Empowering the Marhaen Amidst the Middle East Geopolitical Vortex
The Middle East’s geopolitical vortex continues to generate impacts that transcend the region’s geographical boundaries. War, political rivalries, the struggle for energy routes, and the contest for influence among global powers make the Middle East an epicentre of international instability. What happens in Gaza, Tehran, Tel Aviv, or the Strait of Hormuz is never truly distant from the lives of the Indonesian people. In an era of economic globalisation and energy dependency, every explosion of conflict in the Middle East can shake the kitchens of Indonesia’s common folk.
As a developing nation with a high dependency on imported energy, Indonesia is highly vulnerable to global geopolitical turmoil. The rise in world oil prices due to the Iran-Israel conflict throughout 2025-2026, for instance, directly impacts rising transportation costs, food distribution, domestic inflation, and the weakening of public purchasing power. In such a situation, the group that feels the impact most acutely is the common people—those whom Bung Karno termed the Marhaen.
This dispels the notion that the narrative of the ‘Marhaen’ is merely a romantic political term. Bung Karno used this term to describe the common people who live by their own labour, own simple means of production, yet remain trapped in an oppressive economic structure. They are not the pure industrial proletariat of Karl Marx’s theory, but rather small farmers, fishermen, street vendors, informal labourers, and community groups who work hard but live in perpetual economic vulnerability. In today’s Indonesian context, the face of the Marhaen can be found in online motorcycle taxi drivers, honorary teachers, subsistence farmers, informal workers, factory labourers, and the vulnerable middle class whose income is exhausted merely meeting daily needs. When fuel prices rise due to global conflict, they are the first to feel life’s suffocating squeeze.
Therefore, Bung Karno’s Marhaenism ideology is once again relevant as a framework for both interpreting and responding to the global geopolitical crisis. In his book ‘Di Bawah Bendera Revolusi Djilid I’, Bung Karno explains that Marhaenism stands on two main foundations: Socio-Nationalism and Socio-Democracy. These two concepts are not merely political ideas of the past; they offer a strategic direction for Indonesia to protect its common people amidst the uncertainty of today’s multipolar world.
The contemporary Middle East conflict can no longer be understood simply as a dispute between Palestine and Israel. The region has become an arena for the contest of interests between the United States, Iran, Israel, Russia, China, Turkey, and the Gulf states. Modern geopolitical rivalry is now closely linked to energy, trade routes, military influence, and global economic control. The escalation of the Iran-Israel conflict throughout 2025-2026 raised serious concerns over the stability of the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil trade. When threats to energy routes increase, global markets react immediately. Oil prices surge and financial markets fluctuate. Indonesia’s Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources noted that the Indonesian Crude Price (ICP) briefly exceeded US$117 per barrel due to heightened Middle East tensions. This spike demonstrates how vulnerable the Indonesian economy is to global dynamics.
The rise in oil prices cascades into every aspect of public life. Transportation costs increase, logistics expenses swell, food prices are pushed up, and inflation further erodes public purchasing power. Within the global capitalist economic structure, the Marhaen are always the group most vulnerable to international shocks. Reports from global financial institutions also indicate that the Middle East conflict has the potential to trigger global supply chain disruptions, international inflation, and investment uncertainty. The world today faces not only physical warfare but also economic warfare, information warfare, and influence warfare. In such a situation, developing countries like Indonesia often become mere objects of the global system. While great powers battle for influence, the common people in developing nations must pay the highest price through rising living costs.
In ‘Di Bawah Bendera Revolusi Djilid I’, Bung Karno explains that Marhaenism should not be narrowly understood as merely an economic theory, but as an ideology of struggle for the liberation of the oppressed. Marhaenism is built upon two main principles: Socio-Nationalism and Socio-Democracy. Socio-Nationalism is a nationalism with a humanitarian face. Bung Karno rejected narrow nationalism that merely breeds chauvinism or hatred between nations. Indonesian nationalism must side with the oppressed and be anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist. In the context of today’s Middle East conflict, Socio-Nationalism teaches that Indonesia must safeguard its national sovereignty without submitting to the interests of any particular global bloc. Indonesia must not become a tool of the world’s great powers. An independent and active foreign policy must be maintained as a form of national self-reliance. Meanwhile, according to Bung Karno, Socio-Democracy is a democracy that does not stop at formal political rights but also guarantees economic justice and social welfare. Political democracy without economic democracy will only breed inequality. Therefore, Marhaenism speaks not only of national independence but also of the liberation of the people from structural poverty.