UNS – Aufa Rida Fortuna, a student of University of Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta concerns the process of democracy in Indonesia. She thinks that the democratic system in Indonesia has not ideal yet. She highlighted a phenomenon of hate speeches on social media, especially those which were related to general elections and the presidential election.
“There is no bold line yet regarding who really has a responsibility to overcome the problems that come along with the process of democracy in Indonesia, one of them which popped up on social media. The proof was a bunch of hate speeches in Indonesia at that time. But all this time, the responses to those issues are just blocking the account. Even though there should be fact-checking as a filter,” said this student of Law Department year of 2017.
Based on this restlessness, Aufa was determined to study more about democracy and its implementation. One of her plans is by joining an international forum for democratic countries. She was elected as the Indonesian delegation in the 2019 World Forum for Democracy at the Palais del’Europe, Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France, on November 4-8, 2019.
On this occasion, Aufa also met the Secretary-General of Council of Europe, Marija Pejčinović Burić, to discuss the democracy and political direction of Europe and Asia. She also portrayed the idea and perspective of (former) Minister of Foreign Affairs, Retno Marsudi.
“The point is emphasizing that Indonesia fully supports democracy and corruption eradication. I also talked about democracy in the protection of journalists and the government’s roles about social control in a democratic country, then the democracy limitations in the context of defending human rights,” she added.
Many startling and inspiring experiences were gained by this hijab girl. Her meeting with many figures led her to a valuable discussion and learning. One of the most memorable things was her meeting with Mr. Matthew Caruana Galizia, an Investigator Journalist from Malta. Matthew inspires Aufa to be always passionate in corruption eradication.
“Matthew’s mother and sister died caused by assassination. At that time, Matthew was investigating a corruption case. Then, the issues turned out to be complicated. It inspires me to be more excited about fighting corruption in Indonesia,” she said.
From this forum, Aufa understood that there were still many complex problems in the implementation of democracy system in each country. This could be her topic issue in writing a research paper or conducting a forum of discussion in Indonesia.
“At there, I found that all the elements of society have their own role for example, the Non-Government Organization (NGO). The government can collaborate or ask for NGOs to establish a school curriculum. Then, related to hoaxes and hatred, the forum called on the democratic countries to develop a fact-checking system. Whether it is from the government or the company of the social media platform. But it does not mean to block the account directly,” she explained.
World Forum for Democracy is an annual forum held in Strasbourg, France to discuss the complex problems that challenge democratic countries and require innovation in democracy. The forum was organized by the Council of Europe which facilitates the citizens, government, industry, academics, journalists/media, writers, and even cartoonists.
One of the reasons for Aufa became a delegation in the forum is the support from UNS International Office through the UNS Global Challenge Batch II scholarship program in 2019.
“The UNS Global Challenge is a real proof that UNS is preparing for World Class University,” she added. Humas UNS/Kaffa/Try