August 13, 2025 | 09:31 am
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The government’s overreaction to the hoisting of the One Piece flag only underscores its allergy to dissenting voices.
IT is hard to believe that this is happening today, that 27 years after the Reformasi, the flying of a flag from a comic can be viewed as ‘treason.’ The overreaction by the authorities to the flying of the One Piece flag further underlines their dislike of any dissent.
The flag resembles the Jolly Roger, the symbol of pirates, and shows a skull wearing a straw hat, with crossbones. It appeared in One Piece, a Japanese manga comic series by Eiichiro Oda that was first published in 1997. The series is about the adventures of a group of pirates led by Monkey D. Luffy who are looking for treasure. The story has messages of solidarity, freedom and resistance to injustice.
The One Piece flag has appeared in many places in the last few weeks. Sometimes it is flown alongside the Indonesian Red and White national flag. It conveys people’s dejection and frustration with various government’s decisions. They are expressing their concern for the nation by using popular culture, far from any violence.
Young people in many countries have done the same thing. In Thailand in 2020, a group of pro-democracy youths used the Japanese cartoon character Hamtaro, when protesting against Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha, the general who led the 2014 military coup d’etat. In China, young activists used Winnie the Pooh, which has become a symbol of resistance to government censorship.
The government and the authorities have neither an open viewpoint nor a creative spirit. Rather than listening and using this movement to inspire introspection, they responded with threats. They accused those raising the One Piece flag of “attempting to divide the nation.” The authorities threatened prosecution. The military and police even deployed personnel to monitor and pursue people flying the flag or painting murals with the same symbol.
Subsequently, the Presidential Palace and House of Representatives Deputy Deputy Speaker Sufmi Dasco Ahmad rowed back on these accusations. They said that there was no problem with flying the One Piece flag. But the authorities on the ground continued to take action. And even neighborhood unit officials were involved.
All these responses show the failure of the government to interact with its people, especially creative young people. It appears to be afraid that this movement will grow and become unstoppable. Instead of responding to the substance of the criticism, the government and the authorities have tried to suppress the ways people can express it.
People’s fundamental rights have once again been violated. It is as if the door to freedom of expression has been closed. The people have almost no freedom to express criticism of or to protest against the government. When they demonstrate on the streets, they are arrested and criminalized. When they express themselves through the media or in open forums, they are intimidated with pig’s heads and dead rats or lizards. Now even silent protests are being muzzled.
Twenty seven years after the start of the Reformasi movement, the government is afraid of the creativity of its own people.
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