Let’s stop destroying our peace

I WATCHED the Reformasi demonstrations on TV in 1998, witnessing how citizens protested, first against an unjust incarceration and then broadening their calls to demand political reform. They began advocating for greater democracy, for a more just society rather than one in which a leader controlled the institutions of authority with an iron hand.

I heard that the burning of cars at these spectacles were attributed to “agent provocateurs” who were trying to paint the demonstrations as wild and dangerous.