[Indonesia] – While the protests seemed to begin with Ahok, a
Christian politician allegedly insulting the Koran (actually he was
criticizing his political opponents for using Koranic quotes to
attack him, but they of course took the opportunity to say he was
insulting Islam), but now, Indonesian political analysts say, the
protests have grown to become something else altogether, and
something much bigger. Unbeknownst to most of the angry protesters
themselves, over a dozen separate groups (both within and from
outside Indonesia) are secretly adding fuel to the protests to
serve their own individual agendas, whether it be destabilizing the
Indonesian government, or Jokowi’s political enemies using this
protest to target him specifically (Ahok is a close associate of
Jokowi) to weaken his power base, or extremist groups (both
domestic and foreign) trying to impose their own extremist agendas,
etc. So Ahok himself is really just a pawn, a puppet, a tool, and
it’s not really about him anymore. Things are seldom what they seem
to be, even if the majority fail to see through it.
