As revolt rumbles in Indonesia against austerity measures, led in
particular by students adopting black bloc tactics, here is a textoriginally published in Soleil Noir No. 7, February 2024: ---- In The
Banners of Revolt (2005), historian Benedict Anderson recalls how
anarchism influenced anti-colonial struggles around the world,
particularly in Southeast Asia. While he focuses more on the
multilingual Filipino independence activist and doctor José Rizal, the
historian is also a keen observer of Indonesia. In this country too,
anarchism spread ideas of freedom, equality and revolt, which were
suppressed by nationalist and religious movements as well as by the
colonial authorities. Ernest Douwes Dekker, an anti-colonial figure who
denounced the exploitation of peasants in Java, was also influenced by
anarchism. Chinese anarchists also spread ideas and helped organise the
Indonesian labour movement from the end of the 19th century onwards.
A brief history of colonialism and dictatorship
From the 17th century onwards, Dutch, French, Spanish, English and
Portuguese companies competed for power in the Indonesian islands. In
1800, Indonesia became a Dutch colony (the Dutch East Indies). Several
revolts were brutally suppressed. The Cuulturstelsel system of
exploitation was introduced: Javanese peasants had to devote a fifth of
their land and labour to crops for export (tea, coffee, spices, sugar
and indigo).
Anti-colonial thinking and struggle were influenced by anarchism during
the 19th century. In 1916, an anarchist soldier called for sabotage in a
context of disobedience within the navy. Christian anarchism and
pacifism spread throughout the Dutch East Indies. However, it was mainly
Chinese anarchists who helped organise the Indonesian labour movement
and spread anarchist ideas and practices. Zhang Ji, in particular, lived
in Java for a while. From 1909 onwards, reading houses were set up by
anarchists of Chinese origin throughout Indonesia. Newspapers were
published, such as the anarcho-communist newspaper Zhenli Bao. The
newspaper Minsheng, founded by Liu Shifu in 1913 in southern China,
circulated as far as the Indonesian ports. His brother, Liu Shixin,
settled in what was then the Dutch East Indies and stirred up trouble
with a few accomplices. Thanks to the Chinese diaspora, links were
established with anarchists from Indonesia not only in China and Korea,
but also in the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand. However, several
anarchist agitators of Chinese origin were arrested and expelled from
the country.
In 1920 and 1921, a major strike shook the colonial administration:
several thousand workers and railway workers from the Deli Railway
Company went on strike to demand higher wages, soon joined by postal and
telegraph employees. The peasantry sympathised and provided food for the
strikers. The authorities identified the instigator of the strike as
Zhang Shimei, an anarchist, who was exiled to New Guinea.
A few Indonesians studied at Dutch universities, where they came into
contact with Dutch revolutionaries, particularly anarchists. Sutan
Sjarhir, who would become Prime Minister, was a regular visitor to
anarchist circles during his studies. He went on to found the Socialist
Party in Indonesia and participated in the anti-colonial struggle.
Soekarno himself, the nationalist leader, regularly quoted Bakunin's
anti-colonial writings in his speeches. Nevertheless, he was very
hostile to the anarchist movement. He openly criticised their rejection
of patriotism and the state. The anarchists who met him, for their part,
retorted that he would only replace the oppression of the colonialists
with the oppression of the local and indigenous bourgeoisie. This is, of
course, what happened.
During the Second World War, Indonesia was occupied by the Japanese
army, while the Netherlands was occupied by the German army. Groups
fought in the jungle against the Japanese occupiers. On the brink of
defeat in 1945, the Japanese authorities promised independence to the
various anti-colonialists. However, at the end of the war, the
Netherlands attempted to reconquer these islands, supported by the
British and American governments. After four years of war, the creation
of the Republic of the United States of Indonesia confirmed
independence. However, internal struggles persisted. In fact, power in
Indonesia was difficult to divide between the nationalist leader
Soekarno and his lieutenant Hatta, the Communist Party, Muslim
organisations and other self-organised groups of pemuda (young fighters)
who had led the struggle against the Japanese and then Dutch occupiers.
In 1957, Sukarno invented the term ‘guided democracy’ to legitimise
his dictatorship, combining nationalism, religion and authoritarian
communism. It was a beautiful but inevitably devastating mix for freedom.
In 1965, General Suharto took advantage of an attempted coup – which he
appears to have instigated – to seize power and brutally repress
communists, anarchists and revolutionaries of all stripes, as well as
certain ethnic and religious minorities. Religion was used to incite the
carnage. In a murderous ecumenism, Christian, Muslim and Hindu fanatics
joined forces with the army to massacre around 500,000 people. The
dictatorship further encouraged the development of an elite that
monopolised wealth, with an aggressive policy known as the ‘New Order’.
A society based on ‘red scare’ and the persecution of anything that
remotely resembled communism or socialism was established.
In 1998, in the midst of an economic crisis, a wave of riots brought an
end to Suharto's dictatorship. Indonesia, one of the most populous
countries on the planet (with nearly 300 million inhabitants), remains
grappling with capitalist logic, particularly in the precious wood,
nickel, coal and palm oil industries, which export to the European
Union, Japan, the United States, China and Singapore. It is one of the
most unequal countries in the world, with an oligarchy that holds most
of the wealth in an iron grip. Added to this are religious conflicts and
increasingly strict Muslim conservatism. As is the case almost
everywhere, capitalism relies on other authoritarian forces to maintain
its reign of money and hierarchy.
The new Indonesian anarchist flame
Anarchism has deep roots in Indonesia, even though there was no
anarchist movement to speak of between the 1920s and the 1990s. However,
since the early 1990s, there has been an anarchist movement linked to
both the punk counterculture and informal affinity groups. Before the
end of the dictatorship, anarchists and punks were synonymous, and an
underground counterculture developed through fanzines and music. From
1998 onwards, with the end of the dictatorship, anarchism regained
momentum and became more visible. Anti-fascist groups showed solidarity
with workers' strikes, collectives organised free canteens, and the punk
movement became more visible. Brochures by Bakunin, Emma Goldman and
Rudolf Rocker were distributed in Indonesian. From 1999 onwards, an
anti-fascist network was established across the archipelago. In August,
members supported strikers at the Rimba Aristama factory in Bandung. An
anarchist information centre also opened in Jakarta, called
‘Brainwashing Corporation’.
In 2006, an anti-authoritarian network developed, introducing black bloc
tactics into demonstrations. In 2011, sabotage attacks against ATMs took
place in Sulawesi, Java and Sumatra, claimed by an informal anarchist
federation. In 2013, a series of direct actions took place in solidarity
with Greek anarchist prisoners Spyros Mandylas and Andreas Tsavdaridis.
They were accused of belonging to the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, a
group carrying out direct actions and urban guerrilla warfare. On 26
June 2013, a floor of the Sheraton hotel was set on fire. On 24 August
2013, a police academy in Balikpapan was set on fire. On 9 January 2014,
an ATM was destroyed. In April 2014, during the parliamentary elections,
several attacks took place in various parts of the country, sometimes
simultaneously, targeting election offices, electricity company offices,
vehicles transporting ballot papers and power stations. All these acts
of sabotage were claimed by anarchists.
May 1st is traditionally a turbulent day in Indonesia's major cities.
Since 2007, anarchists from across the country and of various tendencies
have gathered in major cities to form offensive marches. It all began,
in a way, on 1 May 2007, when anarchist groups and individuals from
Jakarta, Bandung, Salatiga, Bali and Semarang joined forces to form an
offensive procession of more than a hundred people, making a loud and
public display. The following year, a black bloc of 200 people attacked
large companies and clashed with the police. Many were arrested. This
did not prevent anarchists from actively participating in social
struggles and opposition to nuclear power plant projects in the
following years.
The May Day demonstrations remain a time to gather and show presence.
This was particularly the case on May 1, 2018, in Jakarta, with a large
black bloc clashing with the police. A police station was set on fire.
Sixty-nine people were arrested during the riot, and a strong
anti-anarchist crackdown followed, orchestrated by the central
government with the support of Muslim clerics and the main Indonesian
trade union. The same thing happened on 1 May 2019, in an electoral
context, in several major cities across the country. This time, the
authorities played the card of a conspiracy fomented by foreign
agitators, allegedly anarchists and the International Workers'
Association. Arrests were made, resulting in heavy prison sentences and
torture. Shortly before, on 17 April 2019, a feminist march had brought
together tens of thousands of people, raising broader issues concerning
the conditions of women, homosexuals, indigenous people, disabled
people, etc. In the wake of May Day, demonstrations and riots broke out
across the country against a proposed revision of the Penal Code and the
weakening of the commission responsible for fighting corruption. Jakarta
experienced a particularly turbulent night of rioting on 22 May, with at
least six protesters killed in the clashes.
Several informal groups, collectives and organisations have emerged in
Indonesia in recent years. These include the autonomous anarchist
library Pustaka Catut (‘the angry library’) and the anarcho-syndicalist
organisation PPAS (‘Indonesian Workers’ Brotherhood"), created in 2016,
which has led strikes with taxi drivers against UBER and has local
groups in Jakarta and Surabaya. A local group of the Anarchist Black
Cross has also been formed. Newspapers, books and brochures are
distributed, particularly through mobile libraries, and grassroots
solidarity networks have been established with workers, rural
communities and populations affected by industrial devastation. In a
highly religious country, solidarity is also growing with religious
minorities who face discrimination. Anarchists are also inspired by the
rich cultural practices of mutual aid among indigenous communities,
considering that it is not anarchism but the state that was introduced
from outside the Indonesian archipelago. The website anarkis.org,
created in 2014, contributes to the dissemination of subversive ideas in
the country.
In 2020, anarchists were very active in the fight against the Omnibus
Law, an ultra-liberal labour law. Once again, riots shook the entire
country. They followed multiple self-organised initiatives during the
Covid crisis to compensate for the failures of the state (canteens,
popular education, physical exercise, etc.). In 2023, anti-anarchist
repression remains very high, and groups and individuals who have been
identified are under close surveillance and persecution. The spectre of
anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism is gradually replacing the fear of
communism that prevailed during the years of dictatorship. Informal
anarchist groups and individuals are now spreading this call for
international solidarity:
Dark Nights / Thursday, 17 August 2023
In recent years, we have seen massive repression by the state against
anarchist individuals and groups. Although these are sometimes arbitrary
arrests of ordinary individuals, recent state-funded studies on
anarchist activity in Indonesia have been brought to our attention.
For these reasons, and also to protect our comrades who are already
targeted by the state, we need better infrastructure for resistance in
this era of social control and surveillance. The need for this
infrastructure of solidarity that we are proposing is part of our
ongoing revolt against the state and its apparatus. We are not paranoid
or overwhelmed by fear; in fact, the opposite is true: we want to strike
harder and we want to become better at storming the heavens.
You can support our resistance infrastructure project:
Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/PalangHitam
Bitcoin: bc1qdnwyn9pwccngewszyq67azztdc6cznjhj346vt
Informal anarchist groups and individuals / West Java
For organised insurrectionary attack! Call for revolutionary solidarity
with anarchist comrades in Indonesia
Once again, the international security state is acting against anarchist
tendencies that are fighting to establish and maintain their resistance
as a threat to the system. The anarchists in Indonesia who have enough
principles to put their words into practice are our comrades in
struggle. In an atmosphere of increased anti-anarchist repression
against the movement in Indonesia, with the criminalisation of the local
Anarchist Black Cross group, we call for international solidarity and
closer contacts [xcn@@riseup.net], with the aim of mutual aid and common
projects, to help anarchists hit by repression and to help support
anarchist infrastructures.
In April 2022, Muh Taufiqrrohman, a security consultant who writes for
Startsea [academic-political analysis website on Southeast Asia;
NdAtt.], published a short analytical article, which is part of the
calls for repression of the anarchist movement in Indonesia. The
language used by this security ‘expert’ is clearly drawn from European
‘anti-extremist’ manuals. Given that this analysis was not an empty
threat on the part of Startsea and the Indonesian regime, we can learn
lessons from it and analyse the strategies of European and American
security companies, which aim to export repressive techniques to new
countries in order to adopt common approaches at the local level.
Similar analysis and repressive measures are being implemented in other
countries, and we can examine their proposals, understand them and act
in response.
For a black international.
Stratsea: Uncoding the Indonesia Lone Wolf Anarchist
Written by Muh Taufiqurrohman, editor, security consultant
https://stratsea.com/uncoding-the-indonesian-lone-wolf-anarchist
Conclusion
This brief foray into Indonesian anarchism debunks two prejudices:
First, that anarchism was a Western thing, not really into struggles in
colonised countries. That's not really knowing the history of anarchism,
whose greatest moments were mostly in so-called ‘peripheral’ countries:
not to mention Spain in 1936 – which was far from being a major power at
the time – the insurrection in Baja California in 1911 (Mexico), the
Makhnovshchina in Ukraine in 1917-1921, the Federation of Free Communes
of Shinmin (Korea and Manchuria) in 1929-1931, and the anti-colonial
struggle in Cuba in 1894-1905. From the outset, anarchists have framed
the social question in much broader terms than a simple opposition
between capital and labour, incorporating issues of everyday life,
patriarchy, sexuality, colonisation, racism and domination in general.
Secondly, anarchism today seems to be confined to a few Western
countries, where it can boast a (weak) dynamic of conflict. Yet here
again, it seems that some of the most beautiful expressions of anarchism
today are still to be found in countries sometimes described as
‘peripheral’: Greece, Chile, Sudan, Iran, Indonesia, etc. And these
local dynamics could well inspire ways of acting everywhere else!
In any case, the social and libertarian revolution will be
internationalist or it will not be!
Long live the Black International!
https://liberteouvriere.com/2025/04/26/lanarchisme-en-indonesie-soleil-noir-2024/
_________________________________________
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