Redemption, privilege and the Sambo theology debate
The revelation that former police general Ferdy Sambo is pursuing a Master’s degree in theology from prison has reopened an uncomfortable debate. Where exactly is the line between rehabilitation and privilege?
POLRI’s blurred institutional boundaries
Prabowo Subianto recently praised the Indonesian National Police (Polri) for reporting that it had cultivated corn on 661,112 hectares of land, yielding an estimated 3.9 million tons by 2025. But since when did food production become a benchmark for evaluating police performance? This shift suggests a redefinition of Polri’s achievements, moving away from its core legal mandate toward alignment with the government’s political agenda.
Crime, economics and the return of military expansion
Defense Minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin recently defended the government’s plan to establish 750 new military battalions by arguing that their presence would help reduce crime and stimulate local economies. The statement may sound practical on the surface, but it exposes a deeper and more troubling question: Why is the military increasingly being positioned to perform functions already assigned to civilian institutions?
Digital state still depends on outsiders
The latest experiment with digital social assistance for 36 million citizens reflects a larger ambition within President Prabowo Subianto’s administration: transforming the state into a fully digital government. Officials speak confidently about integrated databases, AI governance, national data centers and digital public services. Yet behind this ambitious narrative lies a fundamental contradiction. Indonesia is becoming increasingly digital without becoming technologically sovereign.
Journalists caught in Gaza’s expanding conflict
Journalist Andre Prasetyo Nugroho recorded a video saying that if it reached the public he had likely been “intercepted or kidnapped” by Israeli forces, the message sounded like a warning from the edge of a war zone. Hours later, contact was reportedly lost with members of the Global Sumud Flotilla 2.0, including journalists from TV Tempo and Republika aboard a humanitarian convoy headed toward Gaza.
The latest reshuffle in Polri guards nickel business
The latest reshuffle inside the National Police was officially presented as routine institutional rotation. Yet the appointment of five new regional police chiefs across resource-rich provinces reveals something much larger: the growing fusion of security power, economic interests and political consolidation under President Prabowo Subianto’s administration.
Banning tribal warfare, misreading Papua
The government’s latest push to ban tribal warfare in Papua Pegunungan may sound, at first glance, like a reasonable attempt to stop violence. No modern state can simply tolerate recurring armed clashes that leave civilians dead, schools abandoned and communities displaced.
Garuda TV and the new architecture of media power
Media industry is collapsing economically. Newsrooms are downsizing, journalists are being laid off and local media outlets are shutting down under pressure from declining advertising revenue and the rise of algorithm-driven platforms. Yet amid this industry-wide crisis, one media player appears to be growing rapidly alongside the expansion of state power: Garuda TV.
Mountains of cash and General Sjafrie
Latest forest enforcement campaign no longer resembles a routine bureaucratic operation. It has evolved into something far more theatrical: stacks of confiscated cash displayed before cameras, senior officials posing behind mountains of money, and President Prabowo Subianto personally witnessing the handover of trillions of rupiah recovered by the Forest Area Control Task Force (Satgas PKH).
East Kalimantan’s brewing political storm
Politics in Kalimantan Timur is no longer just about a regional dispute. What is unfolding today increasingly resembles a test of political legitimacy in the province that hosts Ibu Kota Nusantara.