Blue Turtle Enthusiasist

Peaceful Labour Demonstration Met with Violent Escalation by the Indonesian Government

Civilians in several cities in Indonesia have been protesting on the streets, in response to our House of Representatives insensitive and derogatory remarks amidst difficult economic climate.

It was supposed to be a peaceful demonstration led by laborers and university students, but our government choose to ignore and even violently escalating it with police brutality + shooting tear gas. What sparked a nationwide outrage was during 28 August protest in the evening, one of the armored police/soldier truck sped up intending to run over protestors and it struck over a Gojek driver (ride hailing driver, similar to Uber) that fell when crossing the road amidst the chaos. The truck did stop but decided to ram the gas and ran over him when he's trying to stand, with other protestors shouting for them to stop.

The Gojek driver's name is Affan Kurniawan. He's just 21 years old, the breadwinner of his family. He lived with seven other people in a cramped small rented room. He was not even participating in the demonstration, at the time of his death he was WORKING. He was trying to complete a food delivery order before he was killed.

This incident was documented clear as day with several videos from different povs. Here's the most prominent one.

In response to Affan's death, nationwide protests are held on the following day. (29 August)

The protests continued even today on 30th August and it keeps on escalating. The government is now trying to frame the protesters as violent anarchists, they're trying to use the same tactic as the '98 tragedy. They've been deploying provocators and intels to riot and burn public transport station, even going as far as raiding several (decoy) houses that belongs to members of the House of Representatives. They've also taken several hostages, reports of kidnapping as per 28 August is 400+.

They have been turning off electricity access in several parts of Jakarta and just greenlit snipers and soldiers to shoot protestors on the head with rubber bullets. There's already several victims.

They've also blocked access to TikTok live and even tried to erase/take down several of video proof of police brutality. Police are now sweeping several areas and civilians are alerting each other to be careful and to stay safe and not answer the door.

So yes. Please pray and check up on your friend that lives in Indonesia. I fear that there's going to be a military emergency implemented by our warcrime president. If possible please help save the video proofs because our government are cracking down to erase any proof of violence.

Here's more background information about the events that leads to the demonstration:

Video explanation from Al Jazeera that interviewed one of us:

He asked somebody to raise their hand and ask him when we would use calculus in our everyday life. So one student rose their hand and asked, “When are we going to use this in our everyday life?”

“NEVER!!” the teacher exclaimed. “You will never use calculus in your normal, everyday life. In fact, very few of you will use it in your professional careers either.” Then he paused. “So would you like to know why should care?”

Several us nodded.

He picked out one of the varsity football players in the class. “You practice football a lot during the week, right Tim?” asked the teacher.

“Yeah,” replied Tim. “Almost every day.”

“Do you and your teammates ever lift weights during practice?”

“Yeah. Tuesdays and Thursdays we spend a lot of practice in the weight room.”

“But why?” asked the teacher. “Is there ever going to be a play your coach tells you use during a game that requires you to bench press the other team?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then why lift weights?”

“Because it makes us stronger,” said Tim.

“Bingo!!” said the teacher. “It’s the same thing with calculus. You’re not here because you’re going to use calculus in your everyday life. You’re here because calculus is weightlifting for your brain.”

When it’s taught right, learning math teaches you logic and how to organize your brain, how to take a problem one step at a time and make sure every step can bear weight before you move to the next one.  Most adults don’t need to know integrals, but goddamn if I don’t wish everyone making arguments on the internet understood geometric proofs.

Scientific concepts broaden our understanding of how the world is put together, which does not mean that most adults ever really understand how light is refracted through a lens or why spinning copper wire creates electricity–and they don’t need to.  But science classes in general are meant to teach the scientific method: how to make observations and use them to draw conclusions, how to test those conclusions, how to be wrong and grow stronger from it.

History isn’t about dates and names of battles, it’s about people, patterns, things we’ve tried before and ought to learn from.  It’s about how everything is linked, how changing one circumstance can lead to changes in fifty others, cascading infinitely.  Literature is about critical thinking, pattern recognition, learning to listen to what somebody is saying and decide what it means to you, how you feel about it, and what you want to do with it.

Some facts matter: every adult should know how to read a graph, how global warming works, some of the basic themes and symbols that crop up in every piece of fiction.  But ultimately, content is less important later in life than context.

Them: WHAT ELSE

"now?" "now, yeah,"