Good morning, ladies and gentlemen
On behalf of Universitas Harkat Negeri, it is my great pleasure to welcome you to this forum. A space where civil society, academia, policymakers, and businesses gather to discuss critical challenges of our time.
First, I would like to extend our warm welcome and gratitude to Dr. Kailash Satyarthi for generously giving his time to be with us this morning. Dr. Satyarthi, it is a great honour to have you here in Jakarta.
I would also like to welcome our moderator, Prof. Todung Mulya Lubis, thank you, Prof, for being with us and for helping us navigate what I am sure will be a very rich conversation.
And of course, I would like to welcome Bapak Irwan Dinata from Moya, and Bapak Syahrial from Tamaris. Your presence and continued support are always deeply appreciated.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We meet today at a particularly important moment. Three days ago, we just witnessed a movement of democracy in full force. People demanding for their rights as citizens to ensure the government is on the right path in ushering us towards a shared welfare.
Around the world, democracy is facing a difficult question: is democracy simply a system of procedures, or is it a system that must ultimately delivery dignity, justice, and a better life for its people?
We often define democracy by its institutions – elections, parliaments, constitutions, courts, and political processes. These are essential. But they are not the destination.
A democracy can preserve its procedures while people feel increasingly powerless. It can hold elections while inequality deepens. It can have laws that protect rights on paper while those rights remain inaccessible to the people who need them most.
This is where the conversation about democracy meets the conversation about human rights and social welfare.
Since Reformasi, our democracy has made extraordinary progress. But today, we are also confronting serious questions about the quality of our institutions, the strength of our checks and balances, inequality, and whether economic and political development are translating into greater dignity and opportunity for all.
For many of us, these questions are not theoretical. They affect the institutions we work in, the businesses we build, the policies we formulate, the students we teach, and ultimately, the kind of society we leave behind.
And that is why I believe Dr. Satyarthi’s presence today comes at exactly the right time.
What strikes me most about Dr. Satyarthi’s life is that his journey did not begin with a grand theory of democracy or governance.
It began with a child. As a young boy growing up in India, Dr. Satyarthi noticed that the son of a cobbler living next to his home did not go to school. He asked why. The answer he received was that children from poor families were simply meant to work. For most people, perhaps that would have been an unfortunate fact of life. For him, it was an unacceptable one.
He devoted himself to fighting child labour, trafficking, and exploitation. Through Bachpan Bachao Andolan, he and his colleagues have rescued and rehabilitated tens of thousands of children. His advocacy has also contributed to changes in Indian law and to global efforts, including the movement that helped lead to the adoption of the ILO Convention on the worst forms of child labour. But what I find powerful is that his work has never stopped at simply rescuing a child.
It has always been about asking what kind of society allows that child to be exploited in the first place.
As thinkers, reformers, policymakers, academics, civil society leaders, and business leaders, we each have a different role to play in shaping Indonesia’s future.
We need people who can think differently. We need institutions that has the capacity to reform. We need not only critics of the system, but builders of better systems.
Today, we have the privilege of learning from that journey. I hope that this conversation will not simply leave us inspired by Dr. Satyarthi’s achievements. I hope it will challenge us.
To think more deeply about democracy. To see human rights not as an abstract principle, but as something that must be experienced in everyday life. And, perhaps most importantly, to ask ourselves what role each of us can play in moving Indonesia forward.
Dr. Satyarthi, thank you once again for being with us.
And to everyone here this morning, I hope you enjoy the conversation, learn from it, and leave with not only new ideas, but renewed energy to turn those ideas into action.
Thank you, and welcome to “A Conversation with Dr. (HC) Kailash Satyarthi: Democracy, Human Rights, and Social Welfare.”
I thank you.
Placeholder to what happens on 27 August (can be removed)
