Category: Politics

They Taught the World to Rise. And then Forgot How.

America loves a good story about itself. Freedom, liberty, rebellion, all sung in a major key and wrapped in a flag. They turned revolution into a genre, democracy into a Broadway soundtrack, and tyranny into something that only happens somewhere else.

For years, they sang along to Hamilton like it was gospel. They memorized the verses, quoted the lines, cosplayed on TikTok, cried over the Founding Fathers recast as rappers, a nation rediscovering its roots through rhyme. “Rise up!” they cheered, fists raised in theaters that cost more than a week’s rent. “History has its eyes on you!” they shouted, and then went home to post about how democracy works best when everyone just calms down.

They turned a revolution into karaoke.

What could have been a cultural reawakening became merch, mugs, magnets, tote bags. They treated it like nostalgia porn, not civic scripture. Hamilton made them feel brave for three minutes at a time, but not brave enough to stand up when their leaders turned liberty into a punchline.

And here we are, a government once founded on the act of defying tyranny now bending to a tyrant who rules by resentment and applause. He doesn’t wear a crown; he wears grievance. He doesn’t demand fealty through divine right; he earns it through fear. He’s convinced millions that oppression looks like fairness and equality looks like persecution, the oldest trick in the imperial playbook.

The same Americans who quote “Not throwing away my shot” on Instagram are now throwing away their rights, willingly, comfortably, with flag emojis. The same nation that fetishizes freedom lets it erode inch by inch, as long as someone else pays the price: immigrants, queer people, the press, the poor, teachers, women. Anyone whose existence complicates the myth of greatness.

But at least something is happening. Seeds have been sown and they’ve grown. Not everyone’s asleep.

There are pockets of resistance, people who still remember what courage feels like. Activists, journalists, students, veterans, mothers, workers, ordinary Americans trying to shake a system that’s calcified around comfort and cowardice. You can feel them humming under the surface, restless, angry, aware that something is deeply broken. They want to rise. They just don’t know what will make them finally stand.

Maybe they’re waiting for a spark. Maybe for a face, a name, a moment that makes rebellion feel possible again. But revolutions don’t schedule themselves, and waiting is a luxury the oppressed can’t afford.

Instead, everyone’s sitting around pretending democracy will course-correct, that the institutions will hold, that the next election will fix it, that accountability will come “through the proper channels.” Meanwhile, those channels are being rerouted, blocked, or bought. The republic’s on fire, and half the country’s still asking for the fire marshal’s permission to panic.

What America needs now isn’t another election cycle. It needs new leaders, ones who aren’t complicit, compliant, or conveniently silent. The revolutionaries of old didn’t wait for permission; they became the permission. They didn’t play by the tyrant’s rules; they rewrote them.

The irony is that the script already exists. They’ve been singing it for years. Hamilton told them exactly what to do: rise up, speak truth, make noise, leave a mark. Instead, they’ve isolated it as entertainment, something to consume, not something to live.

The country that once burned tea over taxes now shrugs as billionaires buy politicians in bulk. The land that preached “no taxation without representation” now lets votes be stripped and districts redrawn beyond recognition. The people who belt “freedom” before every game are fine watching it die, as long as the anthem still plays before kickoff and nobody is taking the knee.

It’s not that America forgot the revolution, it’s that it’s scared of what remembering it would require.

Because to remember is to act. And acting would mean admitting the system no longer works as promised. It would mean standing up to neighbors, bosses, governors, cops, to comfort itself.

They don’t know or don’t realize that this is what’s written in their own Declaration of Independence:

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

And if this post somehow gains traction among Americans, I can guess what’s coming: the replies calling it “unfounded,” “uninformed,” or “too simplistic to understand the nuance of American politics.” But there’s nothing nuanced about the erosion of freedom, or the spectacle of cruelty being televised daily. There’s no complexity in racism and fascism when it’s parading down Main Street with a flag and these days they’re not just carrying the Star Spangled Banner, they’re flying the Israeli flag alongside and calling for allegiance to that other country ahead of their own.

Nuance is what people invoke when they’re too scared to pick a side. What’s left now isn’t nuance. It’s clarity. The kind that history forces on you when you’ve waited too long to act. Maybe history really does have its eyes on them. It’s just wondering what the hell they’re waiting for.

The Apple – Perplexity rumor that won’t go away

This is a longer think piece from the quick post I had on Mastodon the other day.

Every time someone floats the idea that Apple should acquire Perplexity to “supercharge” its AI efforts, I get whiplash, not just from the sheer strategic laziness of the suggestion, but from the deeper cultural misalignment it completely ignores. The very idea is a perplexing thought.

Perplexity isn’t some misunderstood innovator quietly building the future. It’s a company fundamentally unsure of what it is, what it stands for, or how to exist without parasitizing the open web. It’s been posing as a search engine, an AI-powered Q&A tool, a research assistant, and lately, some vague hybrid of all three, depending on who’s asking and what narrative sounds hottest that week. The only throughline is this: a constant need to justify its own existence, retrofitting its product pitch to whatever the industry is currently foaming at the mouth about.

And then there’s the CEO.

Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas has made a habit of saying the quiet parts out loud, and not in a refreshing, brutally honest way, but in a way that suggests he hasn’t thought them through. Case in point: TechCrunch Disrupt 2024, where he was asked point blank to define plagiarism and couldn’t answer. Not didn’t answer. Couldn’t. That wasn’t just a missed PR opportunity. That was a red flag, flapping violently in the face of a company that scrapes content from other publishers, slaps a “summarized by AI” badge on it, and tries to call that innovation.

When you can’t define plagiarism as the CEO of a company built on other people’s work, that’s not strategic ambiguity, that’s an ethical void. And it’s telling. Perplexity has made a business of riding the razor-thin line between fair use and flat-out theft, and they want the benefit of the doubt without the burden of responsibility.

Which is where the Apple comparisons get absurd.

Yes, Apple stumbled. For more than a decade, Siri was a rudderless ship, a clunky commuter train in an age where everyone else was racing to build maglevs. The company completely missed the LLM Shinkansen as it rocketed past, leaving Siri coughing in the dust. What followed was a scramble, an engine swap mid-ride, and the painful attempt to retrofit a creaky voice assistant into something worthy of generative AI expectations.

That failure — public, prolonged, and still unresolved — gave the impression that Apple had no idea what was coming. That they were too slow, too self-contained, and too arrogant to evolve. And to some extent, that criticism landed. The year-long silence after ChatGPT’s breakout moment painted Apple as unprepared, reactive, even out of touch.

But here’s the thing: while Apple still hasn’t shown much of anything tangible since the Apple Intelligence announcement at WWDC 2024 (Genmoji? Really? Messed up email and notification summary?), the signals are clear. The company has changed course. They’ve acknowledged they’re behind and now they’re moving, quietly but with force. Once Apple has its engineering machine locked onto a target, the company doesn’t need to acquire noisy, erratic startups to plug the gaps. What it needs is time. And direction. And both are now in motion.

Which brings us back to Perplexity. Apple doesn’t need it. Not for the tech — which is just a UX layer on top of open models and scraped data. Not for the team — which seems more interested in testing the boundaries of IP law than building products people trust. And definitely not for the culture — which is allergic to accountability and powered by vibes over values.

Apple’s entire value proposition is control: of the user experience, of the ecosystem, and of the narrative. Perplexity brings chaos. Unapologetically so. It doesn’t have a sustainable moat, a mature product, or a north star. It has hype. It has press. And it has the moral compass of a company that thinks citation is a permission slip to republish everyone else’s work for free.

If Apple wants a better search experience, it can build one, with privacy built in, on-device processing, and full-stack integration. If it wants a smarter assistant, it can leverage its silicon and software in ways that Perplexity simply can’t touch. What it doesn’t need is a cultural virus from a startup that treats copyright like a rounding error and ethics like an optional plugin.

So no, Apple shouldn’t buy Perplexity. Not because it can’t. But because it finally knows what it needs to build, and it’s building it the Apple way. At least that’s what I think they’re doing.

Megawati: Indonesia’s political system doesn’t recognize oppositions and coalitions

Megawati Soekarnoputri is once again lecturing the nation from a podium padded with nostalgia and selective memory.

At PDIP’s 6th Congress in Bali, following her reelection as party leader until 2030, she confidently announced that “there’s no such thing as opposition or coalition in Indonesia’s presidential system,” arguing that such dichotomies belong only in parliamentary governments. She then doubled down, framing Indonesia’s democracy as one “based on the people’s sovereignty and the Constitution,” and insisting that PDIP would now act as an “ideological balancing force” rather than opposition.

It’s the kind of speech that sounds profound until you remember how politics in this country actually works.

Let’s start with the basics. Coalitions are not just a feature of Indonesia’s political system, they’re a structural necessity. You need them to qualify for the presidential race. You need them to pass legislation. You need them to govern. There is no constitutional path to power without them. The electoral threshold makes sure of that. So Megawati’s insistence on semantics changes nothing about how political parties operate in practice. If anything, it’s an attempt to overwrite the obvious with rhetorical fog.

Without a coalition, Megawati wouldn’t have had Prabowo Subianto as her running mate in 2008, the same Prabowo whose party just beat hers in the 2024 election, and who spent a solid decade as the loudest, most confrontational opposition to the Jokowi administration, which PDIP dominated. Never mind that in the final years of Jokowi’s term, Gerindra’s loyalty in that so-called coalition was visibly eroding.

That same “nonexistent” coalition also helped put Jokowi and Ahok into City Hall in Jakarta. And let’s not forget, oppositions, even if not enshrined in constitutional vocabulary, have existed and operated for decades in this country. Political parties outside power have always criticized, challenged, and scrutinized those in it. They hold press conferences. They file lawsuits. They propose alternatives. That’s called being the opposition, regardless of whether Megawati feels like saying the word out loud.

Oppositions and coalitions in Indonesia are as inevitable as Jakarta’s traffic jams, they only disappear during Lebaran holidays when no one’s around. So why deny them now?

Well, it’s hard not to notice the timing. Megawati’s sudden interest in redefining Indonesia’s entire political vocabulary coincides, coincidentally, of course with President Prabowo’s decision to grant amnesty to PDIP’s Secretary General who was convicted for bribing officials to parachute a party-hopping politician into parliament and sent to 3.5 years in prison. That politician has since gone missing. For five years. But sure, tell us more about constitutional purity.

This is the kind of gaslighting that only works when everyone else agrees to play along. Megawati wants to position PDIP as above the fray, “a critical balancer,” not opposition, not loyalist, just… conveniently in between. But you don’t get to erase the last 25 years of your own party’s behavior and pretend the entire system is suddenly different because you’re not in charge anymore.

Megawati still sees herself as the matriarch of Indonesian politics, cloaked in Sukarnoist symbolism and mythic authority. But at some point, that legacy turns into a liability, especially when it’s used to blur history, dodge accountability, and deny the very dynamics that made her party viable in the first place.

If PDIP wants to stay relevant in a post-Jokowi, post-victory Gerindra era, it needs more than ideological posturing. It needs to stop pretending that the system it thrived in doesn’t exist. Because it obviously does.

And it’s probably a sign that the party needs new leadership and direction. As it stands it will never not be known as the party of whatever she wants it to be.

Indonesia declared war on the One Piece flag

In what might be the most unintentionally self-owns in modern governance, parliamentary leaders have claimed that the Straw Hat Jolly Roger — the beloved skull-and-crossbones from One Piece — represents separatist tendencies and is being used by shadowy forces who want the Prabowo government to collapse (the news even made it to Screen Rant of all places). The flag has since been targeted for criminalization, under the claim that it’s “provocative,” “disrespectful,” and “threatening national unity.”

So let’s get this straight: a cartoon pirate flag — flown initially by angry truck drivers protesting against what they claim to be unjust safety laws — is now being treated like an act of sedition. Because in a country that refuses to hold corrupt conglomerates accountable, it’s easier to demonize drivers than fix the system. And it’s easier to vilify a pirate crew from a manga than face public anger that refuses to stay quiet.

The real kicker is that any One Piece fan can see it from ten thousand nautical miles away.

The people trying to ban the Straw Hat flag? They sound exactly like the villains in the story.

The rhetoric, about order, unity, suppressing dangerous symbols, and punishing those who question authority, is textbook World Government. This is Gorosei energy. This is the Tenryuubito clutching their pearls because the commoners dared to speak. This is CP0-level control tactics dressed up in nationalistic language. And just like in the manga, it’s not about real threats. It’s about protecting the illusion of stability, no matter how rotten the core has become.

The Straw Hat Pirates in One Piece aren’t the enemy. They’re the ones who sail against corrupt institutions, take down slave-trading elites, and expose the lies propping up unjust empires. Sound familiar? In that universe, flying the Jolly Roger isn’t an act of terrorism — it’s an act of refusal. A refusal to bow, to comply, to play along with a system built to exploit and erase.

And now here in the real world, when working-class Indonesians adopt that symbol in protest — not even violently, just by putting it on their trucks, on their front yards, on their cars, flown atop mountains and volcanoes, etc — the state starts echoing the exact same paranoia we see in the story. The same language. The same scapegoating. The same absurd claims that any challenge to the hierarchy must be criminal, foreign-funded, or anarchist.

It’s actually impressive, the level of irony involved in banning a flag that literally represents resistance to authoritarian overreach because you think it represents resistance to authoritarian overreach.

This isn’t about a flag. It’s about power — and who’s allowed to speak against it. It’s about fear — not of pirates, but of symbols that resonate. It’s about the ruling class realizing that a bunch of truck drivers with anime decals are suddenly more culturally relevant than their entire media machine.

In One Piece, the Jolly Roger is a symbol of freedom, loyalty, self determination, and righteous rebellion. It flies over ships that break chains and challenge tyrants. In Indonesia, it was flown by people tired of being silenced, manipulated, gaslit, and taken advantage of, and now the government wants to treat them like enemies of the state.

If that’s not the most perfect, painful parallel between fiction and reality, I don’t know what is.

So go ahead. Ban the flag. Call in intelligence briefings. Threaten legal action. But just know, you’ve officially cast yourself in the role of the very villains this generation grew up learning to resist.

The funniest things out of this? Vice President Gibran wore a Jolly Roger pin during an election debate last year (while also wearing a Naruto inspired denim jacket) and there is a parody version of the flag using the sideways logo of Indonesia’s 80th anniversary of the Independence Day declaration. Because it really does work and drives home the point much further.

By the way, Deputy Home Minister Bima Arya said nobody is banning the flag (never mind that the parliament leaders are rushing to ban it and demanding law enforcement to act against those flying the flag) and people are still free to fly it as a form of expression. When the government can’t even get their messaging right, nobody should surprised that people are doing what they do.

Apple’s billion dollar Indonesian drama

The Apple investment saga in Indonesia highlights the tension between government ambitions, expectations, and the realities of global business strategies.

Tirto published an article about what’s happening with the Apple investment story in Indonesia with quotes and statements from government officials and analysts. It wouldn’t be the Indonesian government if it didn’t generate drama out of foreign relations or commercial arrangements worthy of a telenovela.

A few things about this drama. Apple has yet to deposit or realize the last $14 million of its $100 million investment commitment made in 2016. It’s chump change for the company but necessary to unlock the permit for the latest iPhones and end the sales ban which the government enacted last year because of it. Only Apple knows definitively why they haven’t delivered on this. Meanwhile there’s been no update on the status of the Bali Apple Academy, announced by Tim Cook in April on his visit to the country. This fourth Academy in the country is likely to be part of the unrealized investment.

Indonesia has also been on Apple’s sales performance radar for a few years now having posted consecutive quarterly sales increases and mentioned specifically during multiple financial calls, so it’s in Apple’s best interest to keep the momentum going. The country makes roughly 50 million Android phones a year mainly for the domestic market, and 85% of phone imports in 2023, or 2.3 million of them, worth around $2 billion, were iPhones. The government is keen to reduce this foreign spending by getting Apple to make phones locally.

Armed with this information and situation, the Indonesian government decided to increase pressure on the company to make good on their promise and weaponised it to force them to eventually offer an investment worth a billion dollars late last year.

Political ego meets business reality

Expecting companies to invest in Indonesia just because they’re doing well in sales ignores the realities of running a sustainable business. Sure, it’s fair to want businesses to contribute to the markets they profit from, but investments can’t be driven by sales numbers alone. They need to make sense, whether it’s about supply chains, regulations, or long-term viability. Pressuring companies to invest without considering these factors often leads to rushed, unsustainable decisions that end up costing everyone in the long run.

That said, there’s room for a balanced approach. Instead of tying investments directly to sales, Indonesia could focus on creating conditions that make investing worthwhile, like improving infrastructure, offering clear incentives, and ensuring regulatory stability. This way, companies can contribute meaningfully without being forced into decisions that don’t align with their business goals. Fair contributions are important, but they should come from partnerships built on mutual benefit, not pressure. Otherwise, it’s just a short-term fix with a long-term price tag.

Apple’s Vietnamese success

Indonesian officials and analysts love to compare Apple’s meager investment in the country with the $16 billion Apple already spent in Vietnam since 2019. The company has 26 suppliers and 28 factories in the country as of 2022 and they announced in April that they will spend much more.

Apple didn’t invest in Vietnam because the market loves the iPhone so much, they’be been investing for years and each time increasing their commitment because the government offer attractive investment opportunities and incentives, provide a stable and consistent environment for businesses, deliver the necessary labor force, and ensure long term investment and production sustainability and security despite political upheavals. Not to mention the factories are mostly located near China which allows them to maintain a streamlined supply chain operation. Indonesia doesn’t have that advantage.

Vietnamese mobile developers also took up the Apple platforms because they saw opportunities, not because they were pushed or coaxed into the platforms. They didn’t need an Apple Academy to get developers going. Most Indonesian developers and companies only see opportunities based on local sales numbers and market size. They don’t see beyond the domestic market. That’s why it was a struggle to find quality Mac and iOS apps and developers from Indonesia before the Academies opened.

By the way

The article also mentioned about the Ministry of Industries spokesperson saying that Apple submitted their investment proposal over WhatsApp. It sounds like the government wants to shame Apple for sending such an important document over a chat app but the country runs almost entirely on WhatsApp. Comms within and across government ministries and agencies are done almost exclusively on the platform, with letterhead documents for official records.

What are the chances that they sent it that way because they were told to submit the document ASAP and the paper doc would follow after, and that they haven’t managed to schedule the meeting with the Ministries because November and December are holiday months for the company? I mean, if it’s that important, Tim Cook could get a few execs to drop their holiday plans and make the meeting but it seems that the urgency of this deal has yet to reach that critical level.

Indonesia 2045: Between Dreams and Reality

A personal take on potential, promise, paradox, and pragmatism

Growing up in Indonesia, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard the phrase “future superpower.” It’s a narrative that’s been woven into our national fabric, a story we tell ourselves about our destiny. As we approach 2045, our centennial of independence, this narrative has taken on new urgency. But we’ve watched years of grand visions collide with stubborn realities, so you can’t be hopeful about this country without a healthy dose of skepticism, probably much more than you might think.

Let’s talk about numbers first, because they tell an interesting story. By 2045, we’re projected to be home to 324-326 million people, up from today’s 284 million. Our GDP per capita could nearly triple from $4,900 to somewhere between $12,000-15,000 or optimistically, above $20,000 as set out by the government in their Digital Indonesia Vision 2045. The middle class could expand from roughly half the population to nearly 80%. These aren’t just numbers, they represent millions of individual dreams, aspirations, and potential futures.

But here’s where it gets complicated.

The Promise and the Paradox

Indonesia in 2024 is a study in contrasts. We’re a nation where gleaming skyscrapers rise above Jakarta’s perpetually flooded streets, where digital payments are ubiquitous yet basic infrastructure remains patchy, where tech unicorns coexist with traditional markets. Our youth are increasingly global in outlook while remaining deeply rooted in local traditions. It’s these contrasts that make both our potential and our challenges so fascinating.

The good news is substantial. Our digital transformation is real and accelerating. Barring any technological or societal collapse, practically everyone would have access to to the internet by 2045. Our demographic dividend provides a workforce that could power decades of growth. The country’s strategic location between the Pacific and Indian Oceans positions us perfectly for a time where maritime trade routes are increasingly crucial.

But, and there’s always a but, the challenges are equally substantial.

The Reality Check

Corruption isn’t just a governance issue, it’s a cultural challenge that has proven remarkably resistant to reform. Our corruption perception index, measured by Transparency International, had gone from 34 in 2014 to 34 in 2023. To be fair, it hadn’t been flat, in fact it went up by the end of Jokowi’s first term to 40, which is a good thing, but it fell back to 34 in 2022 and stayed there, while in terms of ranking we fell five spots. In 20 years, who knows where it will be, because it’s such a deeply rooted problem. Regional disparities remain stark as what’s true for Jakarta isn’t true for Bandung or Medan, let alone Denpasar, Pontianak, or anywhere else in the archipelago, and the gap isn’t closing as quickly as it needs to be.

The environmental challenges are particularly daunting. Rising sea levels threaten our coastal cities, especially our main cities like Jakarta and Surabaya. Deforestation continues despite commitments to the contrary. Our renewable energy transition, while accelerating from 12% to a projected 30-35% by 2045, may not be fast enough to meet climate challenges.

The Global Stage

This is where things get really interesting. By 2045, the global order will have shifted dramatically. China and India will likely be the world’s largest economies. The Indo-Pacific region will be the center of global economic gravity. Where does Indonesia fit in this new world?

Our potential role is significant. As the unofficial leader of ASEAN, a G20 member, a BRICS partner, and the world’s largest Muslim-majority democracy, our diplomatic leverage ought to count for something, more significantly than it is right now. Our economy could be the world’s 4th or 5th largest by 2045. Our cultural influence, from cuisine to creative industries, is growing.

But here’s the cynical part: we’ve heard all this before. The question isn’t about potential, we’ve always had that, we are the sleeping Asian tiger after all. The question is about execution.

The Balancing Act

Our foreign policy challenges exemplify this complexity. We’re navigating between China and the US, between regional leadership and domestic development, between economic sovereignty and global integration. We’re trying to be everyone’s friend while advancing our own interests, a challenging diplomatic dance that will only get more complex.

By 2045, Indonesia could be:

  • A regional power with global influence
  • A key player in global supply chains
  • A leader in environmental and climate diplomacy
  • A cultural and religious bridge between East and West

Or we could be:

  • Still struggling with basic governance issues
  • Caught in the middle-income trap
  • Vulnerable to climate change and environmental degradation
  • Left behind in the global technology race

The Hope and the Hurdle

What makes me cautiously optimistic? The resilience that’s evident. The youth’s entrepreneurial spirit. The way we’ve maintained a semblance of unity despite diversity that would tear many nations apart. Our ability to adapt and evolve while maintaining our core identity.

What keeps me up at night? The persistence of old problems. The way corruption seems to adapt faster than anti-corruption measures. The environmental clock that’s ticking ever louder. The risk that we might miss our demographic dividend window while we’re still sorting out basic educational challenges.

Looking Forward

By 2045, if I’m still around, I’ll be old enough to have seen this entire journey unfold. Will we look back at this moment as the turning point where we finally converted potential into reality? Or will we still be talking about being a “future” superpower?

The truth probably lies somewhere in between. We’re likely to see significant progress, higher incomes, better infrastructure, more global influence. But we’re also likely to face continued challenges with governance, inequality, and environmental sustainability.

The Personal Stakes

This isn’t just about national statistics or global rankings. It’s about the kind of future we’re creating for the next generation. It’s about whether my kids will have to leave the country to find opportunities, or whether they’ll be able to build their dreams right here.

The Indonesia of 2045 won’t be a utopia. But it doesn’t need to be. It just needs to be better, more just, more sustainable, more prosperous, than today. It’s certainly achievable but my skepticism tells me it’s not going to be what it needs to be. I mean, ten years ago we all had expected so much more under Jokowi and yet here we are with a middle class crunch and facing further economic challenges.

The country is not going to be the superpower some dream of, never will. But it needs to be something perhaps more valuable, a nation that has found its own path to progress, balancing tradition with modernity, economic growth with sustainability, global influence with local wisdom.

That’s a future some people think they’re working to achieve while others are seemingly working to ensure something else happens.

A Final Thought

We need to stop thinking about Indonesia as a “future” superpower and start thinking about it as a present responsibility. The future isn’t something that happens to us, it’s something we build, decision by decision, day by day.

We’ll definitely not get everything right and will certainly face setbacks and challenges, and as always, the country isn’t defined by its challenges but by its response to those challenges.

Funnily enough when you look back, how the country responded to challenges will not be enough and will instead predictably stunt its own growth because what is disappointment if not Indonesian politicians and their lack of willingness to put aside personal greed over national gain? Not to mention the seeds of conflicts that seem to be consistently sowed. 

Will the country grow and get better? I mean look at the progress that’s happened over the last 20 years. We’ve got better infrastructure, strong economic growth, improved social welfare, but corruption, inequality, and institutional fragility continue to hinder progres. Our democracy keeps regressing and there are active efforts within the government and among the people ourselves, to return the country into authoritarianism and take away people’s rights.

Golden Indonesia by 2045? Tell ‘em they’re dreaming.

Facts aren’t enough: Why journalism needs to find a new way to reach the public

Journalism is in a crisis of accountability. Too many reporters are taking the easy route: regurgitating statements from politicians and officials without pushing back, questioning, or even glancing beneath the surface. It’s like they’ve decided that the press briefing is the new gospel, letting the people in power control the narrative and dodging any real scrutiny. This isn’t just lazy; it’s dangerous. When journalists stop asking the hard questions, they become complicit in misleading the public, and they fail democracy.

But here’s the other side of the crisis. Even when journalists are on their game, digging deep, presenting hard facts, and keeping things objective, a big chunk of the public isn’t even listening. Instead, they’re tuned into their own personal version of reality, patched together from social media rumors, conspiracy theories, and “alternative facts” that suit their biases.

A growing number of the public are increasingly immune to traditional reporting, whether it’s coming from newspapers, digital publications, or the nightly news. We’ve reached a point where the truth itself is somehow up for debate, no matter how well it’s documented because the other side have been presenting their versions more convincingly.

So what’s the answer? For starters, journalists need to get back to actually holding people accountable. Enough with the rehashed sound bites. Journalists must turn up the heat, pull apart the claims made by those in power, and lay bare the inconvenient truths, even if they’re messy or complicated.

But let’s be honest: reporting the facts clearly and objectively isn’t enough if they’re just going to be ignored. The media can’t afford to keep shouting into the void. To get through to people, journalists need to shake up the way they’re telling these stories.

Conventional formats aren’t cutting it anymore, readerships are down across the board and publications have been shutting down all around the world. Maybe it’s time to lean into platforms and techniques that disrupt echo chambers rather than reinforcing them.

This could mean turning to data visualizations that make complex issues impossible to ignore or creating interactive stories that don’t just tell people what’s true but show them, letting them see the process and judge for themselves. We need formats that combine the immediacy of social media with the depth of investigative reporting, something more visceral, less dismissible.

And this is where the press need to admit: current methods of engaging with audiences aren’t working for everyone. If journalists want people to trust the media again, they’re going to have to earn it in new ways. That might mean getting closer to the communities they cover and the audience they serve, being more transparent about the reporting process, or even tackling popular myths and misinformation head-on instead of just waving them off as fringe ideas.

Journalism’s mission isn’t just to report facts, it’s to make those facts matter. They can’t give up on that mission just because some people would rather live in a reality of their own design. It’s time for the media to level up, to be tougher, sharper, and more innovative in how to tell the truth. Because the stakes are too high for the facts to keep getting ignored.

Indonesia, the waking giant, is still scrolling through TikTok in bed

In 2016, Elizabeth Pisani described Indonesia as a “the biggest invisible thing on the planet,” in The Guardian. She signaled that the country is transitioning from decades of quiet development to a new phase of urban and economic ambition. However, looking back now, it seems Indonesia might still be stretching in bed, scrolling through TikTok rather than fully “awake.” While some progress has been made, many of the issues Pisani raised, fragmented development, infrastructure gaps, and uneven growth, still linger, preventing Indonesia from realizing its full potential as a global player.

Indonesia has seen improvements since 2016, especially in urban centers like Jakarta, where expanded transit systems and toll roads have alleviated some congestion (not enough but it’s getting there) and spurred economic activity. Additionally, the digital economy has grown rapidly, with Indonesia becoming one of the world’s most active social media markets.

Yet much of this digital growth reflects consumer habits rather than productive innovation, as Indonesia’s youth engage heavily on platforms like TikTok, which showcase Indonesia’s digital enthusiasm but don’t necessarily build the high-value tech sector Indonesia needs for long-term prosperity.

With a young, dynamic population, the country could be investing in a more diverse digital economy, one that includes tech innovation, sustainable energy, and high-value exports.

However, the once thriving ride hailing and food delivery tech giant Gojek, which was just launched at the time of Pisani’s article, is now struggling to keep up with competition as it wound down operations in Vietnam and Thailand, and sold ecommerce giant Tokopedia to ByteDance, barely two years after their celebrated merger and IPO. Layoffs in the larger tech sector have reached thousands in two years.

Another significant change since Pisani’s article is the rise of controversial former general and Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto to the presidency. His election represents a pivot in leadership style and direction. Prabowo’s popularity has been partly fueled by his endearing public persona, and he has promised continuity with former President Joko Widodo’s infrastructure agenda while adding a new layer of military discipline and assertiveness.

Prabowo has committed to ambitious goals, including an 8% annual economic growth rate, free school meals, and a more proactive foreign policy stance to increase Indonesia’s global influence. In fact, he sent Foreign Minister Sugiono to the BRICS Conference in Russia, within days of his appointment, to express intention to fully join the economic bloc. But the challenges Pisani highlighted, geographic disparities, underdeveloped human capital, and regulatory inconsistencies, still constrain Indonesia’s aspirations. President Prabowo has ordered a full review of the laws to align them with his grand plan to accelerate Indonesia’s development.

Prabowo’s pledges are bold, but achieving them may require more than infrastructure and social programs. The economy remains heavily reliant on resource extraction and low-cost labor, making it vulnerable to global market fluctuations and competition from faster-moving neighbors like Vietnam. Educational and labor inequalities persist, and while Prabowo’s initiatives may address immediate needs, sustainable growth will require deeper investment in human capital and technology-driven industries, something that the previous government was already working on.

In short, Indonesia’s journey from “invisible giant” to a true economic powerhouse appears far from complete. Pisani’s vision of a “waking” Indonesia might still be accurate, but without substantial shifts in human development and innovation, the nation risks staying in a kind of semi-conscious state. If Prabowo’s administration hopes to fulfill the dream of a “Golden Indonesia 2045,” which envisions the country as a high-income, self-sustaining economic powerhouse, now is the time to get up and go to work.

The America I knew

The America I grew up with was not a perfect nation by any measure, and it’s certainly terrible in many parts, but it also allowed people of different origins, of different cultures, of different beliefs, to come together and belong to one another. It allowed people to thrive, to find mutual connection, and create something great.

These excerpts of Presidential speeches carry the promises of a nation, the values I believe in, the values that I hold close. Promises that I hope they can still deliver in the face of seemingly insurmountable adversary and great challenges.

Kennedy, Peace Speech, 1963

Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, we all cherish our children’s futures, and we are all mortal. Today we seek to move beyond the accomplishments of the past to establish the principle that all people are entitled to a decent way of life.

Clinton, Inauguration, 1993

Let us not forget that each child saved, each refugee housed, each disease prevented, each barrier to justice brought down, each sword turned into a plow share brings us closer to peace, closer to freedom, closer to dignity.

Obama, State of the Union, 2013

We also know that progress in the most impoverished parts of our world enriches us all. So the United States will join with our allies to eradicate such extreme poverty in the next two decades by connecting more people to the global economy, by empowering women, by giving our young and brightest minds new opportunities to serve, and helping communities to feed, empower, and educate themselves, by saving the world’s children from preventable deaths.

That’s how we’ll confront the challenges of our time. This is how we will seize the promise of this moment in history.

Who are we to believe that today’s challenges cannot be overcome? We’ve seen what changes the human spirit can bring. That’s why we look to the future not with fear but with hope.

When Reporters Become Collateral in an Unpopular Executive Decision

So here we are: The Washington Post announced it won’t endorse a candidate this US election, and the fallout is immediate. Readers are canceling subscriptions in droves, about 200,000 and counting according to NPR, and reporters are left scrambling on social media, pleading for them to stay. As a former journalist, I feel for the reporters caught in this mess. This isn’t just an editorial call they can shrug off. It’s a hit to their credibility, their income, and their professional mission.

To me what’s important isn’t whether a media makes a political endorsement because we live in a time when these decisions don’t matter like they used to. Media endorsements don’t carry the same weight as in previous decades. What matters to me is when they did it. I said on Threads the other day,

The issue isn’t that they will not endorse but that there’s a decades long tradition to endorse one candidate over another and not just for the presidential candidates, it’s often local candidates too. That the boards of two major US papers already drafted the endorsements only to be spiked by their billionaire owners is what matters because it’s too close to Election Day. They could have announced the stance weeks or months ago but they didn’t and now they’re causing a scene.

The timing is everything here. Only 11 days before the election, the paper killed a planned endorsement of Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, saying it’s a return to their “roots” of neutrality, as they did until about 50 years ago. But the newsroom is in uproar. Famed reporters like Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein have called the move cowardly. Others, like former editor Marty Baron, went further, saying it’s a betrayal of democracy itself. Many readers opined in light of the decision that the Post’s slogan, “Democracy dies in darkness”, wasn’t a slogan but a mission statement as the newspaper has decided to tun the lights off to let democracy stumble in darkness.

Meanwhile, there’s Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner, defending the decision as “principled.” He argues it’s about restoring trust in journalism. But here’s where things get complicated. The same day the Post cancels its endorsement, Bezos’s space company, Blue Origin, had a meeting with none other than Donald Trump. Even if it’s a coincidence, it’s an unfortunate look, especially considering that endorsements were a standard practice at the Post until… well, about five minutes ago. When Woodward and Bernstein broke the Watergate scandal at the Post in the ‘70s, then owner Katherine Graham stood tall defending their decision to run the story and expose the illegal actions of President Nixon which led to his resignation. Bezos on the other hand, has no such conviction, fearing retribution by Trump in case the 34x convicted felon ended up winning re-election, and jeopardizing his government contracts and other opportunities for his companies.

And it’s not just the Post. Earlier this month, the Los Angeles Times made a similar choice, dropping its own endorsement after its billionaire owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong intervened. His daughter, who supposedly has no influence at the company, defended it as a “family decision” tied to frustration over Harris’s stance on the genocide happening in Palestine. Curiously, a feature series titled, “Case Against Trump” was canceled by the newspaper at his behest. Yet again, we’ve got a big decision, tied to editorial independence, happening at the last minute with little transparency.

USA Today has joined the ranks of papers sitting this one out. However with outlets like The New York Times, Rolling Stone, and the Philadelphia Inquirer still endorsing candidates, it seems the media landscape is splitting down the middle on this issue.

Readers, for their part, feel they’ve been sidelined. Canceling subscriptions is one of the few ways they can register their frustration with decisions made behind closed doors. But the fallout isn’t falling on Bezos, it’s falling on reporters who had no part in the decision. Now, they’re essentially forced into being spokespersons for an editorial shift they didn’t ask for, defending a stance that most of them probably would have argued against.

So, what’s the way out? Instead of reporters bearing the brunt of management’s hasty decision, maybe they could actually join with the readers on this one. Push back internally. Make it clear that if big decisions like this one are going to reshape their relationships with readers, they need to be more than last-minute top-down calls. They could demand a seat at the table, a voice in decisions that impact their integrity and the trust of their audience. Some members of the editorial boards and newsrooms at both the Post and the LA Times have made their strong opinions known even to the point of resigning.

In the end, the future of journalism doesn’t just depend on what’s reported, it depends on how these decisions are made. If the Post, the LA Times, and other major outlets want to regain trust, they need to do more than make calls from the top. Credibility is built on transparency, respect for journalists, and a genuine acknowledgment of the readers who make their work possible.