212 Event; Online Petition Reject Anies Baswedan's Permissiveness

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Governor of Jakarta Anies Baswedan issued a permit effectively allowing the Monas area to be used by the 212 community on December 2. The proposal submitted by the community stated that the place would be used to celebrate the Islamic Maulid Akbar.

The governor did not elaborate on the details of the proposal and only mentioned that the permit was issued in agreement with Jakarta administration working units (Forkopimda), which also includes military commands and police precincts. 

This is a contrast with the online petition at Change.org rejecting the event. The petition was created by a user, 7inta Putih, on November 25, that saw support from roughly 1,700 signatures up to November 27.

“Since its inception, the 212 movement has always been political under a religious disguise. It would be very shallow for Anies Baswedan to allow the 212 alumni reunion to go on even after the 2019 general election. It is prone to be used by elitist’s political agenda,” says the Change.org petition. 

Some of the comments supporting the petition echo the thread’s creator and opines that the 212 movement is merely a political tool. Meanwhile, others say that the 212 reunion event is no longer relevant as the political pressure from the group had driven the imprisonment of former Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama. 

Asked separately, the 212 community’s reunion chief organizer, Awit Masyuri, says one of the many agendas in the upcoming event on December 2, 2019, is to fight against blasphemy cases that they claim still continue. 

Zacharias Wuragil