The Banality Of State Violence: Why The Indonesian Police Have Become A Public Enemy

(MENAFN- The Conversation) Hashtag #PolisiMusuhBersama (Police are the common enemy) has gone viral among Indonesian social media users, as the Indonesian Police have, once again, sparked public anger due to a series of violent acts against civilians.

It is more than a viral phenomenon. It reflects a widespread perception that in Indonesia, the police no longer appear as guarantors of public safety, but as an apparatus that shields privilege and power.

The death of a 21-year-old Affan Kurniawan, an online motorcycle taxi driver crushed by a Mobile Brigade vehicle while simply delivering food, has triggered a wave of indignation.

The protests that erupted in Jakarta twice in just one week were responding to the arrogance of the members of parliament, who receive monthly benefits more than US$6,000 every month - while the average income of Indonesian workers is around $200 per month before tax.

But the riots were also a denunciation of the unbearable gulf between elites and working-class citizens.

Thus, the police are not neutral arbiters. They are the shield that protects oligarchic privilege, transforming social protest into public disorder and dissent into threat.

Yet, as also seen in past protests, the Indonesian police used excessive force to disperse and arrest peaceful demonstrators.

The situation is worsened by alleged abuses of power, including the arbitrary arrests of citizens who criticise the police and widespread corruption within the institution.

The police's brutality on that night was not an isolated incident, but one that reveals a deeper reality that the violence by the police has apparently become a part of everyday life.

It is precisely this normalisation that makes violence no longer appear as a scandal but as routine. And when brutality becomes ordinary, what is eroded is not only public trust in institutions but the very foundations of democratic life.

The banality of repression

The police killing of the online driver has added to the long list of violent and arbitrary actions by law enforcement in Indonesia.

An Add Yours feature on Instagram that has been reported by many Indonesian social media users who try to expose the national issues currently happening in the country. CC BY

From July 2024 to June 2025 , there were at least 602 incidents of violence committed by the police - most of them (411 cases) were shootings, according to data from the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (KontraS). At least 10 people were killed and 76 others were injured, ranging from minor to serious injuries.

The report also reveals that the police have committed 37 extrajudicial killings, resulting in 40 victims.

This latest act of violence in a demonstration where around 600 people were arrested , according to civil society organisation Lokataru Foundation, may go down as one of the most remembered police brutalities in the country's history.

What makes it more troubling is the banality of police violence. The most unsettling form of evil is not its spectacular excess but its routine, bureaucratic repetition.

In Indonesia, police brutality rarely appears as an extraordinary rupture . It is instead embedded in the ordinary functioning of the institution.

Officers act not as moral agents but as cogs in a machine, translating dissent into“disorder,” protest into“threat”. This is the banality, where violence becomes administrative, predictable, and therefore normalised.

Each act of repression is presented as a procedure, each death as collateral, and each arrest as a necessity. In this way, the institution transforms what should scandalise into what is socially tolerated, ensuring that the reproduction of inequality is maintained without disruption.

That tragedy now stands alongside the Kanjuruhan tragedy in 2022, a deadly soccer match in Malang, East Java, that killed 131 people and injured 300 others. The police excessively fired tear gas to disperse the violent crowd in the stadium, leading to a stampede.

The structure of Indonesia's law enforcement institutions now appears very fragile, particularly in the absence of adequate mechanisms to deal with state-civilian conflicts.

A corrupt institution

In February, police arrested members of the viral band Punk Rock Sukatani for releasing the anthem“Bayar, bayar, bayar” (Pay, pay, pay) - addressing the “fee-for-service” practices .

The song calls out the string corruption“culture” in the country's law enforcement, with people encountering police extortion every day. A poll shows how 30,6% of respondents reporting to have paid bribes to the police , including for traffic fines.

According to Transparency International Indonesia, the police is one of the most corrupt institutions in the country .

Despite the corrupt culture, the institution will likely earn budget at Rp145.6 trillion next year, higher than Rp126.6 trillion this year. This will make the police the third state institution with the highest budget after the National Nutrition Agency and the Defence Ministry.

The police response to the punk band reflects what sociologist Pierre Bourdieu described as symbolic violence - the power to impose societal norms by framing dominance as natural and unquestionable.

By branding criticism as“defamation,” they seek to reinforce their authority while deterring future challenges.

More power to come

Instead of reforming the police force, the government - along with the parliament - is revising the Criminal Code in a way that risks turning the police into a superpower institution within the criminal justice system.

Under the drafted revision , the police investigators can supervise other investigators , such as Civil Servant Investigators and other Specific Investigators. It opens doors for interference and challenges other enforcement bodies.

The draft also grants the police authority to carry out various coercive measures, threatening the rights of every citizen.

Urgent reform needed

In Indonesia, the mandate to maintain public order is often used as a justification for violence in the name of“security”. Orders to“secure” a situation routinely translate into repression, with control and stability placed above democratic accountability.

In a system designed to shield elites from scrutiny, even the smallest acts of resistance are treated as threats to the status quo. The combination of coercive power and oligarchic ties makes any substantive reform a daunting task.

Yet as brutality persists and police authority continues to expand, comprehensive reform of the institution can no longer be postponed.

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