The Undercover and the White Paper (1)

Silvio Berlusconi, former Prime Minister of Italy, faced repeated allegations about dubious academic qualifications. While his political influence and media empire allowed him to maintain power, these controversies sowed public doubt and eroded trust in institutions. Citizens questioned whether a leader’s authority was earned through merit or merely inherited through networks of influence, showing how credential integrity directly impacts democratic perception.

Statesmanship, or kenegarawanan in Indonesian, refers to the rare quality of leadership that transcends short-term interests and personal gain, aiming instead at the long-term stability, dignity, and moral direction of a nation. A statesman is not merely a politician; while politicians often concern themselves with winning elections or maintaining power, a statesman seeks to preserve the integrity of institutions, to unite rather than divide, and to act in ways that history will judge as principled rather than expedient. The concept rests on vision, wisdom, and the ability to take unpopular yet necessary decisions for the sake of future generations. True statesmanship is thus measured not only by achievements in office but by the legacy of trust and moral authority left behind.

A classic example is Nelson Mandela of South Africa. Mandela embodied true statesmanship by choosing the path of reconciliation over revenge after spending 27 years behind bars. He could have used his position as South Africa’s first Black president to exact political retribution against the Apartheid regime. Instead, he embraced his former adversaries, built symbols of unity, and prioritised a peaceful transition to democracy. His stance spared South Africa from a civil war that had seemed almost inevitable. That is the essence of statesmanship: placing the nation’s interests above personal wounds or short-term political calculations.

In Indonesia, one of the most striking examples can be found in Mohammad Hatta, the nation’s co-proclaimer of independence and its first Vice President. Hatta was renowned for his discipline, modesty, and unwavering commitment to the people above personal gain. He rejected luxury, even while holding one of the highest offices in the land. When he felt that government policies no longer aligned with the principles he held dear, Hatta stepped down honourably from the vice presidency in 1956—without spectacle, without clinging to power. His decision made clear that he viewed authority not as an end in itself, but as a means to serve the nation.

In the contemporary discourse of politics, the term statesmanship evokes a sense of dignity, moral clarity, and the ability to place the nation’s long-term welfare above short-term gains or personal ambitions. Nelson Mandela is often hailed as a global embodiment of this virtue: after twenty-seven years of imprisonment, he emerged not with a spirit of vengeance but with a vision of reconciliation that allowed South Africa to avoid the abyss of civil war. His greatness lay not merely in his oratory, but in his restraint, his magnanimity, and his refusal to let bitterness dictate policy. Similarly, Indonesia has its own figure in Mohammad Hatta, a man of modesty and principle, who was willing to relinquish his powerful office when it no longer aligned with his conscience. He showed that power should never be clung to for its own sake, but surrendered when its exercise no longer served the people.

By contrast, the present climate in Indonesia, where doubts over forged diplomas and dubious documents swirl around both father and son, reveals a dangerous departure from this higher ideal. When the legitimacy of leaders is repeatedly questioned not because of political opposition but because of unresolved matters of truth and authenticity, the very foundations of trust erode. In such an atmosphere, the grandeur of statesmanship is replaced by the pettiness of survival tactics, and dynastic succession becomes less a continuity of vision than a fragile inheritance propped up by suspicion. The true tragedy here is that, without the moral stature of statesmen, politics risks devolving into a theatre of paperwork scandals rather than a noble project of nation-building.

In any functioning democracy, statesmanship is the invisible glue that holds together institutions, public trust, and the legitimacy of decision-making. When leaders embody integrity, even those who disagree with their policies can still accept the authority of their office because it is grounded in credibility. Yet when allegations of falsified diplomas or questionable documents overshadow the narrative, the focus shifts from vision and governance to constant suspicion. Instead of debating policies, citizens begin debating whether their leaders are even qualified to govern, which is a far deeper wound to democracy. This kind of erosion weakens not only the presidency but also parliament, the judiciary, and the bureaucracy, for all of them appear complicit or helpless in the face of unresolved truths. Democracy then becomes a hollow shell, operating on procedure but lacking in spirit.

In Indonesia’s current context, the father-son dynamic intensifies this fragility. What might have been presented as continuity of leadership now risks being perceived as a hereditary project cloaked in legal uncertainty. If both the past president and the current vice president are hounded by similar suspicions, the narrative of dynastic strength quickly mutates into dynastic vulnerability. For young Indonesians observing this spectacle, the message is devastating: merit and honesty do not matter as much as connections and control. In such an environment, democracy risks becoming less a system of accountability and more a system of spectacle—where image management overshadows truth, and where politics survives not by moral clarity but by media manipulation.

True statesmanship has always been inseparable from education, not merely in the formal sense of diplomas but in the deeper sense of intellectual cultivation and moral discipline. A genuine leader recognises that knowledge is not a luxury but the very foundation upon which wise governance rests. When a statesman presents valid educational credentials, it is not simply a bureaucratic formality; it is a symbol that he or she has undergone the process of learning, testing, and proving competence. The diploma thus becomes more than a piece of paper: it is a visible pledge to the people that the leader’s authority is backed by preparation, not improvisation. Conversely, when doubts about such documents emerge, the image of statesmanship begins to crumble. Instead of embodying wisdom and honesty, the leader appears as an opportunist clinging to power, and the bridge of trust between ruler and people collapses. Education, therefore, is not only about personal advancement but also about public legitimacy, and without it, the very idea of statesmanship is reduced to hollow rhetoric.

One of the most telling historical examples lies in the story of John F. Kennedy. His education at Harvard was not simply a matter of prestige; it became an integral part of how Americans perceived him as a modern, intellectual, and capable leader during the Cold War. His academic background gave him credibility in moments of crisis, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, when calm reasoning and depth of knowledge prevented catastrophe. The diploma symbolised not just privilege, but a genuine intellectual preparation for statesmanship. In stark contrast, when leaders in other countries have been revealed to possess fraudulent or questionable academic records, the damage has been profound. It has often led to resignations, mass protests, and the collapse of public confidence. In such cases, the absence of genuine education undermined not only the individual but the stability of the entire political order. This shows that statesmanship, when divorced from authentic education, risks being nothing more than theatre without substance.

The book Jokowi Undercover stands as one of those curious artefacts in Indonesian political history, not because of the issue, but precisely because of the strength of the claim. Written by Bambang Tri Mulyono, it made a series of sweeping claims about President Joko Widodo's background, including allegations regarding his educational certificates and family origins. The very act of publishing them managed to ignite a nationwide controversy. The government responded swiftly at that time,  banning the book, claiming it spread falsehoods and threatened public order, while the author himself was later imprisoned.

Yet the episode raises a larger and more troubling question: where does one draw the line of freedom of expression? The defenders of the ban argued that a democratic society cannot tolerate slander masquerading as fact, while critics saw in the crackdown a dangerous precedent, one where the government could silence dissenting or inconvenient voices under the banner of fighting hoaxes. Thus, the book became less about its content—which was weak at best—and more about the symbolic battlefield of truth, power, and public discourse.

From a cultural perspective, the popularity of such texts illustrates a wider appetite for conspiracy theories in societies where distrust of elites runs deep. Many Indonesians, feeling alienated from the machinery of politics, find in these narratives a kind of alternative truth, however flimsy. In the end, Jokowi Undercover was a mirror reflecting anxieties, suspicions, and the fragile boundaries of democratic life in Indonesia.

Jokowi Undercover indeed gained a peculiar form of support, because it struck a chord with a segment of the public who were already suspicious of the sitting president. In any society where distrust of authority is high, even the flimsiest text can become a rallying point, for it does not need to prove anything; it only needs to echo the doubts already alive in the minds of its readers. The fact that the book appeared during Jokowi’s tenure made it far more dangerous to the state, not because of its factual accuracy, but because of its potential to destabilise legitimacy. By suppressing it, the government may have sought to preserve order, yet at the same time, it inadvertently confirmed the suspicion among supporters that there was something worth hiding.

In this way, the book was not merely a publication; it became an instrument in the political theatre of power and resistance. Supporters could claim it was silenced because it told the truth, while detractors, who were generally the buzzers, could dismiss it as a baseless provocation. The result was a paradox: the more the state tried to bury the book, the more alive it became in the underground imagination of its readers.

Under the Reformasi order, Indonesian politics was supposed to have entered an era of openness, transparency, and democratic pluralism. The fall of Suharto in 1998 was framed as the end of state censorship and the dawn of a society where ideas could be contested freely. Yet the episode of Jokowi Undercover revealed that certain reflexes of power remained intact. The decision to ban the book and imprison its author echoed the old authoritarian logic: that threats to legitimacy, however flimsy, must be neutralised swiftly. Apart from that, some people were prepared to complain to the police to criminalise the perpetrator, who was not necessarily guilty. While the tools of suppression were no longer as brutal or totalising as in the New Order, the instinct to silence dissent rather than engage it had clearly survived. In that sense, the Reformasi order has never entirely severed its ties with the politics of control—it merely reshaped them into subtler forms, clothed in the language of “anti-hoax” or “protecting democracy.”

The irony is that by resorting to this familiar tactic, the government risked undermining the very democratic legitimacy it sought to protect. Instead of demonstrating strength through dialogue, it appeared defensive, as though afraid of words printed on paper. This paradox haunts post-Suharto Indonesia: a state that proclaims democracy, but still panics when confronted by narratives it deems dangerous. In doing so, it preserves the spectre of authoritarianism within a democratic frame, reminding citizens that freedom of expression remains conditional and fragile.

From the perspective of public psychology, suppression often backfires. When a government silences a book, many ordinary citizens interpret this not as proof of falsehood, but as confirmation of its truth. The act of banning bestows upon the text a sense of forbidden knowledge, a tantalising allure that makes people want to read it more. In psychological terms, this is the “forbidden fruit” effect: scarcity and prohibition increase desire. Supporters of the book could now claim, with renewed conviction, that the system was afraid of exposure, thus transforming weak evidence into a myth of hidden truth.

This dynamic explains why conspiracy theories thrive in contexts of censorship and distrust. For those already alienated from the political class, every silenced voice appears as a martyr, every banned book as a coded revelation. Jokowi Undercover wasn't that powerful, but the harsh response from the government gave the book symbolic power and increased its popularity, becoming an underground legend in the public imagination.

In the long run, the Jokowi Undercover affair planted a deeper seed of distrust between the people and the state. Even if most Indonesians never read the book, the story of its banning became part of the collective memory: a reminder that the government still reacts to criticism with censorship rather than persuasion. This reinforces the belief that power is fragile, that it fears scrutiny, and that beneath the polished language of democracy lies the old instinct to control the narrative. The danger of this perception is not that people believe every conspiracy, but that they lose confidence in official truth altogether. When citizens suspect the state of hiding information, even honest communication risks being dismissed as propaganda.

The long-term impact, therefore, is a corrosion of trust. A government’s legitimacy in a democracy does not rest solely on elections, but on its ability to be seen as open, credible, and confident. When censorship becomes the tool of choice, legitimacy is weakened. Citizens begin to assume that uncomfortable truths are always being buried, and rumours take on greater power than facts. This dynamic is particularly dangerous in the digital age, where information flows freely through social media. What is silenced in print often resurfaces online, multiplied, distorted, and reimagined in ways beyond the state’s control.

Thus, the legacy of Jokowi Undercover is not the endurance of its claims, but the endurance of suspicion. It revealed how fragile the boundary is between governance and authoritarian reflexes in post-Reformasi Indonesia. Each time the state silences, it writes another chapter in the public’s book of doubt, and that book, unlike any publication, cannot be banned.

Populism in Indonesia thrives on the promise of closeness to the people, on the performance of simplicity, and on the narrative that the leader is one of “us” rather than one of “them.” Jokowi embodied this aesthetic better than most: the humble furniture seller turned president, the man in rolled-up sleeves who mingled with crowds. Yet the very popularity of such an image makes it fragile, for populism rests not on institutional strength but on personal trust. The Jokowi Undercover affair struck at the heart of this persona, not by disproving it with evidence, but by planting seeds of doubt about its authenticity. If the man’s biography could be questioned, then so too could the image carefully cultivated by his political machine.

In this way, the book collided with the politics of image-building. Modern Indonesian politics is saturated with self-branding: leaders are marketed like products, packaged in viral moments and polished narratives. But branding always has an Achilles’ heel—once the illusion of authenticity cracks, even slightly, it can never be fully restored. Jokowi Undercover fed into the broader anxiety that politics is not what it seems, that leaders are crafted characters rather than genuine selves. The government’s decision to suppress the book only reinforced this suspicion, for the more one protects an image, the less organic it appears.

The rise of populism and the persistence of conspiracy narratives thus feed each other. Populism offers a polished stage, while conspiracy supplies the hecklers who insist the performance is fake. The people, caught between admiration and suspicion, oscillate between applause and distrust. In the end, Jokowi Undercover did not topple Jokowi, but it exposed the vulnerability of a political style dependent on image rather than institutional trust. The lesson is clear: populism may win elections, but it leaves democracy brittle, for it builds loyalty around a man, not a system.

Across the world, the story of Jokowi Undercover is hardly unique. Democracies everywhere are experiencing a crisis of trust, in which populist leaders rise on carefully crafted images, and conspiracy theories flourish as counter-narratives. In the United States, for instance, Barack Obama’s presidency was shadowed by the “birther” conspiracy, which questioned his birthplace and legitimacy—claims as baseless as those in Jokowi Undercover, yet powerful enough to shape political discourse. In Europe, populist figures from Hungary’s Viktor Orbán to Italy’s Matteo Salvini present themselves as men of the people, only to find that their image-making also attracts suspicion and scepticism. The common thread is this: the stronger the political reliance on image, the easier it is for conspiracies to puncture it.

The digital age amplifies this dynamic. Social media does not simply spread information; it multiplies doubts, creating echo chambers where suspicions harden into convictions. When a government censors, the global pattern is the same: far from killing the rumour, censorship immortalises it. Citizens begin to assume that elites everywhere are hiding something, whether it is Obama’s birth certificate, Jokowi’s diploma, or the finances of European technocrats. What emerges is not just distrust of a particular leader, but a more corrosive distrust of democracy itself.

Thus, Jokowi Undercover belongs to a wider family of conspiratorial texts that thrive under conditions of populism and polarisation. It shows how vulnerable democracies are when trust is built not on strong institutions, but on the charisma of individuals. Once that charisma is questioned, even with flimsy evidence, a crack appears in the façade of legitimacy. And once that crack is visible, rumours will always find a way to seep through.

Truth in politics is never merely about facts; it is about the fragile contract between rulers and the ruled, about what people are willing to accept as real. Power, therefore, is not sustained by evidence alone, but by the performance of credibility. When that credibility is doubted, as in the case of Jokowi Undercover, the struggle ceases to be about documents and becomes about imagination. The people are not only weighing what is true or false; they are projecting their fears, suspicions, and hopes onto the canvas of politics. In this sense, conspiracy theories are not aberrations but distorted expressions of a deeper hunger: the desire to make sense of power that feels distant and unaccountable.

This is why censorship so often fails. By trying to silence a narrative, power forgets that human beings are not passive consumers of truth; they are storytellers. When denied an official explanation they can trust, they invent alternative ones. The imagination fills the void left by silence. And in that void, even the weakest rumour can become a powerful myth. Philosophy reminds us that myths are not simply lies; they are vessels of meaning, ways of making chaos comprehensible. The danger, however, is that when myths replace facts entirely, democracy becomes a theatre where truth no longer matters, only narratives do.

The lesson of Jokowi Undercover, then, is profoundly philosophical: truth in politics must be nurtured through trust, not enforced through suppression. A democracy survives not by silencing suspicion, but by engaging it openly, showing strength not in hiding but in answering. Otherwise, every attempt to bury doubt only plants it deeper, until the soil of the public mind is fertile only for suspicion. In the end, what is at stake is not just the fate of one leader or one book, but the very possibility of a shared reality upon which democratic life depends.

[Part 2]

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