A Wilted Rose in Jakarta

A Dome and its Petals

I’m flying soon. I seem to always write better when I have a flight coming. It’s probably the caffeine pill I took after being awaken more than three times by my diarrheic dog. Poor girl.

That digestive snack wasn’t a good idea.

Last night, an ojol driver died. Rest in peace, Affan.

It should have been a peaceful protest, but it is Indonesia after all.

He should have been at home by nightfall. Maybe scrolling his phone, maybe planning his next shift, maybe just resting the body that keeps getting pushed by an economy that does not care about names, only numbers. Instead, a Brimob vehicle ran him over in the middle of a demonstration. The kind of death that is not noble, not dignified, not planned. It was cold and mechanical.

It was caught on video. He tried to get up but the armored vehicle kept moving. And suddenly, Affan stopped being an ordinary ojol, he became the unwilling martyr of a state that always says it protects its people while showing again and again that lives other than the ones sitting in parliament are disposable.

We can weep, we can rage, and we should.

But we also need to peel this wilted rose.

Because if we only cry at the fallen petals and never look at what remains intact at the core, we will miss the real bloom.

Petal One: The Visible Tragedy

The first petal is obvious because it is the one everyone saw. The video spread across every timeline, every WhatsApp group, every feed. Affan Kurniawan was caught in the swell of a demonstration, steel crushing flesh.

Within minutes, Indonesia had seen the same horror on repeat. Play, rewind, share. The image of a man discarded under the wheels of the state turned into a national nightmare.

The chants were immediate and predictable, all signs point to Brimob. The hashtags cursed the police and public anger always finds the enforcer first. Never the master hiding in the building behind them.

And it makes sense. The ones in uniform are the ones you see, the ones holding shields, batons, and guns are the ones you face. They are the ones who swing, push, shove, and in this case, crush.

In this petal, Brimob deserves every ounce of anger. There is no rhetorical gymnastics to be done here, and Affan is dead because their vehicle ran him over.

It is that blunt.

This petal is stained with his blood, and no press conference, no promise of investigation can wash it clean.

But here’s the problem: If we stop at this petal, the story flattens into something too easy.

It becomes a morality play: bad police, innocent victim, public outrage. Everyone nods, everyone condemns, everyone feels righteous. And then, everyone forgets. Because morality plays are easy to digest and even easier to shelve.

And that is precisely why this first petal, as raw and bloody as it is, hardly be the last.

Petal Two: The Official Response

Remember what I wrote before? Indonesia is a performative country.

• Act One: We are sorry.

• Act Two: We are handling it.

• Act Three: You, the people, must stop making noise.

  
  

This is standard practice in every Indonesian government response. It would work if the public had actual trust in the government, but we don’t.

The ritual, the kind of theater we all know too well.

The Jakarta Police Chief appeared before cameras, he offered condolences to the family, promised compensation, and announced that seven Brimob officers had been detained for questioning. It all looked familiar, like a performance we had all already memorized.

And then, not to be outdone, the president himself appeared on video. He looked into the camera, voice steady, and said he was “surprised” and “disappointed” at the “excessive actions” of his men. He vowed transparency, accountability, justice. Words chosen not for their bite, but for their softness.

Words meant to calm, not provoke.

Notice the framing. The narrative is neatly packaged as individual failure that some officers went rogue or some men in uniform made a bad call, or maybe one driver pushed the gas too hard, case closed.

Not the institution. Not the chain of command that put armored vehicles in the path of protesters. And certainly not the parliament whose policies sparked the demonstration in the first place.

The system, as always, is kept innocent.

This is the kind of response that sounds reasonable and measured when you first hear it. A responsible government. A president who cares and a police chief who takes action.

It looks tidy, and tidy on camera, and the media ate it up.

Tidiness makes us feel like the problem has been contained, that the mess is cleaned and that justice is already on the way.

But this petal’s only function is to stop us from peeling deeper.

Petal Three: The Real Roots

And here we arrive at the petal no one in power wants us to touch.

Why were Affan and the students on the street to begin with?

They were there because of the DPR.

They were protesting policies and laws that feel less like public service and more like a business plan for the political class.

Labor protections weakened, anti-corruption mechanisms gutted, economic choices that squeeze the bottom while cushioning the top, taxes that seem to suck the life force out of everything that moves. Every law seems to carry the same perfume: the sweet smell of convenience for elites and corporations, and the bitter aftertaste for everyone else.

For an average Indonesian, this is not abstract policy. It is life. It means twelve hours a day of work and commute, choking on exhaust fumes, fighting app algorithms and bad weather, all to make just enough to pay rent and buy groceries.

Meanwhile, in Senayan, air conditioning hums, microphones buzz, and the same politicians debate their travel budgets. Remember the viral math lesson where one member insisted rent was three million per day, multiplied by twenty-six days, so naturally, their monthly allowance should cover seventy-eight million.

I thought I was bad at math.

But here is the kicker: once the blood spilled on the asphalt, the DPR vanished from the story.

Like a magician pulling the curtain, the focus shifted.

The public shouted at Brimob. The police blamed the protesters for being “chaotic.” The president scolded the officers for being “excessive.” And the DPR quietly resumed its sessions, air conditioning on full blast, microphones adjusted, probably arguing over travel budgets while the streets outside still smelled of tear gas.

This is not coincidence, it is a choreography.

The people fight the police, and the police fight the people. And the DPR stays invisible. Their fingerprints wiped clean by the spectacle of uniformed men clashing with civilians.

And so the parliament achieves the impossible: it creates the very conditions that push citizens into the streets, then disappears from the picture the moment blood is spilled. The police become the villains, while the protesters become the troublemakers.

It is politics at its finest. I remember my professor telling me that politics is simply a game of power, and it is usually won by those who know how to wield them.

The Final Petal

Affan is gone. That is fact.

Brimob ran him over. That is fact.

Officers will be questioned, statements will be made.

But unless we keep peeling, unless we look at the structure that sent Brimob to stand there in the first place, then Affan’s death will be archived like so many others.

So yes, be angry at Brimob. Demand answers from the police. But do not forget who they were protecting. Do not forget why the protest was there in the first place.

Because in this wilted rose of Indonesian politics, it is always the same petals that fall, while the core survives untouched. And if we are not careful, the next name after Affan will just be another fallen petal on the ground. A citizen that can’t be taxed.

Because remember, like everything that is a performance, there is a director. Not as villain or a hero, but as a gardener. He trims the petals, waters the soil, says the right words to keep the rose upright.

Not to revive it or to reform it, but to keep it standing enough so no one notices the rot at the center.