Australia-RI security: 'Learn the words'

Rob Goodfellow, New South Wales, Australia

With elections pending in Australia and Indonesia, the bombing of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta last week has placed security at the top of respective national campaigns. Unfortunately, an important opportunity may be lost as politicians in both countries attempt to outbid each other over who is tougher on the issue of security.

For example the leaders' debate between Liberal Prime Minister John Howard and Labor Opposition leader Mark Latham, aired on Australian national television on Sunday night, was dominated by military and security responses to "the war on terror".

It must not be forgotten that any effective regional strategy against terrorism must be comprehensive and include identifying and removing individual terror cells, ideologically isolating extremists from mainstream Indonesian Islam, and fostering closer political, social, cultural, religious and educational cooperation.

In addition to bolstering mutual police and intelligence resources, it is vitally important that both Australia and Indonesia strengthen the capacity to analyse the cultural, societal and political contexts in which terrorists operate.

With Australia spending over $A500 million to fight regional terrorism, there is a strong case for the Australian Government to make an urgent strategic investment in Asian Studies along the same lines as has been done so fruitfully with the Australian Institute of Sport or AIS. The AIS produces elite athletes.

This is one key reason why Australia, despite its small population of some 20 million, was able to dominate the recent Olympic Games in Athens. What Australia needs are elite scholars, men and woman trained to engage Indonesia at many levels -- not just counter-terrorism. This especially includes the study of Indonesian history, society and language.

Some of this work is being done within state bureaus such as the Office of National Assessment (ONA), the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS), Indonesia's Badan Intelligen National (BIN) and respective national Departments of Foreign Affairs and Trade; however this level of knowledge-building must also occur in independent think tanks and, more importantly, in public universities. Indeed, without building up the capacity of the latter, there will be too few experts trained and available to staff government agencies.

Australia was caught off-guard by Jemaah Islamiyah, in part, because there is too little scholarly expertise in Australia about Islam in Southeast Asia and in Asia as a whole (an extraordinary omission given that 60 percent of all Muslims are Asians).

According to scholars such as Greg Barton, the author of the newly released book, Indonesia's struggle: Jemaah Islamiyah and the Soul of Islam, "hundreds of millions of dollars of 'eye in the sky' hardware for covert surveillance and signals interceptions is all but useless without human expertise such as knowledge of Asian languages and cultures".

The extra investment in the Australian Federal Police's (AFP) counter-terrorism capacity, in particular in the AFP's cooperation with the Indonesian Police, is important and timely. So too is the extra investment in ONA, ASIO, ASIS, and other agencies. However, Australia will be missing an extraordinary opportunity if it does not strategically invest in building Australia's academic capacity to understand and interpret Asia.

It is not acceptable that only five percent of Australian university students study any aspect of Asia and only three percent an Asian language.

Two years ago, during Paul Keating's private visit to Jakarta, a journalist asked the former Australian Prime Minister to explain why it was that some Australian politicians had so much difficulty managing the relationship with Indonesia. Keating's intriguing response was that the Australian Government "could whistle the tune but didn't know the words to the song". In other words, Australia well-understood the strategic importance of our neighbour -- we could appreciate similarity -- but were never able to successfully manage the subtleties of difference and disagreement.

Sudjadnan Parnohadiningrat, former Indonesian Ambassador to Australia, once said at a function in Sydney, "it is important that as neighbours in a troubled world we must look for every opportunity to build processes that will survive changes in government. These processes must involve a mature and measured 'behind the scenes' approach involving real people working together".

At the same gathering, Sutjipto, General Secretary of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) surprisingly remarked to me that "for Australia 'the wind blows from the east'. Your destiny is in Asia. Indonesia is the key to your success and security in the region. The best system for maintaining order is one built on good relationships with one's neighbouring country. If relationships are good then, of course, the system of maintaining order will be sound".

This relationship is complex, but possible to successfully manage, especially if Australia devotes even a small fraction of current anti-terror resources to developing a deeper understanding of Indonesian culture and society -- in particular Islam. Post-Bali and Jakarta bombings, this developing understanding would benefit enormously from a strategic investment in Asian studies, such as the creation of an Australian Asian Studies Institute along the lines of the AIS. The question is, can either John Howard or Mark Latham move beyond reactive military and security rhetoric, and support a well-funded national commitment to Asian studies?

The writer is a Visiting Fellow at the University of Wollongong.