In Indonesia, terrorism is a threat that affects the nation’s social/political order and bring light to tensions existing in the country. Indonesia has the largest Muslim majority globally; however, Indonesia is a secular country adopting a liberal reform of Islam and accepting religious tolerance towards other minorities. However, terrorist groups have voiced their radical opinions on Indonesia’s secularism calling for the country to be an Islamic state and achieve these goals through violence. The Indonesian government has taken counter-measure to tackle these terrorist threats, but these measures are criticized by Human Rights Organisations (HRO). Because Indonesia has created many anti-terror repressive laws, violating the freedom of speech and the task force Densus 88 has broken many Human Rights Violations (HRV). This brings into question is terrorism the overall threat towards Indonesia, I would argue no but state that terrorism must be a risk that does possess a threat, however, cannot endanger Indonesia’s democratic institution. I would argue that Indonesia’s anti-terror laws are a danger to Indonesia’s democracy and Indonesia’s Counter-Terrorism (CT) agencies violate human rights laws (HRL). These are the overall threats that endanger Indonesia’s democracy and why treating terrorism as a risk can be approached with de-radicalization programs. I will explain how Indonesia can treat terrorism as a risk and not an existential threat like climate change and can be mitigated with soft-approach policies, and I will outline the dangers of the hard-approach undertaken by the Indonesian government. read more

Terrorism is often an act of violence, or threat to act, that is politically or religiously charged. A true worldwide definition of terrorism does not currently exist, yet there are specific characteristics that we can link to the concept. One of the struggles of understanding terrorism in academic debates stems from the lack of a solid definition. It has been argued by many scholars that such a definition cannot ever exist (Jackson et al. 2011). Difficulties scholars have agreeing on a definition of terrorism come from it being contextually determined, and definitions in this area can often include political bias. Over-generalized definitions are mostly what we have been left with around the world. Indonesia’s Anti-terrorism Law (ATL) of 2002, gives a description of terrorism. This law does not define terrorism in any strict sense but instead claims that the crime of terrorism can be any act that fulfils elements of the crime under this law. There are critical terms left undefined and therefore subjective to various interpretations, such as ‘widespread atmosphere of terror or fear’. Widespread is not defined to a radius, neither is fear define to a degree. The vague terms included in this description has been criticized for being applicable to various cases that may not involve terrorism (Butt, 2008). A lecturer at Murdoch University, Dr Ian Wilson (2020), argues that there are no terrorist organizations, there are only political groups that use terrorism as a tactic. This is important to understanding the link between terrorism and politics in Indonesia. The motives of these groups are politically charged and stem from a discomfort with Indonesian democracy. read more

The South China Sea issue is currently one of the most evident aspects of the growing polarization between the world’s two major economies, China and the United States. Even though this question involves primarily actors from Northeast and Southeast Asia (hereafter East Asia), which includes ASEAN and its member-States, it still should not be forgotten that at the end of the day, China and the US still are the main decision-makers in the region, given their power-projection capabilities. Peace, or war for that matter, depends on the position of these Great Powers. The region has a systemic value because the US-led network of alliances is being challenged by an ongoing military and economic Chinese ascent. read more

The fourth industrial revolution, commonly known as Industry 4.0, is bringing rapid technological advancements -powered by the rise of digital technologies: cloud, big data, Internet of Things, Analytics, and Machine Learning-, changing the nature of work and increasing demand for a skilled workforce. Technology’s impact on the workforce was inevitable, adding that the most important action was responding to digital developments to optimize the workforce and its talents. Hence, industry 4.0 is rapidly transforming not only IT but business in general, particularly in terms of human-technology relationships. read more

Rodrigo Duterte was appointed as President of the Philippines on July 1, 2016. At the same time, he realized his political promise to catch up drug lords, through a war on drugs policy. War on drugs attempts to eliminate drug trafficking and use in the Philippines by arresting and/or killing dealers, both large dealers and small dealers, and drug users. In its implementation, Duterte hired police, paramilitaries, and assassins (BBC News, 2016).

The Philippines did suffer from drug emergencies as Duterte said in his speeches. According to data from the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) in 2016, drug users in the Philippines reached 1.8 million, equivalent to 1.8% of the total population of the Philippines which reached 100.98 million people. The data was collected from the age range of 10-69 years which at least had used drugs even once in his life (Gavilan, 2016). read more

Rodrigo Duterte came into office as Philippines’s 15th President on June 30, 2016. His approach to South China Sea dispute and his overall foreign policy once shocked many in the region, and more around the world. As his approach to South China Sea dispute differs from his predecessor, Benigno Aquino III (in office 2010-2016), the world is watching what will come out of this diversion.

Under Benigno Aquino III’s presidency, Philippines was very assertive in emphasizing its claim upon the competing claims by several other countries in the South China Sea. During Aquino’s administration, the Philippines brought the case against China to the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in 2013. The decision came on July 12, 2016, about two weeks after Duterte assumed office. read more

The crisis in Rakhine State has been there since a long time. Since 1962, during the military regime, the violence on behalf of ethnic and religious has been occurred and caused a miserable tragedy in the Rakhine State, Myanmar. Around 2.000 people have been killed and more than 140.000, approximately, became homeless. Therefore, Myanmar government has violated Human Rights toward the Rohingya. (Human Rights Watch)

Recently, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency, more than 650,000 Rohingya refugees have fled to Bangladesh since the end of August year 2017 to escape violance and persecution in Myanmar. Previously, The Fact Finding Mission of the United Nations showed that approximately 1,3 million people have moved to the Bangladesh border. The rest of Rohingya refugees are trying to move out to another country such as Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. (United Nations, 2018) read more

The Silk Road is an ancient trade route connecting the West and East, a German researcher named Von Richthofen named it The Silk Road in the 18th century CE. The name of the Silk Road is taken because Chinese commodities trade in a lot of silk. Frances Wood in his book The Silk Road: Two Thousand Years in the Heart of Asia says  the path of the Silk Road has many branches from the Chinese Tang Dynasty capital in the east to Rome, the capital of Italy to the west. The line was opened by a general named Zhang Qian from the Han Dynasty. Tracing the road will pass through Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Iran, and up to Alexandria Egypt. Also found other branches that pass through Pakistan, Kabul, Afghanistan to the Persian Gulf [1]. read more

Within Southeast Asia, regionalism is now a familiar concept. There are various regional bodies within Asia that have been formed, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), South East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), Association for Southeast Asia (ASA), MAPHILINDO, and Asian and Pacific Council (ASPAC). However, regionalism has not always been present within the region. In 1979, Wong argued that there were a number of barriers preventing the formation of a regional unity in Southeast Asia. These factors included a strong presence of nationalism amongst states, a lack of regional trust and identity, territorial conflict, and differences in political perceptions between countries. These obstacles prevented unification until ASEAN was finally established. read more

Since the 1970s there have been hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims fleeing from Myanmar, most of them using sea routes to reach neighboring countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. However, the large number of refugees also cannot be welcomed easily by the targeted countries, due to concerns over uncontrolled influx of refugees. Indonesia is one of the few countries that can communicate directly with Myanmar on the escalation of the conflict. Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said “Once again I conveyed Indonesia’s concerns to State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi regarding the situation in Rakhine state,” after being invited by Suu Kyi at her house for dinner while discussing openly the situation in Rakhine . [1] In addition to Indonesia, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak led a demonstration on 4 December 2016 on what he described as”genocide” of the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar. Najib Razak also invites neighboring countries and the international world to move forward in suppressing the violence. [2] read more