Radityo Dharmaputra and Ananda Caesar – A familiar divisive rhetoric has emerged in Indonesian political conversations. Protests are described as foreign-backed, and critics framed as part of a deep state and even a global conspiracy against Indonesia (including references to colour revolutions).
Government insiders have also explicitly invoked the term securitisation to justify pre-emptive measures (including attacks and arrests) in what they claim to be an ongoing war against foreign stooges.
At first glance, this rhetoric could easily be construed as a mere strategy to discredit dissent. But taken together, these labels point to a deeper shift: foreignness is no longer primarily about external actors, but about whether some Indonesians can even be seen as Indonesian. The term foreign is now deployed primarily to mark certain domestic positions as outside the boundaries of acceptable political identity.
Much of the existing commentary has focused on how the new rhetoric delegitimises dissent or justifies political control. While important, this perspective overlooks a deeper dynamic. Rather than simply viewing terms like foreign agents or deep state as political attacks, they can be understood as part of a broader process through which political identity is constructed and even how the boundaries of the Indonesian nation are drawn.
Populist securitisation
Securitisation highlights how issues are transformed into matters of security through acts of speech: by labelling something as a threat, political actors can justify extraordinary responses.
Post-structuralist perspectives, meanwhile, emphasise that categories such as the people, the nation, or the foreign are not fixed, but are continuously produced through discourse.
Bringing these perspectives together reveals a pattern that can be described as populist securitisation. In this process, political actors construct the people as a coherent and threatened community, positioning others as sources of danger. In this sense, security language becomes a tool not only to identify threats but to define the moral boundaries of the nation itself.
Labels associated with security therefore do more than describe threats and risks. They distinguish between those seen as good Indonesians and those cast as enemies.
While this dynamic is particularly visible in Indonesia today, it is certainly not unique to Indonesia. Similar patterns can be observed in other populist contexts, where political actors mobilise security narratives to construct the people against perceived internal or external threats, even if the specific targets and reference points differ.
From criticism to security threat
Seen in this light, the use of the label foreign agents is particularly revealing.
These accusations often lack verifiable evidence and do not clearly identify specific external actors. Instead, their function lies in assigning suspicion. By associating critics with foreign influence, the government is poisoning the well: criticism is no longer assessed on its substance but is reframed as illegitimate because of its presumed origins.
The increasing use of the deep state narrative extends this logic. Unlike claims of external interference, the idea of a deep state introduces the possibility of hidden internal enemies actors embedded within the political system yet working against it. This blurs the distinction between internal and external threats, allowing suspicion to be directed at a wide range of actors, from civil society groups to academics and political opponents.
Equally notable is the emerging use of the term securitisation itself within official discourse. Its deployment signals an awareness of how threats are constructed and communicated. This suggests that the framing of criticism as a security threat is not merely reactive. It is increasingly deliberate.
Taken together, these developments point to a shift in how the notion of foreignness is used in Indonesian political discourse. Rather than referring to geography or external actors, foreign functions as a flexible political label. It no longer describes where someone comes from but marks whether they are positioned inside or outside the imagined boundaries of the nation according to those in power.
Redefining national belonging
This has significant implications for how the nation itself is being constructed. The key issue is not only that critics are delegitimised, but that they are also repositioned as outside the boundaries of legitimate Indonesian political participation.
This boundary is not determined by formal citizenship, but by conformity to a particular vision of what it means to be a good Indonesian loyal, nationalist, polite, and constructive of the government's position. Those who fall outside this frame risk being treated as alien and suspect or even outright enemies.
This dynamic is visible in how media outlets such as Tempo, think tanks like CELIOS, and progressive NGOs have been accused of acting as foreign agents, recasting their criticism as a potential threat rather than part of democratic debate.
It is also reflected in the broader climate surrounding critics such as Andrie Yunus, a human rights activist who had publicly criticised the expanding role of the military before becoming the victim of a serious acid attack. His fate underscores the risks faced by critical voices in an increasingly hostile environment that casts them as enemies.
This perspective also helps explain an apparent contradiction. While domestic critics are labelled as foreign, major powers such as the United States, China, or Russia are not necessarily framed as threats. Instead, they are engaged as strategic partners.
The broader implication is a shift in how political contestation is understood. When criticism is framed through the language of security and foreignness, political debate moves away from questions of policy and towards questions of belonging, which, ironically, are then used to isolate and exclude many loyal Indonesians who love their country.