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The Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN) was founded in Jakarta, 17th March 1999. The date also marked the first Indigenous Peoples Awakening Day which now being commemorated annually. My tribe is member of this organisation.
I have walked the dirt paths of many Indigenous villages in Indonesia. I have sat cross-legged inside the smoky warmth of their traditional houses, listening to stories of how their ancestors walked the same forests, harvested the same rivers, and prayed under the same ancient trees for generations untold.
Yet, those forests are vanishing. The rivers are poisoned. The sacred groves bulldozed, and the lands once held in reverence are being torn open by machines.
It’s difficult to describe the depth of grief I’ve felt watching the slow erasure of a people’s entire way of life. It is not just a loss of land; it is a loss of worldviews, of cosmologies, of life itself. And I find myself coming back to one question over and over: why is this still happening?
Part of the answer lies in the fact that the government of Indonesia, despite all its rhetoric about pluralism and human rights, still refuses to recognise the very existence of Indigenous Peoples in any meaningful way.
For years now, Indigenous leaders, elders, and youth have gathered in protest and dialogue, pleading with lawmakers to pass the Indigenous Rights Bill, known as RUU Masyarakat Adat. It is not a demand for charity, nor a cry for sympathy. It is a rightful claim to recognition, protection, and dignity. Yet the bill has sat untouched in parliament, year after year, while those who defend their lands are criminalised, imprisoned, or worse: killed.
I have met women who can no longer return to their forest because their lands have been seized by plantation companies. Men who spend nights hiding in the jungle because they’ve been named as suspects simply for defending their rivers against pollution. Some have lost their lives altogether. I still remember hearing the news about Indigenous women who were beaten and detained by security forces. Their only ‘crime’ was standing in defence of their community’s customary lands. A story of many — too many.
This deliberate stalling of the Indigenous Rights Bill has created a vacuum where Indigenous lives are unprotected, their lands up for grabs, and their defenders turned into enemies of the state.
It is bitterly ironic. While the government remains reluctant to recognise Indigenous territories legally, it has been more than willing to open up these same areas to mining and plantation companies. And now, in the era of what they call the ‘green transition’, there’s a new rush to extract resources from the lands where Indigenous communities have lived for centuries. I have watched, over the past few years, how this global obsession with electric vehicles and renewable energy has brought with it a new wave of extractivism, one cloaked in the language of sustainability.
Nickel, cobalt, and bauxite — critical minerals for the batteries of electric cars and wind turbines — are being stripped from the earth beneath the feet of Indigenous Peoples. And the government frames this as progress. They promise jobs and development, but I’ve seen what this kind of development looks like. In Central Sulawesi and North Maluku, I have spoken to community members who can no longer fish because the rivers have turned red from mine tailings. I’ve visited lands where once there were forests sacred to local clans, now levelled for smelter complexes.
And it’s not just the physical landscape that is being destroyed. What cuts even deeper is the destruction of belief systems, the severing of connections between people and their sacred places.
When a forest is cleared, it is not just timber that is lost. It is the home of spirits, the resting place of ancestors, the source of ritual knowledge passed down through generations. When the land goes, so too does the meaning that gives life purpose. I have heard the elders lament this more than anything — the slow unraveling of their cosmology. Without their lands, many say, they no longer know how to teach the young what it means to be Marind, or Tobelo, or Orang Rimba. With poisonous river, the elders are struggling to explain what it means to be Sawai, or Komoro, or Ngaju. Without healthy ocean, how to show the beauty of being Watunapatto, being Bajo, or being Moi Maya. They worry that soon, their children will only know how to live in someone else’s world.
And this devastation happens while the world celebrates Indonesia’s role in the global energy transition. People in Europe and North America drive their electric cars, congratulating themselves on lowering their carbon footprints, but at what cost?
Few stop to think that the nickel in their car batteries may have come from a destroyed sacred mountain or that the cobalt mined from Indonesian soil may have poisoned a river relied upon by an entire community. This is not a green revolution — it is extractivism in a new disguise. For Indigenous Peoples in Indonesia, the so-called energy transition looks very much like the same old story of colonial exploitation.
And yet, why is it that Indigenous Peoples in Indonesia remain so vulnerable, generation after generation? Why is it that their demands for recognition and protection remain unanswered?
The painful truth, as I have come to see it, is that Indigenous Peoples still have no real seat at the table where these decisions are made. They are spoken for, often by people who have no understanding of their struggles or who treat them as backward subjects in need of development.
Too often, I have seen Indigenous leaders forced to rely on alliances with old political parties or traditional elites who may offer token representation but have no intention of advancing true Indigenous autonomy. These alliances are shaped by patronage, not by shared vision or understanding. The political machinery in Indonesia has always been dominated by those with ties to land concessions, plantations, mining, and logging.
It is a system built to exclude. And as long as Indigenous Peoples are not directly shaping the political landscape, the cycle will repeat.
This is why I believe, now more than ever, that Indigenous Peoples in Indonesia must organise politically—not just socially, not just culturally, but politically.
There must be an Indigenous-led democratic front, one that operates independently of the old power structures that have failed them time and again. I am not talking about a movement limited to lobbying or advocacy. I am talking about a political force that runs candidates, wins seats, and demands a new national vision. A movement capable of challenging oligarchic control and reimagining what Indonesia could be if led by those who understand the land not as a resource, but as life itself.
But Indigenous Peoples cannot do this alone.
They must stand shoulder to shoulder with other marginalised groups—peasants fighting for their farmlands, workers demanding fair wages and safe conditions, women struggling against systemic violence, and religious minorities resisting discrimination. Together, these groups can build a broad-based democratic coalition with the potential to challenge Indonesia’s entrenched elites.
I imagine what it could mean for Indonesia if Indigenous values — of balance, of harmony with nature, of communal stewardship—were to guide the national agenda. What if the principles that have sustained Indigenous communities for centuries could be the principles that shape economic policy, environmental governance, and social justice for all Indonesians? That is not a distant dream. It is a political project waiting to be built.
Yet I also know it will not come easily. The road ahead is hard.
Organising political movements is fraught with risk. I have heard many Indigenous leaders express fear about taking that next step, worried that they will face backlash not only from the state but from within their own communities, where years of co-optation have fostered distrust.
But I also know there is strength.
I have seen it in the young Indigenous activists who are returning to their villages armed with legal knowledge, organising skills, and a deep commitment to their people. I have seen it in the women’s groups reviving traditional ceremonies and creating spaces for collective healing.
The Indigenous struggle in Indonesia is at a turning point.
Without real political power, Indigenous Peoples will remain vulnerable to the forces that have long sought to erase them. But with it, they can lead not only their own communities but an entire nation towards a more just, equitable, and sustainable future.
This is not just about land. It is about life—about reclaiming the right to exist on one’s own terms, to shape one’s own destiny, and to pass on a future worth living for. As I reflect on all that I have witnessed, I know that the fight for Indigenous rights in Indonesia is not a single struggle. It is the frontline of a broader battle for the soul of a nation.
And it is a fight we cannot afford to lose.