A failed government is not defined by temporary setbacks, nor even by economic hardship. It is defined by a collapse of legitimacy, when the people no longer see leaders as protectors, but as predators. When power is used not to govern, but to plunder. When truth is buried beneath propaganda, and dissent is silenced by force rather than answered by reason.
A failed country is not a land without wealth, but a land where justice is absent. Where security is traded for fear, opportunity for favoritism, and institutions rot from within. It is when corruption becomes the operating system, and the constitution nothing more than a decorative relic.
Here’s the darkened Garuda, stripped of its golden radiance. The bull, once a symbol of democracy, now stares hollow-eyed as public will is sold to the highest bidder. The banyan tree, meant to represent unity, now casts shadows of division and fragmentation. The rice and cotton, symbols of prosperity, lie barren under monopolies and systemic greed. The chain, once the strength of solidarity, rusts into a shackle of oppression. And the star, once a guiding light, dims into the emptiness of hypocrisy.
The government has failed. The system has failed. But a nation dies only if its people surrender. The Garuda in darkness does not signal the end. It signals a choice: accept the failure, or ignite renewal. In that choice lies the fate of the republic.
