A Letter from Australia: Greater understanding is needed

-- Ros Kelly has been a Labor Member of Parliament for Canberra, Australia's national capital, since 1980. She was Minister for Defense Support from 1987 to 1989 and Minister for the Environment from 1990 to 1994.

Dear friend, the most remarkable aspect of the relationship between Indonesia and Australia is not that at long last we have begun to trade with each other, visit each other and talk to each other.

What is remarkable is that we haven't been doing it longer.

Looking at the map, anyone can see that the world's sixth largest country by area is a next door neighbor of the fourth largest by population.

Put that combination anywhere else on the globe and you would find a substantially higher two way trade in goods, services, culture and information than Indonesia and Australia presently enjoy.

It is as if there has been a fence between our two countries which has prevented easy commerce in the recent past.

The original migrants to Australia, the Aborigines, didn't worry about the distance 100,000 years ago when they crossed the narrow strait separating what was to become Indonesia from what was to become Australia.

But with the widening of the sea between the two countries over the past 100,000 years, a distance was created that we have only recently begun to reduce.

This has been especially evident since Independence. Many Australians actively supported the Indonesian independence movement in the late 1940's, as to a certain extent did the then Labor Government of Australia under Prime Minister Ben Chifley.

But something happened to Australian support through the 1950,s and 1960's.

The fact of the matter is that Australians did not embrace Indonesia in particular, and Asia in general, in those years because we still looked to Britain and were to a large extent afraid and ignorant of Asia.

The changes of the 1970's -- the take off in some Asian economies, a Labor Government in Australia, Britain turning to Europe, the massive increase in Australian tourism in Asia -- resulted in Australians beginning to realize that far from being afraid of Asia, our future was inextricably enmeshed with that of our closet neighbors.

But the legacy of the 1950's and 1960's in Australia is that understanding of Australia's position as a developed 'new world' country at the gateway to the world's fastest growing region has been slower to penetrate than it should have been.

For example, some Australians are unwilling to accept that we are a free and independent country that does not need British approval, or a British monarch as head of state. This last vestige of our colonial past is largely symbolic, but it is the wrong symbol for the twenty first century Australia.

But as the report Australia and Indonesia into the 21st Century, released at Australia Today Indonesia '94 (ATI'94) points out, despite the geographic proximity of Indonesia and Australia, the major cities of Australia are many thousands of kilometers from Indonesia (though closer to Indonesia than anywhere else) and face the pacific.

And Indonesia has for centuries faced north towards Asia. In a sense, we have had our backs to each other all this time.

It's obvious we have developed in different says, but we also have much more in common than perhaps many of us realize.

Australia, like Indonesia, has undergone a profound series of changes since the 1950's.

We are, in our own slow way, finally throwing off the legacy of over 200 years of colonialism and maturing as we welcome migrants and visitors from all over the world, including in recent years, from Asia.

Just like Indonesia, Australia is a far different place in 1994 than it was in 1945.

Now some 22% of all Australian were born, as we say, `overseas'. We are proud of our society and think that it is one of the friendliest places on earth because it is a multi-cultural, not a multi-national society.

We like to think there is at least one Australian who has come from everywhere else in the world and most likely has opened a restaurant.

Indonesians visiting Australia can expect as warm a welcome to Australia as I have received on my numerous visits to Indonesia.

The evidence of what Australia is becoming can be noticed in our schools. My daughter attends the local Government school in Canberra. There are children from 48 countries there, and her best friends are from Indonesia and Thailand. `Bahasa Indonesia' is the second language taught after English.

But the Australian Prime Minister, Paul Keating said at the opening of ATI'94, what has been lacking in both countries is knowledge and understanding of our complex cultures and histories.

In this column I hope to write about our way of life "down under", about our heroes and achievements, especially through the eyes and deeds of Australia's young people.

Through small things such as this, I hope a greater understanding of each other will grow.