intelligence, or AI, was cited as one of the reasons. According to the movement’s leader, article production needed to be accelerated so that media engagement would not decline, and we, as writers, were expected to produce at least one or two pieces each week. When I attempted to offer criticism, pointing out that such an environment was unhealthy for a movement and raising several technical concerns, I was instead attacked on a personal level. The reflective pieces I had written, often infused with theoretical insights, were dismissed merely as “personal venting” (curahan hati), and on that basis, I was accused of not prioritising the movement.

When I tried to be honest about my circumstances, that at the time I was juggling two jobs just to support myself and help my parents, I was diminished by fellow “feminists” who loudly demanded justice in public yet offered little sense of safety within their own group. From that experience, it seemed to confirm that capitalism, whether consciously or not, also operates within activist spaces. It creates an expectation that activists must always be available, always ready, with no room to admit exhaustion (merasa lelah). As a result, people like me end up stepping away from active struggle and needing much longer to recover.

This experience also resonates with what Paulo Freire writes in Pedagogy of the Oppressed: oppressors are not limited to those who hold formal power in government. Those who possess greater authority within organisations or communities can also become smaller-scale oppressors, often shaped by the trauma of the oppressed who begin to desire the lives of those who once dominated them. Imagine having to confront both large and small forms of oppression at the same time. Living within such a social and political situation can feel deeply suffocating. Am I not allowed to feel tired (merasa lelah) and take a moment to rest? If I were permitted (jika diperkenankan) to shout that question aloud, I would do so now.

Freire’s analysis of oppression feels strikingly relevant when I observe what has been happening in Indonesia recently and recognise its recurring patterns. Mass protests are frequently turned chaotic by infiltrators and provocateurs linked to the security apparatus itself, often through acts of vandalism that damage public facilities. The situation is then staged in such a way that civilians end up fighting one another, distracting us from the real issue: dismantling a government driven by greed and hunger for power.

Beyond all of this, I still believe in what Freire says about political education needing to be cultivated in non-formal spaces built on egalitarian relations, spaces that do not demand excessive hierarchies of power and that seek to minimise the influence of capitalism and neoliberalism. I remain convinced that such alternative spaces still exist and can still be created, dismantled, and reassembled according to the context and needs of particular communities in specific places.

In many ways, I see a shared spirit between Keating and Freire: a commitment to building dialogical relationships among people that can nurture collective movements grounded in the people themselves (berbasis kerakyatan). Drawing from Keating, such movements recognise commonalities (kesepadanan) among participants; drawing from Freire, they refuse rigid teacher-student hierarchies. Instead, they bring together people who carry out educational work collectively: the task of fostering critical consciousness (penyadaran kritis) for everyone, without exception. With this spirit in mind, perhaps I do not need to worry (tidak perlu risau) if one day I must leave again. Perhaps I simply need to find my own rhythm, to do what I can within my limits, until I eventually encounter others whose values and pace resonate with my own.

As someone who has had the privilege of receiving higher education, I have also come to realise that truly organic collective movements often emerge from an awareness of oppression. Such awareness is unlikely to grow within the comfortable architecture of schools or universities furnished with soft chairs and air-conditioned rooms. At least for Freire, sitting together without rigid spatial boundaries makes it possible for political education to emerge from a more grounded and radical spirit. This is the kind of education nurtured by the people and for the people (dari rakyat untuk rakyat), free from standards that measure educational success through certificates, diplomas, or the prestige of publishing in international journals.

At its core, raising awareness about oppression must be amplified more widely so that it reaches more people, people who feel disturbed and angered by public officials who are arrogant and unwilling to face civil society. Beyond the internal intrigues of movements themselves, I think (menurutku) we need, at least for a moment, to set aside our individual egos and return to our initial focus, doing the most we can here and now (di sini-kini). Especially in the midst of technological developments that demand rapid responses, we also need to remain attentive (kita juga perlu hati-hati) in reading the political situations unfolding around us. Such attentiveness must be accompanied by strategies mapped out for both the short and long term, while remaining attentive to each person’s capacity to grow together within a collective. It is not easy, I know, but taking one step forward is better than none at all.

As I continue to hold and heal from the wounds (sambil memeluk kembali lukaku) left by my experience in a feminist movement, I am, like many others, still reconstructing the forms of activism I can meaningfully navigate. At the same time, I am trying to move through what Keating describes as the subtle boundaries between people, recognising that human beings can remain connected even when invisible divisions exist between them. With this spirit, I feel (aku rasa) I must also be gentler with myself, resisting the urge to treat those who walk a different path as adversaries. I believe there will always be new spaces where I can continue to express reflective anger (kemarahan reflektif) authentically, even if I sometimes feel overwhelmed by the rapid shifts in my own political and spiritual awareness lately.

For now, and perhaps for some time to come, I still find myself asking whether I deserve to identify as an activist at all. This doubt arises because the activism that has taken shape within me is no longer performative (aktivisme performatif). I do not know whether I can become that “hard” figure (seorang yang “keras”) again, or whether the hardest thing I can now do is simply to write my anger into words. At the same time, I carry a dream of pursuing a career as an academic, which would mean entering once again the spaces of intellectual elites and perhaps creating distance from grassroots movements, or perhaps finding a way to walk alongside them. This tension between comfort and commitment persists, especially when the reality remains that critical education, ideally, can only truly emerge in decolonial spaces: rhizomatic (rimpang), rough (kasar), unruly (tidak beraturan), and sporadic.