The Insider Specialists

Notes from a Coffee Shop on House Keys and the Map of One’s Own Fate

That morning, at my regular coffee shop, a retired gentleman opened the conversation with a sentence that sounded like a brand-new proverb: they used to say they were loyal. We all nodded, for the word is uttered very often, especially by those most skilled at hiding another meaning behind their words. It turns out, said the old man as he sipped his black coffee, that their definition of loyalty is rather unusual. I wrote it down carefully, because a good morning coffee always goes best with a new dictionary.

According to the dictionary we were compiling on that wooden table, loyalty does not mean guarding the house, but memorising where all the house keys are kept. Loyalty does not mean protecting one’s superior, but knowing what is in the superior’s drawer before the superior has opened it. Loyalty does not mean serving the nation, but serving a network of friends, as though the republic were merely a WhatsApp group of power alumni, complete with an admin who never leaves and members who keep sending each other applause stickers. The news circulating lately, about alleged wiretapping of the nation’s highest office, makes the dictionary feel all the more relevant. Of course, everyone concerned remains a suspect, so the presumption of innocence must still be upheld. But satire need not wait for a verdict to ask about patterns, and this pattern is far too interesting to ignore.

What is funny about the insider specialists is the way they walk while power is still close at hand. They stride upright like owners of the future, greeting people with smiles that seem to hold a decree for the next five terms. But when the spotlight swings elsewhere, they suddenly all become victims of circumstance. Nobody was at the wheel. Nobody gave any orders. Nobody knew anything. Yet only yesterday their steps were so confident, as though history were written by the phone numbers saved in their personal contacts. The people naturally wonder: if nobody was at the wheel, who has been driving this great bus called power all the way to such a distant place?

Looking back at history, the insider specialist turns out not to be an invention of the WhatsApp age. Two thousand years ago in Rome, a man named Sejanus, commander of the Praetorian Guard, the troops who protected the emperor, was a powerful insider. Emperor Tiberius trusted him so completely that he is said to have called him his partner in toil, and when the emperor withdrew to the island of Capri in the year 26, the running of the government was entrusted to him. He became the most influential and most feared man in the city, even holding the consulship in the year 31. Then, in October of that same year, a letter from Tiberius was read out in the Senate. That very day Sejanus was arrested and put to death, his body thrown down the Gemonian stairs, and his post handed to another man who, naturally, swore to be loyal. Some of the charges against him, such as poisoning the emperor’s son, were raised only long after the events, so historians do not always agree on the details. But one thing is plain: a ruler’s unlimited trust is the kind of capital that evaporates fastest.

Moving to Seoul in 1979, the story grows darker. Kim Jae-gyu, head of the KCIA intelligence agency, had graduated from the military academy in the same year as President Park Chung-hee and is described in many accounts as one of his closest friends. On 26 October that year, at a dinner in a safe house belonging to his own agency, he shot the President dead. The agency had long been known for using wiretapping, arrests and torture without court orders against the regime’s opponents. In the run-up to the event, rumours circulated that he would soon be replaced, while his rivalry with the president’s chief bodyguard grew ever hotter. He was hanged in May 1980. The story teaches something bitter about instruments of surveillance: they are built to watch other people, but in the end they often become weapons pointing back at their makers.

In Peru, the story reads more like a drama of recordings. Vladimiro Montesinos was the de facto head of the intelligence service under President Fujimori, a man who worked behind the scenes for almost ten years. He recorded hundreds of videos of his own meetings, including scenes of himself bribing opposition politicians, and when one of those videos was broadcast in 2000, the scandal brought down Fujimori’s government. The irony is that the President was later convicted of channelling nearly fifteen million dollars of public money to his intelligence chief as a farewell bonus, while Montesinos is said to have once planned an unsuccessful coup against his own superior. He himself ended up in prison facing dozens of cases. From Lima we learn that a person who keeps secret recordings of his superior as a life policy is building insurance whose final premium is paid by everyone, including the superior.

In Turkey, the story is more complicated and has no single agreed version. From around 2013 to 2015, dozens of police officers, including senior officers, were detained over alleged spying on and wiretapping of Prime Minister Erdoğan and his inner circle. The government blamed a network linked to Fethullah Gülen, a former ally of Erdoğan whose followers held important posts in the police and the judiciary. Wiretap recordings leaked onto the internet, three ministers resigned, and Erdoğan called the whole affair a coup attempt, then removed thousands of police officers, judges and prosecutors. Those accused denied it. The police officers said the arrests were politically motivated, and Gülen denied plotting anything. Two versions, two truths, and one lesson: in cases like this the word traitor changes hands very easily, and the truth often gets tapped along with the conversation.

Then there is Washington, which offers a different point of view. Mark Felt, the second-ranking official at the FBI under Nixon, was later revealed to be “Deep Throat”, the secret source who helped the Washington Post expose the Watergate scandal until Nixon resigned in 1974. His identity came out only thirty years later, when he himself was frail with age. He is said to have hoped earlier to succeed Hoover as FBI director, only to be passed over by Nixon. Some call him a courageous leaker who exposed the wrongdoing of those in power; others see personal ambition behind it. The case matters because it shows that an insider’s leak can be labelled treason or heroism, depending on what it exposes and how strong the evidence is. Motive and evidence therefore matter more than the label.

And finally, there is a story from the opposite side: the insider who was too obedient. In December 2024, President Yoon Suk-yeol of South Korea declared martial law. In February 2026, a court of first instance sentenced him to life imprisonment on charges of leading an insurrection, even though the special prosecutor had asked for the death penalty. His defence minister was sentenced to thirty years, his national police chief to twelve, and several other officials received varying terms, while two defendants were acquitted because evidence of criminal intent was insufficient. The judge held that these officials had a duty to refuse unlawful orders. The lesson is clear for those who think blind loyalty is a shield: being loyal to a person does not erase the duty to be loyal to the Constitution. Another lesson is no less important: even in the gravest of cases, the court weighed each defendant one by one, separating the guilty from those for whom evidence fell short, and did not impose the heaviest penalty merely because it was demanded, let alone because of cheering outside the courthouse.

From Rome to Seoul, from Lima to Ankara, the script sounds much the same even as the actors change. First, allies can turn into enemies at a speed never calculated in any cooperation proposal. Closeness to a ruler is never an insurance policy, least of all for those who hold the keys, the drawers and the recordings. Second, people who know too much live in perpetual danger, both for their superiors and for themselves, because knowledge unsupervised by law quickly turns into a bargaining chip. Third, traitor is a heavy word that is easily abused. The Turkish case and the story of Felt remind us that the label must be proved in a fair court rather than merely shouted, for today it is used to punish the guilty and tomorrow it may be used to cleanse political rivals.

Fourth, what ultimately saves a country is not loyalty to persons but the strength of institutions. South Korea’s courts were able to try a president, ministers and a police chief together, and Peru eventually tried its intelligence chief and its president in separate proceedings. A strong institution does not depend on who happens to be close to the ruler. Fifth, this comparison has its limits. The case in our own country is still running; the person concerned still has the status of a suspect, and officials themselves have not been unanimous about whether to call it treason or not. For that reason, this satire does not claim that his fate will surely be that of Sejanus or Kim Jae-gyu. It says only that history likes to repeat the same script to those who refuse to read it.

Back in our own country, Indonesia, whether such conduct deserves to be called treason or should be classed as some other criminal offence, I leave to legal experts and the courts. It is said that even among officials the terminology is disputed. A coffee shop has no judge’s gavel, only a small spoon that clinks against the rim of a glass. All we have is a simple hope: that this matter will be investigated thoroughly, openly and fairly, from source to outflow, without fear or favour and without regard to who appears in the family photo. If guilt is proved, let the law speak in due measure. If it is not, let the law itself clear the name. That is what the law is for: it must be higher than no one, but it must be lower than no one either.

The irony is that they may have lived too long in the world of insiders, until they forgot that in a democracy there is no insider higher than the law. They imagined that loyalty could be inherited like furniture. They imagined that influence was eternal like an inscription. They imagined that closeness to one ruler could serve as insurance against the next, complete with a policy whose expiry date nobody ever checked. The history of politics is always cruel to arrogance of that kind. It likes to remind us that the seat of power is not nailed to the floor. Today you whisper in the ruler’s ear; tomorrow you sit in the interview chair.

And the people can only laugh bitterly, as bitterly as the coffee without sugar on our table. Well done, said the retired gentleman: for years you were busy mapping other people’s strength, only to fail to read the map of your own fate. That is the classic tragedy of the players behind the stage. They were so sure they controlled the story that they forgot that in the end they too can become minor characters written out of the script. The true author of the script, in a democracy, is not a handful of people in a closed room but the law, the constitution, and the people, who in the end always come to watch, bringing their own coffee.

We also did not forget to leave one important note in the margin of that dictionary. This satire is aimed at the culture of insiders: the habit of treating power as personal property, a network of friends as a state institution, and closeness as immunity. It is not aimed at the President, who is in fact the one who needs our support so that this country can keep running on the right track. A leader surrounded by too many insiders does need extra vigilance, and that vigilance is best helped by support, prayer and healthy public oversight, not by whispers behind the stage.

The coffee in my glass was down to its grounds when that morning’s conversation ended. I went home with one simple conclusion: this country does not need more insider specialists, but more citizens who believe that the law applies to everyone, from the coffee shop to the highest office. May Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala always protect President Prabowo Subianto, keep him healthy and safe, and strengthen him to lead this country with justice and trustworthiness. Amen, O Lord of the world.

Bahasa

Three Fingers and the Family Tree

Notes from a Coffee Shop That Suddenly Became a Court of Public Opinion

That morning I ordered my coffee at my regular stall and, without thinking, held up three fingers: three cups, one for me and two for friends who were on their way. The seller stared at my hand for rather a long moment, then chuckled and said that we all have to be careful these days, because three fingers can be read in all sorts of ways. I laughed along, but my laughter tasted like coffee left too long on the table: still warm on the surface, yet already turning bitter at the bottom. Times, it seems, have changed. The fingers that once counted cups, counted instalments, or signalled third place in a greasy-pole climbing contest now carry a political meaning their owners never asked for.

It all began with news that has spread far and wide, no longer mere hearsay: those relatives of the President’s envoy, well known as a figure from the entertainment world, is reported to hold public offices. I have no intention of passing judgement on anyone, for verdicts are the business of courts and proof, not of a cup of coffee. But this piece may fairly ask about the pattern, and about the impression left in many minds when the doors to public office seem to open more easily for those who happen to have stood close together in the same family photograph. This country is certainly creative. Once, people sent in a CV; now it is enough to send a pedigree. On the vacancy noticeboard it is written that education, experience and competence will be given priority, but in the bottom corner there is a small note, almost too faint to read: family connections may speed up the reading of applications.

The public has begun to suspect that the family tree has been converted into the organisation chart of the state. Children used to be asked to draw their family trees as a school assignment, and went home with good marks for colouring the leaves neatly. Now some citizens look at the very same drawing and see a national career guide. One relative becomes a minister, another a commissioner, another heads an agency, and yet another sits in parliament, and the people ask, quite innocently: is this a large family or a holding company? Meanwhile ordinary people busy themselves sharpening their skills, attending training courses and collecting certificates until the folders will no longer fit in the cupboard. Some others, it seems, are more diligent in collecting photographs taken at official events. Each time a new appointment is announced, people no longer reach for the CV; they leaf through the photo album instead. Not because the appointee is necessarily unsuited to the job, but because the public wants to be sure that what is at work is competence, not connections.

What I find most entertaining in this whole performance is the pattern of the explanations. Imagine a conversation on the porch of a village hall. The people ask why so many important posts are filled by people who are close to one another. The authorities reply that it is a coincidence. The people ask about that one, and the authorities answer that it, too, is a coincidence. When the people point to yet another, the authorities calmly insist that this is still a coincidence. At that point the people stop demanding transparency and start asking for lessons in statistics. Our ancestors once worshipped the god of rain, the god of the sea and the god of the harvest. Now a new deity has arisen, a most powerful one, called the God of Coincidence. Whenever a family member turns up in a strategic post, he steps in. Whenever a conflict of interest looks suspicious, he works overtime. And whenever the people begin to ask questions, the court priests say: do not be cynical, this is a miracle of coincidence.

I am reminded of a fairy tale about a kingdom whose tower rose very high. Its people busied themselves building ladders to reach the summit of power. They studied, they worked, they competed, and they slipped on slippery rungs. Then one day they realised that some of the tower’s residents had been going up in a lift that ran straight from the family dining room. The people were not angry that there was a lift. They merely asked why the official handbook still told everyone to bring their own ladder. That, in the end, is the difference between meritocracy and nepotism. In a meritocracy, achievement opens the door, and people ask what you have done. In nepotism, the door is already open before achievement arrives, and people ask whose relative you are. This country teaches that everyone has an equal chance to succeed; it is just that some people happen to start the race from the same living room as the organisers.

It is hardly surprising, then, that three fingers are now raised everywhere, from social media walls to the tables of coffee shops. Celebrities used to compete to gather fans. Now some must face the fact that fans can evolve into demonstrators, and that calls for a boycott travel faster than any press release of clarification. Sociologists may call it a political phenomenon; netizens call it the latest feature of democracy. In the digital age, reputation does indeed move faster than an official car. An appointment may be announced at a press conference, but the court of public opinion sits twenty-four hours a day on the timeline, with no days off and no overtime pay. The interesting thing is that the more people explain that everything is perfectly fine, the more people feel the need to raise three fingers a little higher. When one person raises them, it is expression. When ten do, it is protest. When thousands do, it is a sign that the official explanation has failed to convince anyone that all of this is merely coincidence.

Some of the elite, as usual, are busy counting who set the crowds in motion. The people, meanwhile, are counting something far simpler: how many public seats appear to go round and round within the same circle of names. The people do not demand perfection. They merely have a chronic allergy to the impression that one family has access to too many doors that ought to be opened through fair competition. A tree, as our elders say, is a fine place to shelter, but it is not meant to be used as a ladder to a seat of office.

The coffee in my glass had gone cold by the time I finished thinking all this through, and, as ever, it remained a faithful and honest witness. It has kept company with people recalculating their monthly outgoings, with students pulling all-nighters over their dissertations while imagining a fairer future, and with job-seekers waiting for an interview call with a patience that borders on the unreasonable. For them, the morning coffee is not merely a drink but the fuel of a hope that hard work is still worth something. So what I most look forward to hearing from those in power is not a grand promise but one simple sentence that answers this unease: that public office will go to whoever is most able to serve, not to whoever stood closest when the family photograph was taken.

I have named no one in these notes, and there is no need to. Good satire criticises practices, not persons. Family ties ought to be a private matter, whereas what belongs to the public is achievement, track record and accountability. If any reader knows at once who is meant, perhaps that is not because this piece is too sharp, but because the news itself is already far too bright. And for as long as the CV is still outread by the family tree, do not be surprised if those three fingers keep rising, until the day public office is once again opened to those who bring their own ladders.

Bahasa