Canadian envoy wants to get word out about new home

Canadian envoy wants to get word out about new home

Tim Paterson, Contributor, Jakarta

It would be hard to imagine someone better suited to the ever-
changing and endlessly challenging world of diplomacy than
Canadian Ambassador to Indonesia Ferry de Kerckhove.

He is charming, energetic and passionate about ideas and the
world around him. Although he's been in Indonesia for only about
six months, he has already developed a strong affection for the
Indonesian people and taken in more of the archipelago than many
an expat manages in their entire stay here.

His only serious bugbear will be familiar to us all - traffic.
"It prevents you from working and living in what is otherwise a
very civilized place," he says. But he's not taking the daily
gridlock lying down. Some day, hopefully soon, he plans to
present the local powers that be with a few of his own solutions
to the problem, which he has somehow found the time to develop in
the midst of his busy schedule.

Indonesia is just the most recent addition to the long list of
countries where de Kerckhove has plied his diplomatic trade.

Born in Bruges, Belgium, the ambassador has a clear memory of
walking through the streets of Brussels as a 12-year-old boy,
gazing up at the foreign ministry building and thinking to
himself, "that's what I'd like to do some day".

His childhood dream is now reality, although it was the
Canadian, not the Belgian, foreign affairs department that gave
him his entry to the diplomatic world, after he had moved to
Canada as a young man in 1966.

Shortly after starting his new career, de Kerckhove was off to
Tehran on his first overseas assignment. In between stints back
at headquarters in Ottawa he has also served in Brussels, Moscow
and, most recently, Pakistan. For de Kerckhove, Pakistan was a
sort of homecoming, having spent part of his childhood there when
his father was serving with the UN.

He describes Islamabad as "the best kept secret in the
Canadian foreign service", not just because of the "wonderful
people", but also because the reality of Pakistan bore almost no
resemblance to the somewhat forbidding image it enjoyed at the
time in the West.

His fondness for the place might also be explained by the
extraordinary access he gained to people in high places. He
counts no less than President Musharraf as a personal friend, and
became something of a confidante to the military ruler.

Well-qualified to speak on all things Islamic, de Kerckhove
has some interesting views on religion in Indonesia and the
country's role in the Islamic world. He is not convinced that the
much bandied-about "largest Muslim nation on earth" tag is of any
particular significance in guiding Indonesia's relations with her
Islamic brethren, and doubts whether Indonesia herself is much
interested in assuming a leadership role.

Organizations such as Muhammadiyah and the Nahdlatul Ulama, he
senses, are more interested in "tending to their own flocks" than
they are in trying to influence Muslims in other countries.

When asked about the prospects of an upsurge in Islamic
fundamentalism in the country, de Kerckhove offered nuance rather
than a simplistic prognosis. Of particular interest to de
Kerckhove is the question of whether Islamic extremism can be
traced to something inherent in the religion, or whether it is
actually a response to a much more universal sense of what he
calls "moral deprivation", which has people hankering after a
more puritanical, less materialistic approach to life.

While he has been impressed by the level of religious
tolerance on display in Indonesia, something which sets it apart
from many of the other Islamic countries he has visited, and
although he was somewhat bemused by the almost hysterical tone
that accompanied a lot of the reporting on the state of
fundamentalism in Indonesia in the wake of the Sept. 11 disaster,
he certainly doesn't think there is any room for complacency.

He fears the sense of "moral deprivation" he speaks of could
become fertile ground for some of the more radical Islamic groups
in the country.

The prickliness that has characterized Indonesia's relations
with some Western countries of late has not infected Canada's
diplomatic ties, which reach their 50-year milestone this year.
Invariably a friendly relationship de Kerckhove nonetheless
believes the links binding the two countries need some
"rekindling".

The blossoming of the relationship that followed Canada's
conscious reorientation toward the Asia Pacific region in the
late 1980s and early 1990s subsequently withered in the wake of
the 1997 economic meltdown, when Canadians began to reassess
their interests in a country that suddenly seemed very unstable
and very far away. He is keen to "put Indonesia back on the
Canadian map", and vice versa.

As part of this rekindling process de Kerckhove will be in
Canada for much of February, talking with the business community,
academics and the media in a bid to remind Canadians of the
extent of their interests in Indonesia and to reassure them about
the level of stability in the country.

In fact, he hopes to become "a bit of an ambassador for
Indonesia", a strange role reversal perhaps but one he believes
is essential for getting the relationship back on a steadier
footing.