Envoy Gozney back in land of his youth

Envoy Gozney back in land of his youth

By Mehru Jaffer

JAKARTA (JP): If British Ambassador Richard Gozney found
himself holding a magic wand, he would first wave it over all
terrorists in the hope that they would realize that there is a
peaceful way to bring justice to this world.

Gozney agreed to an interview on his long association with
Indonesia before Sept. 11, but when the Sunday Post met the 50-
year-old ambassador to Indonesia the terrorist attacks on New
York and Washington had already taken place and therefore
dominated the conversation.

To get to Gozney today means going through at least half a
dozen double doors accompanied by an escort, repeated security
checks of the handbag and a separate one of the tape recorder. In
fact the offices of the British ambassador to the largest Muslim
country in the world look more like a fortress rather than a
diplomatic mission, with dozens of armed guards circling the
premises on Jl. Thamrin.

Born and brought up in the university town of Oxford, Gozney
is no stranger to this country. He was just 22 years old when he
joined the British Diplomatic Service and came here as a junior
political officer in 1974.

The first thing he did on being told of his posting was to
bring out the atlas. He claims his knowledge of Indonesia was
rather modest. He wanted to make sure if Sumatra, Java and Bali
were all part of one country. Like a lot of people in Europe at
that time, Gozney was not quite sure what Java was about. People
knew far more about Bali because they had seen many films made on
the exotic island.

But once he was here, he had a start to life which he now
describes as illuminating. His first job on arrival was further
travel to the edge of a cassava field in Yogyakarta, and later to
Bandung to study the local language for three months. He was
young and impressionable and easily charmed by the extremely
polite and welcoming people he came in contact with.

He found the language rather easy to learn and to practice,
and the graciousness of the people he met combined to make a
pretty magic mix for the young Gozney. On hindsight he feels that
he got an excellent introduction to the country and at the end of
four years, when the time came to move on, all that he could do
was to leave a bit of his heart behind.

For the next two decades Gozney lived in different corners of
the world with nothing except fond memories of this country. He
often wondered if he would ever earn the attractive opportunity
to live here again?

The prosaic ways of bureaucracy, however, did not promise him
anything as poetic as a posting back to Indonesia.

"This is pure chance, good timing and some luck that I am
here," smiles Gozney, who lives here with his wife Diana while
sons James, 14, and Alexander, 11, study in boarding school in
England.

During the summer holidays, the family of four spent last
month traveling across Java to Bali and, all of them nature
lovers, were most delighted with their stay at the wildlife
sanctuary north of Banyuwangi in East Java.

The Gozneys have hunted out a natural haven here in Jakarta as
well which they visit whenever there are a few hours to spare,
seeking the company of the rarest of birds that use a small swamp
on the northern coast as a retreat.

Gozney feels that this country has so much to look forward to
now. The important transition to democracy has already been made,
and the immediate tasks at hand are to strengthen institutions
like the judiciary, legislature and press so that the difficult
mission of strengthening the economy may continue unhampered.

An excerpt from the interview:

Question: You are the British Ambassador to the largest Muslim
country in the world at a time when misunderstandings between
Islamic societies and the West seem to be at their worst. How
does it feel to be here at this point in time?

I am not sure that there is such a misunderstanding between
Islamic societies and the West. It is not Islam that the West has
a problem with but with terrorist acts, whether the perpetrator
be Muslim, Christian or from any other religious group. Leaders
of Muslim states have distanced themselves from the terrible
incident of Sept. 11. Terrorists are a group of people who are
antidemocratic, against civilization and at war with the whole
world.

This is a crime against the democratic world, against
countries of argument and reason whether with a majority Muslim
population such as this one, or with a majority Christian
population such as mine. The overwhelming majority in Indonesia
is against terrorism as well because the country has bitter
experience of it.

I was here when the Jakarta Stock Exchange building was
bombed. I knew the rector at the University of Banda Aceh who was
killed in early September.

I have a sense of the outrage people here feel at that kind of
terrorism. Vice President Hamzah Haz has both privately in
meetings with European ambassadors and publicly spoken against
terrorism. He has clearly said that Islam does not provide for
terrorist acts.

Terrorists are people who are not prepared to work with
arguments. They attack anyone in this world who does not share
their attitude of hate and irrationality.

Do recent developments after Sept. 11 make your job more
difficult?

When I came here last August I did not think I would have to
explain to both the British community living here and to the
Indonesian people the position my country has taken over the
follow-up after Sept. 11.

Now I have to maintain much closer contact with the Indonesian
government to spell out the determination of all NATO countries,
from Turkey to Canada, that consider the attack on the U.S.A. as
an attack on the entire alliance of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization.

That is the new position that needs to be articulated. We
cannot simply assume that all people will understand. That is the
kind of work we were not doing before Sept. 11.

There are people who are very angry with the U.S. for various
reasons. How easily will they understand what you tell them?

I hope to see a very broad understanding of this position
here. We have to spell it out in a way that it will be convincing
to people here. I feel that people in Indonesia have a genuine
antipathy toward any kind of terrorism. Not from any kind of
theoretical position, but from recent experiences of having lost
too many lives, having seen too much violence lately.

There are too many lives here already scarred by terrorism.

What is the role of diplomacy in a high-tech, jet-setting age
like ours, where everyone wants instant answers and solutions?

The role of diplomacy is an important one in developing and
maintaining a consensus and coalition. If consistently practiced,
it helps bring together a coalition. Articulation is what works
in diplomacy and not just assumption. We have to spell it out in
a way that it will be convincing to people here.

What is your most important agenda while here?

Britain is the second-largest investor in Indonesia after
Japan. We have a lot at stake in this country at a time when
working in Indonesia has changed in many ways. With democracy has
come decentralization. Our companies are now trying to adjust to
the new rules as laid down by the provinces.

I am myself in continuous contact with the provinces. We have
to encourage the sharing of ideas. An Indonesian delegation of 15
parliamentarians was in London recently to study how the police
force can become more effective in security matters. The
Indonesian Army wants to find out how the British Armed Forces
faced the revolutionary changes that took place within the
organization when 55,000 British soldiers positioned in West
Germany since 1945 had to be redeployed elsewhere almost
overnight after East and West Berlin united in 1989? The working
of the Scottish parliament is being studied to see how it
functions within the United Kingdom but independent of London.

No country can ever serve as an exact model for another, but
it helps to know how others deal with similar problems.

There seems so much wrong at the moment with this world of
ours and if you found a magic wand in your hand this minute, what
is the first thing that you would do with it?

I would wave my magic wand over the terrorists to change their
hearts, to illuminate their minds so that they are able to see
that there are peaceful ways to change things. It is much slower
and takes longer, and I understand the frustration of people like
the Palestinians, I cannot pretend otherwise.

But Yasser Arafat too has strongly condemned terrorism which
is a clear indication that someone like that does not see
political change through terrorism.

Britain's own experience in terrorism is a very vivid one. But
to see a world that is overwhelmingly democratic, with a
democratic Russia and democratic Southeast Asia, it is possible
for people to win arguments through democratic means. It is
possible to change things by electing representatives, by debates
in parliament, changing governments through the ballot box. It is
not easy. It does take a long time.

How do you see the future of all of us?

The immediate future looks difficult. In an ideal world the
perpetrators of terrorist acts like the most recent ones of Sept.
11 will give themselves up, or are persuaded to give themselves
up. That may well happen. I am still hopeful.

But those who attacked New York and Washington on Sept. 11
died with the victims ... ?

I mean the masterminds of the terrorist acts should give
themselves up. That would be an ideal future. Otherwise, there
seems to be a difficult period ahead of us.