Bali Regular Offers Almost Comically Inaccurate Explanation As To Why Indonesia Is Currently Rioting

CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT

An Australian expat based in the spiritual Balinese town of Ubud has today provided her friends back home with updates on the civil unrest currently permeating through Indonesia.

It’s the type on local knowledge that you could only attain if you were ‘in the thick of it’ as an Australian e-commerce professional working off a laptop in a luxury two bedroom Villa built by Sumatran migrants in the only Hindu-majority settlement within predominantly Muslim archipelago of 17,000 Islands.

“This always happens” says Maple Islington (32), who has lived in Bali for 18 months.

“There’s a lot of tensions between the different religions because there’s so many people and education is a problem”

“A lot of these people still live without electricity. It’s kind of beautiful in a way”

While not actually providing any solid explanation for the riots that have been taking place in the major centres across the South-East Asian republic of 280 million people, Maple does offer some clear insights into the experiences of Australian digital nomads who take in very little when it comes to the history or politics of Indonesia.

The riots started earlier last week in Jakarta after explosive media reports that government MPs were receiving a housing allowance of 50 million rupiah ($4,739) per month for their short stays in the capital.

This comes to about 20 times the monthly minimum wage in impoverished regional areas.

With Indonesia experiencing a cost-of-living crisis of their own, and a well-documented history of revolutions and resistance, this news has spared a powder-keg amongst angry young people who are struggling to make a life for themselves in a country plagued by extreme class disparity.

After weeks of escalating violence, Indonesian youth are now rubbing toothpaste under their eyes, as a low-fi tactic to limit the effects of the tear gas rounds being fired at them by police.

Maple, who is seriously thinking of relocating to this ever-sprawling tourist hub permanently, says it’s so sad that the people can’t get along – and wonders how the nation’s most exploited working underclass could be so angry when they are literally living in paradise.