Foreigners working
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