blind spots

It’s really overwhelming, reading all these news about this country. Even though I don’t think the television shows this side of Indonesia that people are fighting for. yk what?I do think the government is really a joke, yeah.

It must be nice, waking up and doing your things as usual thinking that you will never (yet) be affected by the law. To move through life with that kind of certainty, that buffer of protection that comes with privilege or connections. Meanwhile, others live in constant anxiety, calculating every move, wondering if today’s protest will be the one that gets them arrested, if that social media post crossed an invisible line, if their criticism went too far.

The gap between these realities is huge. Some Indonesians live in a completely different version of the same country — one where laws bend for them but crack down on others, where consequences are things that only happen to strangers. They drive by protests safely behind dark windows, barely notice the urgent social media campaigns, and talk about politics over dinner like it’s just an interesting topic rather than something that could destroy someone’s life tomorrow.

I wonder sometimes what it would feel like to live with that kind of insulation. To say “are they protesting again?” while sipping on their coffee in the middle of the traffic. To read about students getting arrested and think “that’s what you get for being anarchist” rather than “that could be me tomorrow”. To see teargas and water cannons on the news and experience it as distant spectacle rather than a lingering fear in your lungs. To debate policies as abstract concepts rather than direct impacts on your daily existence.

Perhaps most telling is how those with privilege can view activism as an inconvenience rather than necessity. The blocked roads from protests are annoying disruptions to their day, not desperate attempts to be heard when all other channels have failed. They wonder why people can’t just “work within the system” — a system that has always worked for them but routinely fails others.

The most frustrating part might be how invisible this divide remains to those on the comfortable side of it. The same system that feels suffocating to some of us feels entirely reasonable to others — not because they actively support injustice, but probably because their experience of the system has never shown them its teeth.

sighh

ANYWAY

CabutUUTNI #TolakRUUPolri