Demonstration, Show of Anarchy or Democracy?
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| 2019 College Students Demonstration in Jakarta |
Demonstration is one of people's way to convey aspirations to the government or company where they work, or many other goals. When people give their opinion and not heard by the intended party, people usually start demonstrating. The reason is different one and other, asking for their rights or desires to be fulfilled, demanding a law or policy, and many other reasons. And in this article, I will talk about government demonstration cases.
When we hear demonstration, we always think about riots, violence, vandalism, and other thinks related to chaos and uncontrolled situation between mass and police. Why people think like that? And is it necessary to doing demonstration?
There are public who agree with demonstration, but in the other hand disagree. Society even polarised to two sides, the one who pro with the problem, and the one who doesn't. So first, what makes a demonstration become anarchic?
According to Ubedilah Badrun, political analyst and Executive Director of the Center for Social Political, Economic and Law Studies, there are 7 factors why demonstration become riot and anarchic, especially in demonstration to the government.
First, disappointment of students and society with the poor performance of the political elite. Corruption, collusion, and nepotism are crimes that often committed by political actors in Indonesia and detrimental to country and its people, but the government is considered unable to handle them. This lead to people's anger and disappointment to government performance.
Second, slowing economy and weaking economy, third the uncertainty of employment opportunities for high school children and the equivalent, and fourth a political system that is not implemented in accordance with the Pancasila and democracy systems. Fifth, is the central policy which is considered unfair to the regions. This was exacerbated by the way the apparatus handled problems in the regions, which often used repressive methods.
Sixth factor, police also often used repressive methods rather than dialogical and cultural methods in dealing with student demonstrations, and seventh is because political elite prioritizing their own business and forget about national interests. This accumulates people's anger and often makes demonstration become chaotic.
Now, how is demonstration in front of Indonesian Law? As democracy country, Indonesia have many rules about demonstration. According to Undang-Undang Number 9 Year 1998 about freedom of speech, state that demonstration is allowed, even important as a media for channeling aspirations to government. But there are many restrictions and rules to held a demonstration, several of them are :
1) Obey to law
2) Keep others rights and and keep order and security
3) Tell police about the demonstration and ask the police for written permission directly
4) Keeping peace and not disturb other people
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| Demonstrator picking up Palestine flag in Palestine solidarity demonstration in Europe |
If demonstration is allowed and must follow so many rules, why demonstration still most likely ends up in riot? The answer is because PROVOCATEURS. Yes, provocateurs are irresponsible people who invite or trigger a riot either by taking action, spreading fake news, or other methods that motivate the masses to commit violence. This can lead to further impact such as people wounded or killed by police or mass itself.
Is there any other reason why demonstration become riot? Yes, If the demonstrators' demands are not fulfilled and the anger of the masses gets out of control, or the police disperse the masses with repressive measures, it can trigger riots during demonstrations.
So it is important to keep situation under control, know what both sides want, and keep the atmosphere calm and chill. Every person must obey the law and keep conduciveness, so there are no riots in demonstration anymore.
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