Om toleran Om: four Indonesian reflections on digital heterosexism

Abstract

Beginning in January 2016, an unprecedented series of anti-LGBT events took place in Indonesia, the fourth most populous nation (after China, India, and the United States) and home to more Muslims than any other country. These events were notable for the pivotal role of digital media in their articulation and dissemination. In this article, I develop the notions of ‘digital heterosexism’ and ‘digital exclusionary populism’ to reflect on how these anti-LGBT events relate to earlier dynamics of oppression in the archipelago, and their possible consequences for Indonesia’s future. I focus on the shifting implications of media for subjectivity, community, and inequality – in the country that was a model for the notion of ‘imagined community’. Through these reflections, I seek to illuminate continuity and discontinuity with regard to media and culture change.