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Radio War Nerd EP #547 — Indonesia Riots, Prabowo & 1998, feat. Avery (Patreon)

Published:
2025-09-08 15:36:24
Imported:
2025-09
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Guest: AveryRecorded: September 4, 2025

We're joined by Avery, one of the stars in the RWN facebook community, to make sense of Indonesia's riots, Prabowo, and links to the 1998 riots during the Asian financial crisis...

Total time: 1:06:11Direct link to this episode's mp3 here

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Subscribe to Radio War Nerd at patreon.com/radiowarnerd

Sound production by Telescope Audio

Order your print or ebook of John Dolan's new book Erdogan Pizza: Dispatches from a Violent & Grotesque World

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Comments

John Waaben

On One Piece: history is a huge theme in One Piece and the biggest political themes are anti-genocide, anti-racism, and anti-slavery. So it’s “political” without being stuck to an explicit ideology, which helps with the popularity. The protagonist, Luffy, wants to be “King of the Pirates” so everyone in the world can live their dream. The antagonists are usually tyrants of some sort with one subplot involving “SMILE fruits” as a rather clever allegory for opium/opiate imperialism.

John Waaben

Yeah there’s a lot of interesting stuff happening under the surface. The “World Government” that Luffy and his “Straw Hat” pirates oppose can be seen as an allegory for NATO/the Cartel as well. Throughout the story the World Government will target non-member nations for expropriation and other imperialist purposes. That all being said, the way the author draws women is crazy.

CR

Didn’t Prabowo arrive late to SCO, acting like a giant swinging dick?

Avery

I see that he skipped SCO but attended China's military parade at the height of the protests. Just like with the Nine Dash Line he's committed to an inconsistent, muddled policy

Doug Cartel

Nooooo my gold plated labubu

Doug Cartel

There was that news story last decade about the role London had in the mass murders in Indonesia, I have to assume they ordered the Aussies to help in some way

Alexander Corden

The One Piece version of the Jolly Roger is also being flown in Nepal where protesters just overthrew the government. I imagine that’s probably the next episode.

Funny_Hat

Would love a link to that Japan article you mention at the start!

LET ME DELETE MY ACCOUNT YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES

Australian citizens only know Bali, and even then its just Kuta, Nusa Dua, Ubud, the tourist locations. They have no idea, wouldnt know where Java is, and are generally negative toward muslims in Australia. I remember going to Indonesia in the 90's and our friend taking us anywhere but the tourist places. I cant imagine any Australian dealing with a 5AM prayer call, squat toilets, or military trucks full of armed soldiers pulling up to a market and the stall owners crowding around to sell them food. The Australian Govt and Indonesia is a very different thing. Still shitty, but different.

Bryan Duff

Indeed, Brian Berletic has been using that and similar points to say it's National Endowment for Democracy (NED) pushed, like Nepal ( and Serbia).

CR

Thanks for the clarification

Daniel Hoppes

I just finished Pramoedya Ananta Toer's Buru Quartet, and would love more episodes on Indonesia if you can. It's definitely a blindspot for westerners.

Daniel Hoppes

Yes, certainly not, but those of us not in the upper echelons barely know it's the fourth largest country. And in America at least, I imagine more people know the Dutch owned Manhattan than that they owned Indonesia--let alone what hells they created, let alone what America did and is doing.

a clash of purple

The art style is crazy in general. It's extremely stylized. Fairly unique - you can usually tell a One Piece character when you see them. I don't really like One Piece, personally, but it's the most popular manga and one of the most popular comic books of all time, so what do I know?

John Waaben

I honestly didn’t care much for one piece until I got hospitalized and watched the “CP9” arc alone in my room, convalescing. Luffy and his friends battle a super-powered CIA bent on executing their friend for being the survivor of a genocidal massacre by the World Government. It’s very campy and goofy but with smart pacing and themes. The art style and tone is a sort of a synthesis of anime and western cartoons. Luffy’s ultimate superpower-up turns him into a divine Bugs Bunny that battles against a global cabal of immortal, demonic genocidaires. Not gonna fault you for disliking it at all but I hope I’m able to explain the reasoning behind the straw hat pirate flag as a symbol for national liberation.

jkjkjkj

Great episode, a few notes: 1. I think it needs to really be stressed that Prabowo had faced a huge amount of protests basically immediately since he took office over a very wide number of issues (normalization with Israel, the occupation of west papua, his proposal to end direct elections of provincial governors, labor issues etc) so in a sense this most recent wave of rioting is more just general anger boiling over and exploding than it is over any one specific issue. 2. I agree with Avery that Indonesian parties generally arent ideological (with a few exceptions like the PKS or the Labour Party) but I wouldn’t say that they are totally formless, rather they’re generally machines built around individuals (ie: Prabowo and Gerindra), identity or regional groups or communal organizations (ie: PKB and NU) 3. To answer John, yes the issue of transportation and housing prices are incredibly influential in Jakarta, and were probably the biggest reason why Ahok lost his governorship bid in 2017. I also think Avery is a bit too generous to Ahok, who did hyper develop and gentrify Jakarta very quickly and it led to an enormous amount of displacement (which Ahok was kind of an asshole about). Also worth noting he wasn’t elected, he was promoted to govern as jokowis vice governor when jokowi became president 4. It’s worth noting that jokowi didnt “bring Prabowo into his cabinet” so much as Prabowo muscled his way into the cabinet by siccing rioters into Jakarta until jokowi gave him a ministers position 5. The police and military in Indonesia have very bad and territorial relations

jkjkjkj

I can’t speak to Serbia or Nepal but anime is outrageously popular in Southeast Asia. I studied abroad in Indo a few years ago and even in the most rural areas I went you could see peole watching Naruto or one piece on cheap TVs

jkjkjkj

Can very much co-sign that we need more Indonesia (and SEA generally) content. Have long been hoping RWN does an episode on West Papua, it’s badly needed

etienne

I love that story about the China Shinkansen technology transfer, if they had American interests in their transportation infra they'd need to demolish one million homes to make a 20 lane wide highway

jkjkjkj

Also want to note that I agree with Avery that I don’t think Suharto’s downfall was masterminded by Prabowo. Anti Chinese he was likely partially behind but Prabowo actually was pretty hated by large parts of the military establishment then and it was only his connections to Suharto at the time that gave him immunity from accountability or oversight within the TNI.

jkjkjkj

Final point: Prabowo was absolutely deeply involved in East Timor. He was highly involved in the militiafication of the conflict in the early 80s and personally oversaw some gruesome massacres. He also had basically free hand to do what he wanted because of his ties to Suharto and much of ABRI leadership hated him because he would basically go rogue and show up and do whatever he wanted without telling them in advance (what John was thinking of, btw, in IrianJaya was that OPM rebela took some hostages and Doctors Without Borders was negotiating with the OPM for their release and Prabowo basically hijacked negotiations by seizing the helicopter DWB was using to land on the OPM base and basically opened fire on the OPM rebels and killed them; this was also another thing he likely did without ABRIs knowledge)

Avery

Thank you for your comments, especially about Ahok -- I only knew about his infrastructure plans and didnt realize he was a "development at all costs" guy

jkjkjkj

Yes there is a chapter about this in the most recent political economy of Southeast Asia book, it discussed how a lot of the backlash against him was due to him basically clearing out large numbers of slums angering poorer voters. This was a great episode though, I learned an enormous amount

David Andrews

I also find Indonesia confusing. This was a useful episode.