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positions: east asia cultures critique 13.1 (2005) 115-120


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For the Record:

An Antiwar Protest in Jakarta Days before the Bali Bomb Attacks (A Photo-Essay)

Sumit K. Mandal


[Begin Page 116]

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On October 8, 2002, members of different nongovernmental organizations and student groups met at the headquarters of the modernist Muslim organization Muhammadiyah in central Jakarta to conduct an antiwar demonstration outside the U.S. Embassy. The numbers trickled in. While concern mounted in the preceding weeks about what appeared to be an impending U.S. attack on Iraq, antiwar protests were just getting started. (All photographs by the author.)

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Nong Darol Mahmada, a member of the Liberal Islam Network (Jaringan Islam Liberal), was a key organizer of the demonstration. She endured a wait of a few hours, unsure if the expected interreligious coalition would come together as she hoped and if the busloads of students already on their way would make it through the city�s notorious jams. While the interreligious representation was not as strong as it could have been, in the end the students did arrive and the march on the U.S. Embassy began.
[End Page 116]

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The demonstration enjoyed a police escort during its journey of some forty minutes through some of Jakarta�s busiest districts. More than two hundred people came together as the marchers approached the U.S. Embassy and were funneled through a line consisting of police officers on one side and journalists and onlookers on the other.

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The protesters made clear their indignation at the Bush White House and their affection for Americans as a people. Peaceful resolutions rest more firmly on greater numbers of Muslims seeing the difference between regimes such as the Bush White House and a diverse citizenry.
[End Page 117]

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The U.S. Embassy was heavily guarded. Traffic was diverted to some twenty meters away from its front gates; police officers and armored vehicles were placed in strategic locations. Throughout the initial stages of the protest, the police maintained a tight defensive line. The police nevertheless handled the demonstrators with professionalism and even curiosity if not friendliness, a clear product of the democratization processes at work since 1998.
[End Page 118]

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Luluk Hamidah, an activist from Nahdhatul Ulama, read Islam Network�s Universal Awareness Declaration, which had been prepared in advance. Women constituted a substantial share, if not the majority, of the intellectual leadership of the protest.

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The police appeared interested, and thus increased the number of attentive listeners, rather than taking an aggressively defensive posture.
[End Page 119]

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A small delegation led by the Muslim leader and writer Ulil Abshar Abdalla presented the declaration to embassy officials. Ulil is seen here crossing the street on his way back to the gathering, flanked by some of the leaders of the protest, including Luluk Hamidah.


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The protests were marked by a measured and focused anger, and what might even be described as lightness, against the heavy defenses on the perimeter of the embassy. Just over four days later Bali was shaken by bombs, and 202 people were killed. Soon afterward, security was intensified in unprecedented ways. Even now, as I write this, a trip to the shopping mall requires baggage checks for pedestrians and vehicle inspections for those who drive. The bombing in Bali did not help efforts by Indonesians to fight U.S. aggression by peaceful means, nor did it mitigate the terribly poor opinion of the Bush administration held by many in the country. The war in Iraq merely fueled more and angrier protests. The small demonstration documented here is noteworthy, if for nothing else, for preserving in memory the capacity of indignant and intelligent Indonesians of different faiths...

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