A picture speaks louder than a thousand fears.
That was the case when a student from the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) shared an AI-generated image of Prabowo Subianto kissing Joko Widodo. It wasn’t pornography. It wasn’t hate speech. It was satire: creative, clever, and entirely nonviolent. A visual critique, posted on her personal social media account.
Within days, this brave, sharp, and critical student was detained. The state came down on her like a hammer on glass.
What crime did she commit? Daring to visualise the intimate bond between two men who for years pretended to oppose each other and only to later merge their political machinery in a shameless dance of dynasty and power preservation. The kiss was not the threat. The threat was the critique it represented of how Prabowo and Jokowi have dissolved opposition and reshaped democracy into a game for two.
This is not just a case of overreach or inconsistency. It is what philosopher Herbert Marcuse called repressive tolerance: a system that absorbs or rewards criticism only when it no longer threatens power and punishes it when it still does.
While this student faces criminalisation, others who once publicly ridiculed or attacked Prabowo now occupy powerful positions within his administration. Hasan Nasbi, once a sharp-tongued online provocateur who hurled personal insults at Prabowo, is now head of the Presidential Communication Office. His Twitter/X account, once infamous for mocking the man he now serves, has been wiped clean. Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, who publicly belittled Prabowo in the past, is back in the ruling circle.
Most striking is Jokowi’s son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, who once used the pseudonym Fufufafa to post inflammatory content targeting Prabowo — posts that, in normal times, might have led to legal consequences. Instead, Gibran now enjoys the vice presidency and is already laying the groundwork for a 2029 presidential run.
What message does this send? That forgiveness is a privilege of the powerful. That betrayal is not punished when it flows from the top. That dissent from the powerless is criminal, but hypocrisy from the elite is strategic.
This is repressive tolerance in its purest form. Dissent is not countered through open debate or democratic engagement. It is either silenced, co-opted, or absorbed into the machinery of power. Prabowo’s strategy is not one of strength, but of deep insecurity. And that insecurity reveals something even more troubling.
Prabowo himself has admitted he would never have become president without Jokowi’s support. That wasn’t modesty. It was confession. It confirms what many suspect: that his path to power was paved with borrowed legitimacy. From the Constitutional Court’s questionable rulings to suspicious voting patterns, the 2024 election reeks not of democracy, but of dynasty.
Prabowo holds no mandate of his own. And like all things borrowed, legitimacy must be defended — not with openness, but with fear. And fear, as history reminds us, is the seed of authoritarianism.
The ITB student’s arrest is not an isolated case. It is a symptom. A signal of what this presidency is becoming: one that smiles in public but punishes in private. That tolerates sycophancy but criminalises creativity. That pardons past political enemies but prosecutes young citizens for their art.
But the threat extends beyond censorship. We are witnessing the creeping return of militarisation, not as emergency response, but as ideology.
Take West Java’s governor, who recently sent troubled youths and LGBTQ individuals to be “re-educated” by the military. Not helped. Not supported. Re-educated. Dibina. A word lifted from the darkest chapters of Indonesia’s authoritarian past, now casually uttered at press conferences, as if identity, dignity, and freedom could be corrected with drills and discipline.
Again, Hasan Nasbi enters the scene. After the student’s arrest, he suggested she should be “re-educated” by the state. Not imprisoned, just “guided.” But re-education, no matter how politely phrased, is still authoritarianism in a softer mask.
The more dangerous reality is not that generals are returning. It’s that civilians are welcoming them back. Today’s most vocal advocates for militarisation are not uniformed officers, but governors, influencers, and opportunistic reformists. This is how 21st-century authoritarianism reboots: not with tanks, but with talking points. Not with martial law, but with moral panic.
The ITB student is only one of many. There will be others — artists, academics, activists: anyone who disrupts the illusion of harmony carefully maintained by those in power. Critics are no longer simply opposed; they are either silenced or assimilated. Institutions have become loyalty tests. The press is weakened. The judiciary, compromised. Universities are threatened into obedience.
This collapse is not accidental. It is engineered. And those who once stood tall, the rectors, the lawyers, the journalists, are now too often silent. Or worse, on the payroll.
In such a climate, satire becomes subversion. Poetry becomes protest. Memes become manifestos. When an AI image of two men kissing is feared more than corruption, repression, or inequality, then democracy is no longer functioning. We are living in a curated monarchy disguised as a republic.
So what must be done?
First, we must name what is happening. This is not a “transition.” It is the consolidation of authoritarianism dressed in democratic branding. If Jokowi ruled with populist charm, Prabowo appears poised to rule with fear, discipline, and control, masked by token gestures of inclusion.
Second, universities must protect their students. Institutions of knowledge cannot remain neutral when their members are arrested for expressing ideas. Silence is complicity. And complicity is betrayal.
Third, digital resistance must continue. Artists, writers, citizens, we must resist the urge to self-censor. The public space must overflow with satire, critique, questions, and courage.
Fourth, civil society must hold the line. Human rights defenders, legal aid groups, and independent media must brace for a long, cold winter. But history shows that regimes built on fear crumble under truth. Authoritarians are never as strong as they seem. They are terrified, of ideas.
Finally, international attention matters. Indonesia still claims to be a democracy. The world must remember: real democracies do not arrest students for satire, do not elevate those who hurled insults for political convenience, and do not send their youth to military re-education camps in the name of morality.
Let the world see what is happening. Let Indonesians name the danger before it becomes the norm.
And let the next image, whatever it may be, be shared not in fear, but with pride.
Because freedom, once erased, takes generations to rebuild.
And dissent, once criminalised, becomes the only moral act left.
Omong-Omong Media’s editorial is also published in The Jakarta Post every Monday.
