Language is a medium for humans to convey messages and communicate. Through language, whether spoken or written, an understanding can be articulated more realistically and easily understood. However, politicians have polluted language. They use language as a platform for mass boasting through campaign promises or sweetening political policies that are bitter to the public.
This is the reality of today’s Indonesia: campaign promises and political speeches by those in power use language not as performative acts that they have realized, but rather as empty dreams to lull public consciousness.
At critical junctures like this, art plays a significant role in restoring language as a powerful medium of communication and awakening the public’s half-slumbering consciousness. Art speaks to the heart, where consciousness is not easily deceived, and in doing so, it will settle and manifest into an awareness that will drive societal dynamics.
Art finds its cathartic path, but it remains restricted. Fascist regimes everywhere will try to limit art to art, or, if it’s for public consumption, to art that is purely entertaining. It’s no wonder that in parliament and the presidential palace, the only art permitted is that which makes the body sway to the rhythm. Art that is purely physical. Art that is not allowed to enter the heart will only exhaust the body and then fall asleep. There is no time for critical thinking. This is a dangerous warning for civilization. Art must be a tool for liberating public consciousness. Art that refuses to be treated merely as palace-style dance entertainment, then replicated in parliament, is the hope for creating public awareness. This is something fascist regimes fear.
The face of Indonesian politics has been damaged and destroyed by the consolidation of New Order fascism, which for 27 years pretended to be dead. This was manifested in the election of the mastermind behind the kidnapping of political activists in 1997-1998 as president. Fascism uses democracy to advance its agenda: transforming democracy into authoritarianism. This is precisely what Soeharto did, a president who was repeatedly elected through an electoral system that only allowed him to become president. Now, his son-in-law, through a political party designed as a political vehicle for gaining power, is displaying the same authoritarianism as his father-in-law.In such a situation, professional politicians will choose to act as lapdogs, willing to curry favor and maintain the president’s agenda so that they can continue to gain political benefits from the situation. Indonesian society certainly cannot expect such a fascist political constellation.
This is precisely what the NocturNo community did, holding poetry readings themed around resistance directly in public spaces, and the Gitaku choir performing a flashmob singing in front of the Dukuh Atas MRT station in Jakarta. Both actions aimed to reach public awareness directly through the medium of poetry and song. The primary message of both actions was the rejection of Soeharto’s nomination as a National Hero by his former son-in-law, now president of Indonesia. The initiators of these movements saw a danger to the sustainability of democracy in Indonesia if this continued. This would legitimize Soeharto’s dictatorship politically by the state, laying the foundation for the continuation of Prabowo Subianto’s fascist regime.
Artists must engage in urban warfare and guerrilla warfare in villages to communicate directly with the public. What the NocturNo community and the Gitaku choir are doing is a declaration of war to seize public space so that it can be returned to the public so that public awareness can be sown and the seeds can be spread throughout the country and of course there will be reactions that try to stop these efforts, because for fascists what is feared is the rise of public awareness.