Almost 500 Indonesian political activists came together this 5th July 2007 to speak out against the law on investments enacted by the Indonesian parliament in March. Such a protest might, statistically-speaking, appear modest. It embodies nevertheless a new alliance between social movements made possible by the nation’s movement towards democracy. Indonesia, ruled by a military dictatorship between 1966 and 1998, is increasingly opening its doors to democracy. The population has seized upon this opening and these last few years have seen the blossoming of numerous grassroots organisations dedicated to the defence of the most impoverished. The July protest was organised by the Gerak Lawan (Moving forward in the struggle) collective [1]. Gerak Lawan brings together Indonesian associations and non-governmental organisations who denounce the control exercised by a minority over the cornerstones of the national economy. When it comes to the law on investments, its women’s, students’, workers’, and farmers’ groups all agree: it will penalize the poorest, that is the majority of the population. They demand its complete abolition.

A new form of protest for an emerging democracy 

The 5th of July protest was new in so far as it combined, in one single morning, three distinct components. A traditional march, first of all, in the centre of Jakarta, starting at the National Monument and finishing at the Constitutional Court. Peasants wearing their traditional cone-shaped hats, workers brandishing placards emblazoned with their demands, students raising their fists and women all processed in one line between the blue-tinted towers of the Indonesian Central Bank. The urban/rural contrast was both striking and symbolic in itself of the unequal distribution of wealth in the Archipelago. As the procession set off organisations flew their flags and the protestors sang all together Bella Ciao in Bahasa.

	Protestors expound their grievances before the imitation tribunal / © Maia Levasseur (FdH)

Two hours later, as the procession arrived before the Constitutional Court, members of the main organisations present began giving a series of speeches. All held firmly under their arm a dossier on which their hopes depend: an official request they deposited that morning at the Court, demanding an examination of a law which they judge contrary to the constitution of the Republic of Indonesia. In the editing of their request, they had been assisted by lawyers from the Indonesian Association for Legal Aid and Human Rights (PBHI [2]). They await the Court’s response to this day.

The beginning of a popular politic power 

Whilst the request for examination was being deposited, protestors positioned themselves in the road and distributed leaflets outlining their demands to drivers of passing cars, scooters, and bajaj [3]. Soon tables and chairs were set up for the erection of an imitation tribunal. Witnesses followed one after another, describing injustices relating to land ownership, job insecurity, and inequality between the sexes. Fellow protestors passed judgement. As the verdicts were announced, the organisations’ demands became clear: agrarian reform, promised by law in 1960 but never pursued; the combating of job insecurity; freedom of access to health and education services; and the end of the abuse and criminalisation of political activists.

The sharing of a platform by movements representing diverse sectors of society, particularly the urban and rural movements, dates back to a demonstration held in May 2006. As Iwan Nurdin of the KPA tells us, “For the first time, the workers’ movement, which, for historical reasons, is more organised than the peasants’ movement, made agrarian reform one of the central pillars of its programme”. This is the background to the 5th July protest, proof of the birth of a grassroots political movement capable of shaping debate in a democratic Indonesia.