 For more videos on people's struggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Hello and welcome to NewsClick and People's Dispatch. Today we have with us, Robertus Robert, who is a lecturer in sociology at the State University of Jakarta in Indonesia. Robertus' work is on human rights, political thought, looks very carefully at events in Indonesia, which has in recent months been inflamed by popular protest against the president Jojo Vidodod. Robertus, welcome to NewsClick and People's Dispatch. Thank you, Fijais. Hello, everyone. Nice to meet you there, Fijais. Nice to have you. Last year, in September, there was a brief wave of anti-corruption protests, reformacy, decor rupsy, that sort of petered out. And then this year, Jojo Vidodod put forward a deregulation law in the middle of the pandemic. Robertus, the protests have been quite significant against this law. Could you walk us through a little bit this year of protests against the government of Jojo Vidodod? I think the most important thing coming from the protests is that the protests reflecting the re-emergence of the social movement, the civil society and the social movement in Indonesia. This political, this social movement is very important why? It is because after the Indonesian presidential elections, Indonesian society and politics is divided into polarizations, whether you are in Jojo Vidodod camp or you are a part of his competitor after the general elections. And I think almost five to six years of Indonesian society was divided by these two camps. And it seems that there is no chance for the third new political political agent, political actor coming from Indonesian politics. So the re-emergence, the emergence of the student protests and civil society protests in 2019 is a good sign that it's go beyond these two the old polarization of Indonesian politics after 2014 and 2019's presidential election. So this is the significance of the social movement in 2019 in Indonesia, I think. This is the relevance of that protest. And the second character of the relevance of that protest is the movement is breaking through the old political partition in Indonesia you know that in the old traditions there is a stigma, there is a partitions between for example civil society, student and labor movement. The old political idea in Indonesia is always trying to separate student civil society and labor movement. In 2019 and 2020 this kind of political partition is disappeared because the student, the civil society and the labor movement is they can come together as a unity, as a one political element in society. So I think this is the most significant science in Indonesia's social movement today I think. So just to pick up on that, I mean yes, I understand that it's often the case that the student movement, you know idealistic young students and then the labor movement, patient, long-term development of confidence in the working class, there is often an attempt to keep these two apart. It's true I was seeing lots of images even of workers alongside students in the current protest. Was this because of the issues at stake, the deregulation law that brought these elements together or is there a political process that has brought them together? In other words, is it just because of what the president is trying to push that they are both on the street together or is there an emergence of a new kind of historical block in Indonesia? No, that's very good questions by you, Vijay. I think Indonesia is both. Yeah, the first is this is a response to the political regimes they're trying to withdraw all the political reformation that Indonesia had since 1998. But the second is the possibility to break through all the political, all political partition is also is an outcome of the old civil society tradition in Indonesia that's still maintained by some political civil society organizations in Indonesia. For example, the role of the old and resilient civil society organization just like Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation, Contrast, this is contrast to Indonesian Corruption Watch and Lokataru, this kind of this organization they have a long-standing position in Indonesian civil society. So it seems that they have a resiliency by creating the new generations of political cadre or something like that. So in this kind of actor, this kind of organization, they go to the several regions in Indonesia trying to build grassroot and link up with the student and the other organization in the local. So this is, I think this is also a factor for the re-emergence of the social movement in 2019 and 2020, I think. I mean, let's go back to the labor question because, Indonesia, people know, has become a crucial part of the global supply chain. Large number of small-scale manufacturing has been taking place in Indonesia at the lower end of the value chain and goods then of course go and get exported elsewhere, including shoe companies producing Nike and so on. When you say, for instance, labor is back on the streets, the working class is protesting and so on, what sectors of labor are back on the street? Are we seeing workers from these low-end manufacturing units on the street or is this more the old organized labor? What kind of fractions of labor are participating in this protest wave? Mostly, it's the manufactured labor. Indonesia is facing also de-manufacturizations, but this is what is left in Indonesia's labor structure at this time, I think. So, but in terms of the political history, labor movement is one of the most successful political organizations that emerge after the reformation. So, it tackles the political stigma coming from the 1965, associating labor with the communisms. In Indonesia, if you stigmatize by this political labeling, then you don't have any political future if you stigmatize by this labeling. For more than 30 years, Indonesian labor movement stigmatized by this kind of political labeling, and after the reformation, labor can go beyond this political stigmatized, and they can create the new political organizations that can deliver the political demand freely. So, from this process, I think labor movement in Indonesia is one of the most consolidated social organizations in terms of the democratic political force in Indonesia, I think. Because of that new law, now they are facing the new challenge, I think, because they are facing really the new liberal political agenda coming from this new law. The most crucial part of the law is in the new law, let's say in a simple way, the idea of the new laws in terms of labor, in relation with the labor is that the flexibility, the idea of flexibility in the economic process that makes the state and the company do the easy firing and easy hiring. So, the response from labor is so massive with the big magnitudes expressing that they know exactly what they are facing in the new law. You know, it's so interesting, Robert, as to hear you talk about the labor movement in Indonesia, because the general press reports about this wave of protests from 2019 to now neglects completely the labor question that there are working class organizations, you know, they'll mention deregulation and even what's known as labor market reform, you know, which means an attack on labor. But it's so interesting to hear you talk about the labor movement as a major participant. I know that you have written about the stagnation of democracy. It's a very interesting concept, Robert, is the stagnation of democracy and the, you know, regression of democracy in Indonesia, even this means the democratic institutions and so on. Could you briefly tell us a little bit about this stagnation and this regression of democracy in your country? Yeah, well, some experts, they usually use the, you know, the liberal democracy in the Qatar, just like the decreasing of the free speech in Indonesia, which is true, and the decreasing of the internet freedom in Indonesia. They are true, but I think it is only a symptom, you know. The problem in Indonesia today is that there is a return of the, there's two kinds of challenges in that sense. The first is the returning of the new developmentalisms, the new neoliberal developmentalisms in Indonesia. It expressed in terms of the political behavior of the elite in coming from the idea of the economic pragmatisms coming from the presidents. In his presidency, he's put too much stress on the infrastructure and economic development. And because of that, he's trying to suppress the political freedoms. So this kind of idea is just like the idea from the developmentalism enduring in 1970s coming from the American scholar, who I forget, who have an idea that to make an economic growth, you have to make a political stability. So this kind of, this kind of old traditional and conservative ideas coming back to Indonesia. And this is the main factor of why Indonesian democracy is decreasing. That's not Samuel Huntington, is it? Political stability, whatever, political order in something, something, something. He argued that dictatorships are good for the third world because you'll see development with the dictatorship. And so back the coup d'etat in 1965, one of the great crimes of American history. Roberto, it's been a great pleasure to talk with you, to learn about what's happening in Indonesia. We're going to keep an eye on developments there because this is not, as you know, as you well know, Roberto, this is not over. Thanks for joining us at NewsClick and People's Dispatch.