Indonesian online activists gather for change

The question of whether social media can play a major role in bringing about societal change – at a time when Facebook and Twitter are accused of being hotbeds for self-centred narcissists, hate-mongers and gossipers – is being met with growing scepticism.

But that has not deterred renowned human rights activist Usman Hamid from advocating the Digital Nation Movement, also known as Dinamo, a forum for online activists who still believe that signing a petition or even liking a Facebook page is as powerful as rallying on the streets to protest against injustice and defend the oppressed.

More than 250 people gathered at Soehanna Hall, the Energy Building, in South Jakarta on Saturday to join the forum. They were mostly people who signed online petitions on the change.org Indonesia website.

“We are here gathering in this forum to build a community of change,” said Usman, who is the website’s Indonesia campaigner.

The movement was initiated in collaboration with Indonesian Future Leaders (IFL), a non-profit that focuses on youth empowerment and social voluntarism; the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras); and Leaf Plus, a Jakarta based environmental consulting company.

Usman said he decided to launch the forum after finding out that the number of change.org Indonesia members had grown from 8,000 to 140,000 in only six months. Since it was launched nine months ago, the website has claimed several achievements. 

One such achievement was when Anita Wahid, the daughter of the late president Abdurrahman Wahid, made a petition to back the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) during a stand-off with the National Police following the former’s move to name a police general a corruption suspect. The petition received 15,037 signatures.

Musician Melanie Subono, who also came to the event, was quick to make a call for the House of Representatives to not endorse Daming Sunusi as a Supreme Court justice for making insulting remarks to rape victims. More than 10,000 Internet users supported her cause by signing the petition over the course of only one day, and the number is growing.

In June last year, Melanie won a campaign that forced Migrant Workers Task Force chairman Maftuh Basyuni to apologise for his remarks about abused migrant workers. 

In 2012, the “Stop supporting travelling dolphin circuses” campaign, which was supported by the Jakarta Animal Aid Network (JANN), garnered 91,591 signatures. As a result, the website says, Hero Group retail giant has announced that it does not support animal cruelty and will no longer allow the dolphin circus to use the parking lots of any of its stores throughout Indonesia for shows.