When the name Najelaa Shihab surfaced amid the ongoing investigation into former education minister Nadiem Makarim’s Chromebook procurement case, the public reaction was instantaneous. Her reputation as one of Indonesia’s most respected education reformers—alongside her sister, journalist Najwa Shihab, and their father, scholar Quraish Shihab—has long symbolized intellectual integrity and civic commitment. The mention of her name in a corruption context, even peripherally, exposes the uneasy intersection between idealism, proximity to power, and public perception. To subscribe please click here
