Grounds for Remembrance

Notes from the corner table of a warung on the dregs nobody wants to rinse away

I sit at the corner table, my regular spot since this warung, a roadside coffee stall, still had a corrugated tin roof. On Monday afternoon, 9 November 2026, my black coffee steams beside a plate of half-eaten fritters, while a small radio on the shelf trails off into the echo of commemorative speeches. Eighty-one years ago, the British gave Surabaya until six in the morning to surrender, and the city refused. The British side (represented by Major General E.C. Mansergh) issued an ultimatum on November 9, 1945. The ultimatum demanded that all leaders, armed Indonesians, and resistance groups in Surabaya surrender and lay down their weapons no later than 6:00 a.m. on November 10, 1945. As the people of Surabaya rejected the ultimatum, a major battle broke out the following day.

The fighting rumbled on for roughly three weeks. I look at my glass and reflect that independence resembles this coffee: the beans picked by other hands, roasted over a fire that was never mine, and delivered to me needing only hot water. A warung like this teaches that the most durable history lessons are often left in the keeping of everyday things.

Sugar, as ever, arrives before the coffee does. It is the part that dissolves fastest: the nationwide flag ceremony at eight o’clock, the minute of silence, and this year’s theme from the Indonesian Ministry of Social Affairs, “My Hero, My Example: Stepping Together, Continuing the Struggle” (my own translation), complete with a downloadable logo for banners and social-media frames. The East Java provincial government made its Trans Jatim (East Java) buses free for the day, Luxury class excepted; evidently even fighting spirit has a comfort threshold. I call all this sweet without any wish to sneer, for shared memory does need tending, and nobody boarding a free bus is being hoodwinked. It is merely a matter of measure. One spoonful makes coffee agreeable; ten make us forget what we ordered.

At the next table, three men in office batik are arguing about time off. One cites Presidential Decree No. 316 of 1959, dated 16 December 1959, which classes 10 November as a national day that is not a public holiday. The offices stay open, he says, so carrying on the struggle means turning up for work. His friend replies that they happen to be carrying it on at the warung, while postponing a meeting. They burst out laughing, and so do I, because laughter of that sort is often more honest than the headteacher’s address at assembly.

Near the door, an app-based motorbike taxi rider and a banana-fritter seller share a cigarette while counting the days. Neither mentions the theme or the index; what they discuss is the price of cooking oil and fares that never seem to rise. A hero, for them, may be the mother who leaves before dawn so her children can have breakfast. I note that even the most fluent speech sounds off-key if it never reaches the kitchens of people like them, and that people like them, conversely, are rarely given a seat when the speech is drafted.

What is left on my plate is a fritter whose batter is thicker than its vegetables. I cannot help comparing it with our ceremonies: crisp outside, hollow within. The Ministry of Social Affairs has put forward eighteen names for national hero status this year. According to the minister, the list passes through the Title Council before reaching the President, and the conferral was scheduled for about four this afternoon. By the time my coffee went cold I had found no official word that it had taken place, so treat it as a plan for now. The procedure exists and is lawful. All the public might fairly ask is that the reasoning be open, so that the honour does not resemble a buffet: plenty to choose from, little explanation.

The middle table is occupied by two students whose laptop screens outshine the warung’s bulb. One of them reads out figures from Transparency International. The Corruption Perceptions Index for 2025, published on 10 February 2026, puts Indonesia on 34 out of 100 and 109th among 180 countries. A year earlier the score was 37, at 99th. A presidential regulation of 2025 (No. 12) set a target of 38 for that year, so the shortfall is four points. Here are our grounds: invisible on the surface of the glass, settled at the bottom, noticed only with the final sip. Transparency International Indonesia links the slide to weakening independence at the anti-corruption commission, the KPK, while the KPK itself calls it a prompt for self-reflection. That is an organisation’s assessment, not a court verdict, and its causes remain open to debate. His friend, fonder of sipping than of counting, asks whether a figure like that can be eaten.

The defence deserves a hearing too. The index records the perceptions of experts and business people, not the number of cases handled, so its method may be contested. Yet perception is the price paid when trust thins, and it is borne by anyone who relies on things running smoothly. Besides, the dregs do not settle only in officials’ glasses. This morning I put up a social-media frame; at lunchtime I slipped fifty thousand rupiah to hurry a file along. Some of those grounds are mine. Government is hardly idle either: setting that target at all shows an intention to improve, and good intentions deserve a note before the results are demanded.

The way out is simple, if not easy. Government could publish comparison data along with a progress report on that target of 38, so that the argument moves from wounded pride to figures. The watchdogs and the honours process should be kept transparent, since independence and openness are both capital for trust. We drinkers can begin at our own table: asking for receipts, refusing favours, reporting through official channels. And next year’s ceremony might lose five minutes to a performance report read aloud. All of it is small, admittedly, but good coffee also comes from beans picked one at a time.

The woman who runs the warung comes to clear my plate. At the bottom of the glass, black grounds have gathered like small notes that never made it to the podium. I stir once; they swirl upward, then slowly settle again. Dregs never leave of their own accord. Someone has to be willing to wash the glass, and this evening I decide that someone is me, not “them”.

To conclude the presentation, let us turn our attention to Manowar’s rousing track "Heart of Steel", an iconic anthem that celebrates unyielding resilience, unflinching bravery, and an iron determination to overcome every adversity life presents. 

Bahasa

Justice Need No Pose

Notes from a Coffee Shop on the Distance That Ought to Be Kept Between the Green Baize and the Camera Phone

My regular coffee shop has one unwritten rule: customers may stare at their phone screens only after their coffee has arrived. That morning the rule was broken by every table at once, because a video was passing from hand to hand. It showed a group of people said to be prosecutors, standing close to a witness, with phone lenses trained on them in the spirit of souvenir hunters. Some viewers swore they had seen a wink. Others said it must have been courtroom dust. I stirred my coffee and reflected that dust, in the history of the judiciary, has never yet been admitted as evidence.

The facts, at least according to the reports, were these. On Thursday, 5 November 2026, the East Jakarta District Court heard the case of two defendants, Roy Suryo and Tifauzia Tyassuma (dr. Tifa), who are charged with slander and defamation of the seventh President, Joko Widodo, over allegations that his diploma was forged. The former president attended as a witness. After the hearing broke up, a video circulated that was said to show several prosecutors posing for photographs with him. I should say frankly that I did not witness it myself. In the reports I read, there was no official explanation from the Prosecution Service about it either.

The first reaction came from dr. Tifa, one of the defendants, who called the matter serious, cited Prosecution Service Regulation No. 4 of 2024 on the Code of Conduct for Prosecutors, and said she intended to report it. A careful observer will naturally note that the loudest critic is a party on trial, and anyone with a stake is reasonably suspected of bringing an interest. But a criticism is not wrong merely because the person voicing it sits in the dock. The question she raised stands on its own, and its answer does not depend on who asks.

The question is not whether the prosecutors were taking sides. To conclude that, one needs far heavier proof than a photograph, and a photograph can be taken for a thousand reasons invisible from outside. The question is far simpler and far older: is it fitting for prosecutors handling a major case to pose side by side with one of the interested parties in it? A classic maxim of the English-speaking legal world holds that justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done. Its meaning is plain: what is guarded is not only the truth inside one's own head, but also the trust inside other people's.

The best analogy I found in this very coffee shop. Picture a village football match. The referee may be honest to the bone, but if at half-time he is caught embracing the home side's goal scorer and smiling for a photograph, the spectators will not wait for the second whistle before they start to whisper. They do not accuse him of cheating; they merely ask why the warmth could not wait until full time. The scales in a coffee shop are the same. An honest seller need not shun his customers, but he takes care that nobody can imagine his finger pressing down on one side.

Of course, some will say it was merely documentation. A former president is not easily refused; anyone standing near him is likely to want to capture the moment, and a smile in front of a camera is no criminal offence. That defence is reasonable and deserves a respectful hearing. Yet precisely because the case has drawn national attention, and because every party is beset by suspicion, the standard of ethical caution ought to rise a notch, not drop. In a trivial case, a group photograph yields only a photograph. In a case watched by millions, it can yield interpretations, and interpretations, in a country fond of reading winks, grow faster than a pile of case files.

The irony is that the courtroom that day was already rich in drama without any need for a photo session. A defendant burst out laughing when the certificates were displayed. A lawyer and a prosecutor shouted at each other until the judge had to adjourn the hearing. A question with little bearing on the main case was put, and the witness objected. Amid all this, I thought, the one party that ought to look entirely calm, flat and dull is the prosecution, since dullness is the sign of an institution working by procedure, not by spotlight. The role of celebrity was already crowded in that hall, and the stage had no room for more extras.

So the strongest criticism of this episode, in my view, is not an accusation that the prosecutors were partial, but a judgement that the act did too little to protect the appearance of impartiality, the capital of trust bequeathed to every legal institution. Formal authority makes an institution powerful, but trust makes it respected, and trust, like coffee grounds, settles easily and is hard to lift. Once it is eroded, every later step, even a truly correct one, will be read with suspicious eyes. Whether this breaches the code of conduct or not is a matter for official examination through the proper channels, not for comment at a coffee-shop table or in the replies beneath a post.

That evening I finished my coffee and put away my phone in a muddle of feelings. I do not know what happened behind the scenes, and have no wish to guess. What I do know is that the cheapest remedy for a problem of this kind needs scarcely any new regulation: keep the camera in the pocket until the verdict is read, and let the courtroom be a little dull. The judge's gavel need sound only once, and the phone's shutter can wait until everyone has gone home. For justice, like good coffee, needs no pose to be enjoyed. It needs only to arrive as it is, properly measured, and favouring no one who happens to hold the spoon.

Bahasa