Said Abdullah: RedTalk is a Shared Forum, a Place for Us to Hear the Voices of Young People
The chairman of PDIP’s East Java (Jatim) regional council, Said Abdullah, has said that today’s young people have vastly different experiences compared to the boomer generation at the same age. Generations Y, Z, and even early Generation Alpha now live in ‘two worlds’ — the real world and the digital world.
He said the development of digital access has become a bridge for young people to reach a wider world, follow various events, and gain more complex experiences than previous generations.
According to him, this condition makes today’s youth more critical in viewing various issues, because they have the opportunity to compare situations across different regions. For this reason, a more dialogical pattern of communication is needed to build relationships with the younger generation.
“On that basis, PDIP’s East Java regional council has held the RedTalk forum over the past two years. We frame RedTalk as our way of listening to the voices of young people. For us, the voice of the young is the voice of idealism — they are not yet bound by various interests,” Said said in a statement on Friday (24/7/2026).
“This second year, RedTalk will be held on Saturday, 25 July 2026, at the Malang Creative Center. The dialogue will discuss ‘Indonesia Belongs to Us All’ — not only to a handful of political and economic elites. How young people imagine the future of Indonesia, its challenges, and their criticisms of inter-generational behaviour,” he added.
To spark the dialogue, RedTalk will feature a number of young figures, including Dr Selvi Asna Prestianawati, a lecturer at the Faculty of Economics and Business at Brawijaya University (Unibraw); Dr Suko Widodo, a lecturer at the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences at Airlangga University (Unair); as well as comedians Abdel Achrian (Cing Abdel) and Dewangga.
The forum will also present a number of young activists, namely Kafitan Aidil Fitra Sukirman from Unibraw’s student executive body (BEM), Aryo Bimo Soebagio, deputy coordinator of BEM across Greater Malang, Mochamad Ali Firdaus from the Malang city branch of GMNI, and Benny Miftahul Arifin, chairman of the Malang city branch of PMII.
“We invite all young people across Greater Malang to discuss together, to love Indonesia by sharing ideas about education, academic freedom, the future of the economy, creative spaces, and a number of the concerns weighing on young people today,” Said concluded.
The RedTalk event will be broadcast live via detik.com, so those unable to attend in person in Malang can watch online and still submit their aspirations, questions, or objections.