So the State Does Not Neglect: Protecting the People Amidst Shocks
The world today moves without mercy. Wars drag on, energy prices soar, supply chains stutter—and amid all that, the oldest question knocks again: whose side is power on?
Some countries choose to harden. Others surrender to the cold market. There, welfare becomes numbers; humans slowly lose their faces.
Indonesia is not outside that whirlpool. It is shaken too. But it chooses one thing that is not simple: to stand firm.
From the beginning, that direction has been written in our basic constitution, the 1945 UUD NKRI, from the preamble to its articles—not as decoration, but as a promise. To advance the general welfare. To realise social justice for all the people of Indonesia.
Those words reject neutrality. They reject indifference. They affirm that the state must side with the people when life becomes heavy.
Its articles clarify: what is essential for the livelihood of the many must be under state control; natural resources for the people’s prosperity; the weak not left alone. Here, policy must not be distant from humanity.
Yet promises are always tested by reality. And today’s reality is harsh. The state is forced to choose: maintain stability or protect purchasing power. Both are important, but they do not always go hand in hand. It is at this point that leadership is tested—on the courage to decide who must be saved first.
In the last year, the Prabowo Subianto administration has sent a clear message: the people must not bear the initial burden. The little people must still be able to smile.
That choice is evident in policies to maintain fuel prices. Amid global pressures, prices are held so that daily life does not collapse all at once. Travel costs remain affordable, food prices do not spike wildly, small businesses do not immediately fail. For many families, this is not grand policy. It is a way to survive.
But protection always opens gaps. When domestic prices are lower than in neighbouring countries, the temptation to deviate arises. Smuggling becomes an unavoidable shadow—subsidies that should strengthen the people instead leak into the hands of those seeking quick profits.
The state cannot turn a blind eye. Protection must be safeguarded to reach those entitled to it. That means working more quietly and more firmly: data-based distribution, real border surveillance, unwavering law enforcement, and reforms to the energy trading system that has left gaps. Because every litre that leaks is not just a loss—it is justice that fails to arrive.
From the land, the test moves to the air.
The rise in aviation fuel prices is slowly pushing up flight costs, including Hajj travel. Here, the state faces something more than economics: hopes nurtured for years.
For some, Hajj is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. When costs soar, what is delayed is not just the journey, but prayers long cherished. The state must not let that hope be severed.
Its steps must be measured: holding back increases in the most sensitive sectors, forcing efficiency in service chains, negotiating to press down controllable costs, and opening space for subsidies so the burden does not fall entirely on the pilgrims. Worship must not become an unattainable distance.
Often, the state’s efforts to strengthen itself are misunderstood. When the state manages resources more firmly, expands the role of SOEs, or enters strategic sectors, it is accused of chasing profits. Yet the basic direction is different.
That strength is not for hoarding, but for channelling. What is gathered must return—to subsidies, to public services, to social protection. If it stops circulating, it loses meaning. There, the state is tested: not on how much it possesses, but how far it is willing to flow.
Yet this path is not without risks. A state that is too strong can distance itself from the people. A state that is too weak will let its people be swallowed by mechanisms that are not always fair.
Thus, what is needed is not extremes, but balance maintained continuously: strong enough to protect, open enough to be corrected, firm enough to regulate, without losing the direction to share.
In the end, a welfare state is not measured by big numbers. It is felt in the closest things: when medical costs are no longer a fear, when jobs do not feel fragile every moment, when someone can depart for Hajj calmly and return with intact dignity.
There, the state is not seen. But felt.
Indonesia is not finished. It is still walking, sometimes stumbling, sometimes mistaken. But as long as one thing is guarded—that the state must not neglect—then the direction remains.
That welfare is not for a few.
That power is not the goal, but a tool.
That the economy is not just accumulation, but distribution of hope.
And amid a world growing harsher, perhaps the most important thing is not to be the strongest—
but to remain faithful to a simple promise: not letting its people face life alone.
For in the end, the state worth defending is not the one that controls the most, but the one that most truly guards—so that the small can still smile, without first being defeated by circumstances.