Fisher wants to devote career to resolving conflicts<\/p>\n
By Riyadi<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): Until he was 20 years old, Ben Fisher thought he
\nwas going to be a professional baseball player. But his eyes
\nstarted to go bad, so clearly unable to play baseball for a
\nliving, he went to college and then graduate school. His career
\neventually took him to the World Bank's Jakarta office, a stint
\nthat lasted many years and only recently ended.<\/p>\n
Besides his work as the World Bank's country program
\ncoordinator, Fisher still manages to find some free time to play
\nbaseball and softball.<\/p>\n
He says his love affair with baseball has made him more
\npassionate in dealing with day-to-day problems, and he often
\nemploys this passion to understand contemporary developments in
\nIndonesia.<\/p>\n
After completing his dissertation on urban planning and
\neconomics in 1971 and receiving his PhD from the University of
\nNorth Carolina, Fisher left the U.S. to work with the Ford
\nFoundation in India. After three years in India, the Ford
\nFoundation's Jakarta office offered him a job, which he accepted.<\/p>\n
Fisher arrived in Jakarta in late 1974, with his wife and
\nthree children. Fisher's primary focus in Jakarta was assisting
\nthe National Development Planning Board in establishing
\nprovincial development planning boards and teaching at various
\nuniversities, including the University of Indonesia's School of
\nEconomics.<\/p>\n
After spending five years with the Ford Foundation in Jakarta,
\nFisher left Indonesia to return to the U.S. In 1980, he joined
\nthe World Bank in Washington, where he held various positions
\ndealing with East Asia, Indonesia in particular.<\/p>\n
Then in 1990, Fisher was sent by the World Bank to its Jakarta
\noffice, with his main duty being to study the environmental
\nimpact of World Bank projects in the country.<\/p>\n
Fisher eventually fell in love with Indonesia, and chose to
\nremain in the country longer than any other person from the World
\nBank.<\/p>\n
\"It's unusual for anybody in the Bank to stay in one country
\nfor so long, but I did that by preference,\" he said.<\/p>\n
In 1993, Fisher was appointed chief of the environmental and
\nsocial impact unit at the World Bank's Jakarta office. Then in
\n1997, he was promoted to deputy director and country program
\ncoordinator for Indonesia.<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, Fisher ended his duties in Jakarta and
\nreturned to Washington. Before he left, Fisher spoke with The
\nJakarta Post. The following is an excerpt from that interview.<\/p>\n
Question: You have been in Indonesia for a long time. What
\nhave you done here during this time, especially with the World
\nBank?<\/p>\n
Answer: In 1990, I came here to be the first environment
\nspecialist. During the 1970s and 1980s, the World Bank invested
\nin some projects without doing environmental impact assessments.
\nOne well-known project is called Kedung Ombo Dam, the project
\nthat the World Bank started to support in 1984, without adequate
\nanalysis of the impacts on people living there. By 1990, the
\nWorld Bank decided that that must never happen again. That was my
\nprimary job from 1990 through 1993. It seemed to work well.<\/p>\n
Another part of my job was to open up the Bank, make it more
\ntransparent. Beginning in 1994, we made all World Bank
\npublications available to the public. Up until then, most of our
\ndocuments had been kept secret. And that was not good because it
\nwas difficult to get meaningful feedback or criticism from the
\npress, the NGOs (non-governmental organizations). So, around the
\nworld we started to disclose everything we possibly could within
\nthe law. We tried to do that, and we succeeded here, I think.<\/p>\n
Then on July 1, 1997, I was appointed country program
\ncoordinator, but on July 5 the Thai baht collapsed and the
\neconomic crisis began and everything changed. And the last three
\nyears, we had been working in the crisis environment, like
\neverybody else.<\/p>\n
All of our lendings were called projects lending, that's
\nlending to finance irrigation, roads and other projects. And then
\nwith the financial shocks, we had to move for the first time ever
\nin Indonesia into a substantial program lending, budget support
\nlending or quick disbursing lending.<\/p>\n
At the same time, we were continuing with our ongoing
\noperations. At that time we had some 85 loans and 35 grants under
\nimplementation across the country. They were not programs but
\nprojects lending, and they still had environmental impacts, they
\nstill had implementation problems, still had tendering, collusion
\nand corruption.<\/p>\n
What about corruption in the government, and also the World
\nBank? There was a leaked internal memo from the Bank saying 30
\npercent of the Bank's lending to Indonesia was lost through
\ncorruption.<\/p>\n
That figure emerged in a discussion which I was in. We simply
\ndid not have scientific analysis, we simply asked our colleagues
\nin the government, private firms, ourselves, how much was really
\nunaccounted for. Of course, 100 percent was accounted for on
\npaper, but we knew that could not be true. But finding specific
\nproof was very difficult. We never had specific proof. But it did
\nnot make sense to continue to talk among ourselves as if there
\nwas no KKN (corruption, collusion and nepotism). KKN is anywhere
\nin the system, and it must be affecting us also even if we can't
\nsay how much, as all of our money goes through the government.<\/p>\n
That's the kind of conversation we had. And 30 percent was
\nactually never stated, except as one of the numbers that came up.
\nYou can't say it's right. We think (the figure) is less now
\nbecause we try much harder, we do everything possibly we can, but
\nwe do know that we can't completely protect our projects.<\/p>\n
You are leaving Indonesia when the country is still battling
\nthe economic crisis. What do think of Indonesia today?<\/p>\n
What I do think is that if we step back at this point of
\nhistory, Indonesia is far better off today than it has been in
\nthe past. Current problems are mostly inevitable consequences of
\noverdue change.<\/p>\n
But if you look at it last year and you look at it today, do
\nwe have a government closely in touch with the people? The answer
\nis yes. Do we have the beginning of legislature and legislative
\ndemocracy? Yes. Do we have the enthusiasm for building legal and
\njudicial institutions? Yes. Do we have a public that is now
\nparticipating in politics? Yes. Do we have an open press? Yes.
\nAll those things are good.<\/p>\n
But some people say reform is moving at a snail's pace.<\/p>\n
Again, like in the game of baseball, we have innings where a
\nlot is happening. You know, there are runners in scoring
\nposition, there are good pitchers, there are weak players in the
\nfield. And you know something is going to happen. And you are in
\na better position now than earlier in the game, but it can go
\neither way, we could win or lose. I feel good about the long-term
\nsituation, but worried about the day-to-day.<\/p>\n
I'm, without any qualifications, delighted with the days when
\nthe institutions of democracy are evolving. It has gone further
\nand faster than I thought possible three years ago. I wish it
\ncould go faster, maybe it can. But again, like in baseball,
\npassion is essential. I don't know the right speed, I would
\nrather score a lot of runs right away, but I know if we take too
\nmany risks trying to do that, we may lose. And so, I think, maybe
\nhistorians may be able to judge whether it is too slow or not,
\nbut I can't. What I can do is be happy as things seem to be
\nmoving generally in the right direction. And that's good.<\/p>\n
You must be leaving Indonesia with certain impressions. What's
\nyour impression of the country, and what will you do after you
\nleave?<\/p>\n
Most impressive, of course, has to be the people of Indonesia,
\nand their ability to live together. It seems strange in the
\nhistory of Indonesia now, but at least in Java, people are able
\nto live together in very dense circumstances. Nothing made me
\nhappier over the years than my personal friendships in Indonesia.<\/p>\n
But now, I'm starting to see more serious tensions and I'm
\nworried about that. Somehow, I think it's not the problem of
\nbasic Indonesian characteristics; some of them must be provoked,
\nsome of are because of the crisis, hardship, and some of them are
\nexaggerated. But it's very serious and worrying.<\/p>\n
One thing I valued more than anything else here that I found
\nunique is that people could communicate seriously without
\nspeaking loudly. And this is something that connects with me. I
\ndon't like raised voices. There is something about the culture
\nthat developed in Indonesia and which is still strong: that is
\npoliteness.<\/p>\n
And secondly, the great diversity in Indonesia. I like my
\ncountry, the United States, a very diverse country, diverse
\ncultures, diverse people. But Indonesia is a country of
\ndiversity. and when these cultures can work together, I'm really
\nthrilled. I know from the United States that that's not easy.
\nThere are frictions between people, depending on where they are
\nfrom, or depending on their race, their educational level or
\nincome level or something else. And Americans do manage cross-
\ncultural communication pretty well, but not as well as most
\nIndonesians do it most of the time. But again, I'm deeply
\ntroubled by some of the recent tensions, some of the recent
\nconflicts.<\/p>\n
And that brings me to what I think I will do if I do not
\ncontinue working in Indonesia. Probably what I'm going to do is
\nto enter a new field at my local university in the U.S., George
\nMason University in Virginia, what is called the Center for
\nConflict Analysis and Resolution, a new subject in the United
\nStates.<\/p>\n
And that's dealing with the analysis and resolution of
\nconflicts at all levels, from the level of family, conflicts
\nwithin the family, to community conflicts, among neighbors, among
\ndifferent neighborhoods, to conflicts between labor and
\nmanagement in factories, in industries, to political conflicts
\nbetween political parties, racial conflicts at the national
\nlevel, diplomatic conflicts. And that, I think, is what I would
\nlike to learn about most in the next step of my career, how to
\ndeal with conflicts at the regional scale, the sub-national
\nscale.<\/p>\n
And the exact reason I'm interested in that is because I'm
\nworried about conflicts that are now emerging in Indonesia, in
\nAceh, in Maluku and elsewhere. And I don't know what to do about
\nthose conflicts. My education, training, does not really seem to
\nfit those needs. So I would like to consider ways for the rest of
\nmy career to deal with conflicts. But I don't know what that
\nmeans. But I do know that I don't know enough to help very much,
\nand therefore I have to learn more.<\/p>\n
I leave Indonesia very happy with the evolution of the
\npolitical culture. But I leave Indonesia deeply troubled by the
\nconflicts that seems to be very serious and increasing in various
\npockets of Indonesia. And the reason I'm upset, so upset, is that
\nconflict is antithetical to, is exactly the opposite of what I
\nvalue most about Indonesian culture, that's the ability to live
\ntogether happily in a kind and smiling way. And I face those two
\nopposing forces. One I love very much, one I hate. I'm leaving
\nwith unfinished business.<\/p>",
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