Days of popular protest in Indonesia exploded into violence Aug. 28 after Affan Kurniawan, a motorbike delivery worker, was fatally struck by a police vehicle in Jakarta. The worker had not even been participating in the protest when armored vehicles ploughed into the crowd, mowing him down. Both Grab and Gojek delivery apps confirmed that Kurniawan was registered on their respective platforms. Grab also offered condolences to families of other affected workers, including Dandi Rusdamdiansyah, who was fatally attacked during unrest in Makassar. Kurniawan's helmet, lying in the rainy street after he was struck, has become an online viral image that fueled further demonstrations across the country. Six were killed and the army called to the streets before the protests were called off Aug. 31 when the government agreed to revoke controversial perks for lawmakers, including lavish housing allowances. But the underlying grievances of unemployment and inflation remain. (Jakarta Globe [12], Straits Times [13], CNA [14], NYT [15], France24 [16], Politico [17], Marketing Interactive [18])
Spikes in the price of food and fuel since the start of the Ukraine war in 2022 have contributed to popular privation and unrest [19] worldwide. But the spark for the Indonesia eruption brings together questions of labor conditions for app workers and the reign of automotive terror on urban streets across the planet. These questions have sparked popular protest in recent years from New York City [20] to China [21] to Italy and Bangladesh [22]. Consciously making the connections between these questions points to the potential for global revolution against car culture and robotocracy as well capitalist austerity.
