Foreigners working in Indonesia
Once again it appears that an Indonesian government is on the verge of retreating into paranoia. A couple of women are alleged to have broken visa laws by a couple of groups of people, with plenty of motive to lie about it (the Police and Military in Aceh), and a Minister and Vice President start squealing for an end to automatic tourist visas, and ridiculous (and ineffective) screening by consular officials (The Jakarta Post, Sept. 23).
Indonesia has repeatedly taken this sort of inward-looking and defensive approach since independence. Instead of welcoming foreigners to come here as tourists, business-people, workers, researchers, and residents -- all of whom could contribute vastly to Indonesia's development -- entry is made hard, and staying is treated as a golden opportunity for the government and corrupt officials to milk us as much as possible. This is an incredibly short-sighted approach.
At independence Indonesia and Singapore were in similar situations, for instance, both had been long colonized by European countries, both had important harbors (in fact I read somewhere that Sabang was a more important port than Singapore), and both had a mixed population; but Indonesia had far greater resources, both natural and in its people. I hardly need to point out the difference in status now, except to say that as well as Singapore being far richer, its population is more integrated, better educated and outward looking.
Why is this so? Largely, I believe, because Singapore has encouraged foreigners to come, visit, invest, and stay there! Singapore offers tangible incentives for qualified graduates to move there, and helps them to find jobs. When faced with the realization that corruption was rife, it acted to stamp it out. Indonesia discourages foreigners and does its best to ignore problems such as corruption!
Indonesia is poorly served by its rulers. The "protectionism" against foreigners is designed solely to benefit the rich, well- educated, and (more importantly) well-connected elite -- I can't imagine a horde of Australians moving to Indonesia to put becak (pedicab) drivers out of work; but I know that the elite can imagine well-qualified foreigners coming here and taking their cozy little positions on boards and as directors of state owned enterprises.
Face reality and the world Indonesia: scrap all the protectionist regulations like the KITAS scam, let investors and workers come here and live as residents; face your problems, like corruption and human rights abuses, and solve them rather than pretending they don't exist; and every time some state official or army general makes a statement blatantly aimed at a return to the "bad old days" e.g "we must watch the foreigners more carefully, they are trouble-makers" -- call for their immediate resignation!
CHRIS LASDAUSKAS
Bekasi, West Java