Empowered diplomacy

Interest in the formal inauguration of the Indonesian Council on World Affairs failed to reverberate beyond the walls of the ballroom of the Borobudur Inter-Continental Hotel last week. Not even music flowing from the Twilite Orchestra that night succeeded in generating much public interest in this important development in Indonesia's sphere of diplomacy.

The launching of the council and its journal, DUTA, received scant publicity in the local media the next day. But one could hardly blame the media for its ignorance. After all, it was simply mirroring the muted public interest -- at times bordering on apathy -- when it comes to foreign policy.

This public indifference is exactly what the new council is expected to overcome. One of its stated objectives is the promotion of awareness in our society on the importance of world trends and issues affecting Indonesia. It is also a forum for foreign policy discussion that involves not only serving and retired diplomats, but also those from outside diplomatic ranks.

The council counts on the patronage of Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Alatas, Minister of Tourism, Post and Telecommunications Joop Ave and former foreign minister Mochtar Kusuma-Atmadja. Its advisory and executive boards are also heavily staffed with government and former government officials, mostly from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

There are a handful of scholars and experts serving on the two boards. If the aim of the council is to make foreign policy a matter of interest to a wider audience in the public, then this must eventually be reflected in the membership and composition of its boards.

This is the first forum where those outside the government are being formally brought in on foreign policy discussions, important in the prelude to making policy. Many think tanks and individual experts may have been involved in the formation of Indonesia's foreign policies in the past, but they were brought in mostly on an ad-hoc basis, their input solicited only when required.

With Indonesia becoming a more active player in world diplomacy, a greater active public participation in foreign policy is essential. Participation means not only support for the government's diplomacy, but, more importantly, involvement in policy-making processes. This is where the council comes in.

The country may have scored a number of diplomatic achievements in recent years, but these hardly resonated among the public. Indonesia's role in the Cambodian peace process, its widely acclaimed leadership of the Non-Aligned Movement and of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, its recent two-year tenure in the United Nations Security Council and its upcoming chairmanship of the Group of 77 are just some of the recent gains from the hard work of our diplomats. While they may not have lacked the people's support, public participation was definitely lacking in all these achievements.

With the globalization process widely accepted as a given and Indonesia inevitably very much part of that development, world trends and issues will affect the lives of more and more people in this country. Sometimes, they are matters of life and death. Diplomacy then becomes too precious to be left solely to our diplomats and foreign policy experts.

The government, by involving the public more in foreign policy, will not only empower the people in important issues, but the reciprocal public support will in turn empower our diplomats in their duties. On that affirmative note, we express our best wishes to the new council and its members in their challenging endeavor.