The seeming success of the government’s repressive tactics, by granting the police and military freedom to use force and implement war-like strategies during the massive rallies across Indonesia in recent days, will likely embolden President Prabowo Subianto with greater confidence and conviction that the fall of Soeharto in 1998 was not due to the people’s resistance, but rather a failure of the state to fully deploy its coercive apparatus.
As a result, the police have continued to violate due process of law at will: chasing students into university buildings, firing tear gas on campuses, and arresting individuals for merely expressing their opinions, accusing them of inciting protesters to commit violent and destructive acts. Laras Faizati (26), who works at the ASEAN Interparliamentary Assembly, was arrested for posting her frustration toward the police on her social media account. Anyone can see that her statement, saying “burn down the building”, was a spontaneous emotional outburst, not a literal call to violence, and reflects the deep public anger many Indonesians feel toward police brutality.
But the police aim to stoke fear in people’s hearts, using Laras and dozens of others who have been detained as examples. According to the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI), more than 3,000 protesters have been arrested during the recent wave of demonstrations, with at least 10 people killed in the process. This is repression in its most blatant form.
What makes this moment particularly dangerous is not just the violence itself, but the revisionist historical logic behind it. If Prabowo truly believes Suharto fell not because of the moral force of the Reformasi movement, but because the regime hesitated to fully unleash its security forces, then he is not simply repeating history. He is rewriting it, with deadly precision.
To showcase his resolve, Prabowo made a calculated public gesture. He initially cancelled his attendance at China’s Victory Day parade, citing domestic instability. But just days later, on September 3, 2025, he flew to Beijing to stand beside Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong-un at the 80th-anniversary military parade. The event showcased hypersonic missiles, fighter jets, and other displays of hard power, a stark symbol of militarised governance and authoritarian camaraderie.
That authoritarian theatre abroad mirrors the repression at home. The crackdown continues in Jakarta, Bandung, and across the country: tear gas in universities, lethal force against demonstrators, and a widespread campaign of fear. Yet Prabowo chose spectacle over statesmanship, and international optics over domestic accountability. Civil society’s silence made this possible.
But to truly understand the peril of Prabowo’s authoritarian trajectory, it’s important to also reflect on a key difference from the Soeharto era: economic legitimacy.
Soeharto’s rule, especially in its first decade, was marked not only by repression but also by real economic progress. After inheriting an economic disaster and hyperinflation from the Sukarno era, Soeharto appointed capable technocrats, mainly economists from the University of Indonesia, to lead the economic ministries. With their guidance, Indonesia achieved consistent growth of 7–8% annually and lifted millions out of poverty. For many Indonesians, daily life materially improved. The early years of Soeharto’s New Order, especially until the Malari protests in 1974, were marked by a sense of stability and rising prosperity. That economic success bought political time and public tolerance, even for authoritarianism.
Prabowo, by contrast, faces a radically different reality.
His administration, even in its first year, has been plagued by almost continuous protest and dissent. But unlike Soeharto, Prabowo has not appointed a cabinet of independent technocrats with proven records. Instead, his inner circle is filled with political loyalists, retired generals, and figures with little credibility in economic policy. If Soeharto used economic performance as the foundation for control, Prabowo appears to be relying almost entirely on fear and brute force.
In this context, the widespread repression is not just about silencing dissent. It is a response to a deeper instability, the people’s worsening daily struggle. Economic hardship continues to rise: food prices, stagnant wages, unaffordable education, housing insecurity. Many young people feel that no matter how hard they work or how much they speak up, nothing will change. Their anger is not ideological. It’s existential. They’re tired, they’re broke, and they’re afraid.
Yet instead of listening, the government is cracking down.
And this crackdown is being enabled not just by the state, but by the weakening and fragmentation of civil society. The institutions that once defended democratic principles, NGOs, student organisations, independent media, legal aid groups, have grown quiet. Some are divided. Others have been co-opted. Still others are simply exhausted after years of slow decline under Joko Widodo’s administration.
The recent student protests were not met with national solidarity from civil society. Few major organisations released joint statements. There were no unified campaigns for accountability. No coordinated legal response to military-style policing. Many of the NGOs that once stood on the front lines offered only polite concern, if they spoke at all.
Worse still, some of the most prominent voices of the Reformasi era have crossed over into the halls of power, blurring the line between critic and collaborator. Former activists now serve as bureaucrats. Their positions, once seen as democratic gains, have become mechanisms of co-optation. Dissent has been absorbed, not addressed.
Academics, too, have mostly stayed silent. University administrators are more concerned with budgets and image than protecting academic freedom. The case of UNISBA Rector Harits Nu’man, who initially parroted police lies about a campus raid before retracting under pressure, is not an exception. It’s becoming the norm. Across the country, a chilling effect has taken hold. Academics are afraid. Journalists are cautious. Public intellectuals are increasingly absent from the national conversation.
Even the media, once a key pillar of democracy, has begun to toe the official line. Coverage often frames protests as chaos, focusing on property damage while ignoring state violence, arbitrary detention, and the abduction of student leaders. This framing doesn’t just miss the story. It actively helps the regime justify repression.
The result is fragmentation. Protesters march alone. Academics write op-eds that are ignored. No shared platform, no unified message. And in that vacuum, the regime paints dissent as illegitimate, even fake. When former reformists like Budiman Sudjatmiko mock youth protests as “AI-generated,” it becomes clear that 1998 is not just being forgotten. It’s being used as a weapon against those trying to honour its legacy.
Indonesia stands at a crossroads. The pillars of Reformasi are being dismantled by a regime that understands power better than its opponents understand resistance. And the people, increasingly alienated and economically pressured, are left with fewer and fewer options.
But the story is not over.
History shows us that civil society can recover its voice, if it recognises the stakes. Silence is no longer an option. Neutrality in the face of brutality is complicity. Nostalgia for the “order” of Suharto is not only revisionist. It is deeply dangerous.
If civil society is to be revived, it must begin by reclaiming its moral clarity. It must risk discomfort, rejection, even repression, to fulfil its democratic role. It must act as a counter-power, not an accessory to power.
Just as Soeharto faced his first major test during the Malari riots in 1974, this is Prabowo’s first significant obstacle. Whether he can remain in power for another 20 to 30 years, as Soeharto did after 1974, will depend on his ability to balance repression with economic progress, and on whether civil society has the resolve to bring about its own version of 1998, sooner rather than later.
Omong-Omong Media’s editorial is also published in The Jakarta Post every Monday.
