Injustice: Revealing Human Rights Issues in Ali Akbar Navis’s Short Fiction

Abstract

Ali Akbar Navis was among satirical writers in Indonesian literature. He was concerned about what his nation had struggled with its democratization process. Navis’s works are generally his responses to what was directly going on around him. They mostly represent his concerns about sociopolitical problems, which were significant at the time he wrote them. They serve for Navis as a tool to protest against injustice and a way of communicating his disagreement with any elements that violate such rights, including the government. This study elucidates what sociopolitical events he disagrees and how he delivers his disagreement. Through a critical reading of three selected short stories—“Penumpang Kelas Tiga”, “Penangkapan”, and “Maria”—the analysis explores the core themes of state violence and women’s marginalization across the Old Order and New Order regimes. The paper examines how Navis depicts the trauma of the PRRI civil war, satirizes arbitrary state arrests of artists, and challenges patriarchal oppression and workplace abuse. Ultimately, his fiction serves as cultural dissent, revealing human rights abuses while avoiding state censorship.