A satirical note on the hunt for Indonesia’s forest-fire culprits, who are always somewhere else
Whenever the sky over Singapore turns from blue to a yellowish grey, the nations of Southeast Asia suddenly become philosophers. The question is always the same, and always a deep one: who, exactly, lit the fire? The most popular answer, which arrives faster than the findings of any investigation, is that the culprit must be someone else. Preferably someone who lives far away, so there is no risk of bumping into them at the corner café.
So in October 2026, when haze from southern Sumatra and Kalimantan once again drifted across to that tidy island state, a new rumour began circulating in family WhatsApp groups. Apparently, it said, many of the companies behind the fires were based in Singapore. The rumour had every ingredient that fast-spreading rumours like: a foreign party, a dash of irritation, and not a single link to a source. It was forwarded with three exclamation marks and a noble plea at the end: share before it gets deleted.
A Passport Nobody Ever Checks
Let us examine the rumour with the diligence of an immigration officer, for the truth, like an important visitor, ought to have its papers inspected. What actually happened is the reverse of the rumour. The Singapore government, through its environment agency, is investigating companies suspected of links to hotspots in Indonesia. Preliminary findings named seven companies, and eight senior executives representing ten companies were summoned to give explanations. Eight people representing ten companies is the sort of efficiency any bureaucracy might envy, though that was probably not what the summoners had in mind.
So those in Singapore are not the suspects but the investigators. Even so, this can still confuse us, because some of the companies under scrutiny do have ties to that country. Here the WhatsApp rumour found a small seed of truth, which it promptly grew into a tree of conclusions as tall as a mobile mast.
Ownership, Russian-Doll Style
The small seed of truth is this. The plantation business has mastered an art of ownership that resembles a set of Russian nesting dolls. On the outside sits an Indonesian company, a PT, where the plantations and mills are located. That PT is owned by a company ending in Pte Ltd in Singapore. That company is owned by a parent in a place whose name sounds like a honeymoon destination. The parent is owned by a foundation, and the foundation is owned by a man who, once every doll has been opened, turns out to live on a housing estate in South Jakarta, with fishing as his hobby.
In 2019, an Indonesian official explained something similar. According to him, a number of palm oil companies listed on the Singapore exchange were in fact owned by Indonesians. In other words, the smoke comes from Indonesia, the shares are traded in Singapore, the owners are Indonesian, and the coughing is shared out equally among everyone who breathes it in. It may be the only form of ASEAN economic integration that runs completely smoothly, free of non-tariff barriers.
As a wholly invented example, imagine PT Kabut Abadi Sejahtera Tbk. Its head office is in a glass tower whose air conditioning is so cold that its staff never learn that the sky outside is grey. Its shareholders are scattered across three countries and four time zones. The only party whose nationality cannot be determined is the smoke, and that is only because smoke has never applied for a passport.
The Shy Flame
We come now to the question that most tests common sense: who lit the fire? Here satire runs out of material, because reality has already been working hard. Fire, as understood in the long tradition of self-defence, is a shy creature. It never turns up when sought and always turns up when unwelcome. It seldom admits to being anyone’s delivery, preferring to describe itself as an uninvited guest that wandered over from the neighbouring plot.
A fictional spokesperson for PT Kabut Abadi Sejahtera would explain, with a concerned expression and a well-rehearsed tone, that the fire came from the neighbour’s land. The neighbour, through its own spokesperson, would explain that it came from the land next door. This chain of explanation carries on from concession to concession and village to village, until it arrives at a tract of forest that is administratively owned by a party named Nobody At All. We thereby learn that Nobody At All is the largest landowner in the republic, and also the most consistent suspect in the history of forest fires.
Unfortunately for the defenders of the shy flame, times have changed. Satellites cannot be negotiated with. They do not do pleasantries, accept coffee or care about family ties. They simply record that on such a date, at such coordinates, there was a hotspot, and then match it against the concession map. A map, as we know, is the most unfeeling document in the world after the electricity bill.
The Task Force: Cure for All Ills
Faced with a matter this complicated, two countries took a step typical of civilised nations: they formed a joint task force. In our part of the world such as Indonesia, the task force is a kind of talisman. If the problem is big, set up a task force. If it is very complicated, set up a task force with members from two countries. And if the problem has dragged on for years, give the task force an acronym that rolls nicely off the tongue at press conferences. Indonesia welcomed Singapore’s offer to share data, and here we must be fair: cooperation of this kind is progress, far better than lobbing protest notes at each other across the strait.
Still, it would be as well to remind the task force of one small thing. The people breathing the smoke are not spectators at a hearing. They are not waiting for two ministries to polish the wording of a joint statement. They are waiting for a sky they can see from the window, something that in some villages in Sumatra and Kalimantan has become a fond memory, like the sweets of childhood.
Meanwhile, the business owners have said they are ready to cooperate, which should of course be noted with a charitable presumption. Nothing is more heartening than a company willing to help investigate fires on land it manages. We can only hope the help is as sincere as their dismay at the damage to air quality, which surely plagues the directors too each time they drive to the office.
Those Who Always Know Their Nationality
Amid all this confusion over who belongs to which country, one party is never confused: the lungs. The lungs of a primary-school child in Palangkaraya, a market trader in Palembang and an office worker in Jurong West alike do not care which exchange a company is listed on. They know only one thing, which is that today’s air feels like breathing in exhaust fumes. N95 masks, for their part, work across borders without needing a visa.
Perhaps that is the lesson. Smoke carries no passport, but responsibility holds a double passport, even a triple one, and travels very well to everywhere except the address we are looking for. We can go on debating whether the culprit is from here or from there, a local company or a foreign parent, a corporation or Nobody At All. But good law does not ask whose passport is held; it asks who has a duty to keep that land from burning.
We must, of course, remain honest. The investigation is not finished, and until there is a ruling, no company should be branded guilty merely because its name appears in a headline or a WhatsApp group. The presumption of innocence applies even to companies whose land is smouldering. But that principle must not become a blanket for covering up the fact that every year we replay the same scene: fire, smoke, finger-pointing, meetings, a task force, and then the rain arrives and everyone quietly feels the matter is settled. Until the next dry season, when the same philosophical question is reopened: who lit that fire?
Note: this is satire. All characters and companies in it are invented, and any resemblance to real names is coincidental. The setting draws on reporting from October 2026 about the Singapore government’s investigation into companies suspected of links to forest and land fires (karhutla) in Indonesia, and the joint task force set up by the two countries. That investigation is still under way and has not produced a ruling against anyone.
A Reflection on Sumpah Pemuda, Indonesia’s Youth Pledge Day
Every year on 28 October, Indonesians pause to look back at a modest meeting hall in Batavia, the colonial city now known as Jakarta, in the year 1928. At that time the vast archipelago we now call Indonesia was still the Dutch East Indies, a colony ruled from the other side of the world. In that hall, young people from many different regional organisations sat side by side and discussed something that, in their day, sounded almost impossible: a single nation. They arrived with different organisational names, accents, customs and interests, yet they left with one pledge that would later become the foundation of the Indonesian republic. That pledge is known as Sumpah Pemuda, the Youth Pledge, and the day that commemorates it is Hari Sumpah Pemuda, or Youth Pledge Day. It is more than a date on the calendar. It is an invitation to look in the mirror and ask whether the promise made nearly a century ago is still alive in us today.
What is easily overlooked is that those young people were not working in comfortable circumstances. The colonial authorities kept a close watch on political gatherings, places to meet were limited, and the differences among the participants themselves were far from small. Groups such as Jong Java, Jong Sumatranen Bond, Jong Celebes and Jong Ambon each had a strong sense of regional pride, and it would have been very easy for each of them to stop at defending their own corner. Instead, they chose the opposite. They set aside part of their egos for the sake of something larger than themselves. Unity, in other words, did not come about because everyone became the same. It came about because people who were different were willing to move closer to one another.
The first reflection worth taking away from that event is that unity is the result of a decision, not a gift handed down by circumstance. We often imagine being Indonesian as something already finished, an inheritance to be enjoyed. Yet the young people of 1928 show that togetherness has to be worked at, tended and chosen again and again. Today, when differences of opinion so readily divide us online, the temptation to retreat into groups of like-minded people feels stronger than ever. Echo chambers that only ever connect us with people who think as we do widen the distance between fellow citizens. It is precisely here that the spirit of the Youth Pledge finds its most practical relevance: the courage to keep sitting at the same table as those with whom we disagree.
Language, too, holds a lesson of its own. At that congress, Indonesian, which grew out of the Malay language, was affirmed as the language of national unity. The decision deserves admiration because no large regional language was crowned the winner. By choosing a language that did not belong exclusively to one dominant ethnic group, the young delegates created a space that everyone could inhabit on equal terms. Bahasa Indonesia went on to become the bridge that allows a child from the far west of the archipelago and a child from the far east to understand one another. Those of us who use it every day often forget that this convenience is the fruit of an agreement that was far from easy to reach. Looking after the Indonesian language means using it well and with respect, without belittling the many regional languages that are part of the country’s wealth, and without feeling embarrassed about one’s own.
The next reflection concerns the meaning of youth itself. Many of the delegates at the Youth Congress were in their twenties, an age when most people are still busy arranging their own futures. Even so, they chose to think about a shared future. They did not wait to become officials; they did not wait for a title, and they did not insist on ideal conditions. They acted with what they had: a willingness to learn, an ability to organise, and a conviction that a good idea would eventually find its way. This matters a great deal for today’s generation, which has grown up with access to information and technology that its predecessors could scarcely have imagined. The question is no longer whether we have the tools, but what we choose to use them for. The smartphone in our hand can be a classroom and a workshop, but it can just as easily become an escape that consumes our time and draws our attention away from the problems around us.
It must also be admitted that the challenges facing young Indonesians today differ from those of the colonial era. The adversary is no longer a foreign ruler. It is something subtler, and it often hides within ourselves: apathy, the habit of sharing news without checking whether it is true, the ease with which we are provoked by sentiments that divide, and the urge to chase instant recognition without the patience that real achievement demands. There is also inequality of opportunity, which means that not every young person starts from the same line, as well as environmental problems that will be handed down to them. Giving meaning to independence demands far more perseverance than winning it did, because the struggle no longer comes with applause and spotlights. It takes place in quiet, everyday work.
For this reason, living out the Youth Pledge does not have to wait for a grand stage. It can be seen in small things: a university student who chooses to befriend someone from a very different background, a young employee who stays honest when honesty is costly, a social media user who hesitates before sharing something whose source is unclear, or a young person from a village who studies hard and then returns to bring new life to their home community. Actions like these may never make it into the history books, but it is from the accumulation of such small kindnesses that a nation becomes real. A country is not held up by grand speeches alone. It is held up by good habits practised consistently by millions of people.
One more thing deserves reflection, and that is humility towards history. We did not inherit Indonesia ready-made. Countless people whose names we do not know risked their time, their energy and even their safety so that we could live in an independent and sovereign state. We remember them not out of nostalgia, but in order to nurture a sense of responsibility. Someone who realises how much they have received from earlier generations will find it easier to feel a duty to give to the generations that follow. In that healthy sense of indebtedness, the Indonesian spirit of gotong royong, or mutual cooperation, finds its home.
In the end, the Youth Pledge is a promise, and a promise has meaning only when it is kept. Its three vows, to one homeland, one nation and one language, were never meant to remain sentences recited at ceremonies. They call for expression in conduct: loving one’s country by caring for it, respecting fellow citizens whatever their origins, and upholding the language of unity wholeheartedly. Perhaps the most honest question we can put to ourselves today is this: what have we done, however small, to keep that promise alive?
Happy Youth Pledge Day. May each of us, young and formerly young alike, stitch the promise of 1928 together again with fresh thread: honesty, compassion and the courage to work together for a fairer and more dignified Indonesia.
