In Indonesia, people turn to Islamic populism as a way to vent their frustration with the failings of their society. The figures behind this populist promise an escape route out of their current misery, putting the blame instead on an elite minority which they claim to control every aspect of the economy.
Preying on the pre-existing racial prejudices, they have managed to channel the economic frustration of the masses to heighten instead racial sentiments which have crucial repercussions in the present sociopolitical trends in the country.
Facing populism head on through political means has seemed to only further embolden their cause. In the United States, imposing political correctness in public discourse has only become a further justification for the necessity of the populist cause while in Indonesia, banning Islamist organizations and criminalizing their leaders have only made them martyrs for a growing and expanding cause.
Fighting an economic phenomenon requires a commensurate economic response and to fight populism we must also ironically turn to populism, albeit in a different form, namely left-wing populism. This is the populist strand that gets things right, they understand the structural roots of populist discontent and seek to remedy them effectively.
Who are precisely these left-wing populists? They are people like Jeremy Corbyn in the United Kingdom, Jean-Luc Melenchon in France and Bernie Sanders in the United States. Rather than peddling identitarian politics based on racist predilections, they turn instead to narratives declaring a fight against an economic elite who continues their deliberate exploitation of the many.
They advocate broad-based socialist reforms that appear to be in stark contrast to the neoliberalism of the past. Higher tax to ensure proper redistribution of income, renegotiation and even abandonment of some free trade agreements, stricter regulations on the highly volatile banking sector, these are a few of the policies that left-wing populists espouse.Â
As for Indonesia, the government would do well to stem the rising tide of populism by abandoning their focus on only developing infrastructure and promoting foreign investment at all cost. Significant efforts must also be established to create a strong social safety net along with policies to ensure the proper redistribution of the gains from economic growth.
In conclusion, populism is, contrary to popular beliefs, first and foremost an economic phenomenon. It is a result of decades of policies that have only sacrificed the interests of the many for the benefit of the few. Correcting it is of the utmost necessity, given that populism if left unchecked will become an existential threat to the very survival of our political and economic democracy.
We must prepare to abandon the long-standing neoliberal paradigm and replace it instead with a new one that is both more inclusive and more equitable.
Oleh Faris Abdurrachman | Ilmu Ekonomi 2017 | Staff Kajian Kanopi 2018
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