Gus Dur's new Asian paradigm

By Nova Poerwadi

JAKARTA (JP): Before he was elected President, Abdurrahman Wahid, popularly known as Gus Dur, promised to make Asia (and by extension, the Middle East) the focus of Indonesia's new foreign policy. Now that the charismatic Muslim figure has become leader of the 210 million-strong nation, President Wahid seems intent on making good his promise by writing off Western countries from his immediate travel plans and putting Beijing at the top of his agenda.

The reasoning is simple. Since Australasians, North Americans and Europeans seem quick to gang up on Indonesia using financial, military and diplomatic pressure (while rallying negative public opinion through Western-based media), then we shall rekindle our long-neglected friendship with countries of the developing world.

This emphasis on Asia, especially China, is nothing new. Many dub the new foreign policy (pardon the pun) orientation the new "Jakarta-Beijing axis", after the ill-fated pact between the two Asian giants at the end of the Sukarno years, a reference that strikes a chord with today's romanticism of the country's revolutionary nation builder.

Nations tend to idealize past leaders in times of crisis, much like some postcommunist Russians romanticize the autocratic Czarist regime that their forefathers fought so hard to overthrow. In Indonesia, the loss of identity after the collapse of Soeharto's enforced unity has led many a man on the street to idolize the founding president.

Sukarno was renowned as a down-to-earth president who was said to have had impromptu meals in sidewalk stalls and, in one story, insisted on paying the vendor, who initially refused to allow the leader to pay for his bowl of bakso (meatball soup).

In foreign policy, the Sukarno regime successfully played one superpower against the other to further Indonesia's national interests from recognition of its independence in 1949 to the liberation of West Irian (later Irian Jaya) in 1962. In light of the recent disastrous conclusion to Indonesian rule over East Timor, the Sukarno years are seen as a golden age for Indonesian foreign policy.

Never mind that in his later years Sukarno had legislature name him president for life and supreme commander of the revolution, among other aggrandizing titles, the strongman's years in office are remembered fondly because they were seen as an age when being Indonesian meant something. And never mind that before his downfall, the Sukarno regime was hell-bent on destabilizing Third World Malaysia, which (ironically, considering present-day Malaysia) was being dubbed a "Western puppet".

What even the average school child knows of this period is how Indonesia was a leading voice in the developing world, a fact not even the pro-Soeharto history textbooks could erase. Is this neo-Sukarnoist zeal alone driving Indonesia's current President into embarking upon another crusade of south-south solidarity? Will Gus Dur's Asian gambit lead to another ambitious foreign policy crusade that will only drain our financial reserves?

Probably ... if Indonesians were as gullible as many Westerners would think. But even Vice President Megawati Soekarnoputri, who embodies Sukarnoist ideals for her most ardent followers, has warned against emulating the later, more despotic years of her father's regime.

And as mercurial as he is, Indonesia's new President is not about to lead the nation into financial ruin. Speaking in Bali a few days after his election, Wahid stressed the need to solve the nation's political problems in the "Indonesian way" (i.e. gradually and without foreign pressure), while acknowledging the need for "no strings attached" foreign investment, based on the bottom line.

In addition, it is doubtful whether Jakarta's new ties with China and the rest of Asia will be to promote the ominous- sounding "Asian values". While Indonesia and China probably share many values on family and other social issues, at the moment, the two nations clearly do not share political ideals.

The same goes for Indonesia's relations with Muslim countries, each of which have diverging religious and political practices. The direction there would seem to indicate increased ties based on Muslim brotherhood, rather than promoting an anti-Western Muslim front.

But increased trade and understanding among Asian and Muslim states may indeed upset the pro-Western global status quo, which is so used to dominating the economies of the developing world and now controlling world opinion with increasing impunity.

This year, the Kosovo conflict and the East Timor crisis constituted positive steps toward upholding universal human rights. But they also marked a giant step backward for national sovereignty and the standing of those who do not belong to the clique of nations, known collectively as "the West".

Never mind that while East Timor was still an Indonesian province in September, Australia was amassing more than 4,000 troops an hour's flight away from the island of Timor with threats of an invasion if Jakarta didn't consent to a UN-mandated force. And many times during the Kosovo crisis we heard television anchors of Western-based media say, "Serbs claim NATO planes have killed civilians in Pristina, and now to find out what really happened ... let's go live to the NATO briefing ..."

What really happened?

Indonesians have had little sympathy for Serbs since the Balkan crisis began in the early 1990s, but don't the Serbs also have an equal say in this, or is the world now delineated between "deceitful" and "honest" countries?

The demonizing of Indonesia during the whole East Timor ordeal has also shown that, as much as the Western media has gotten away with telling the truth, they have also gotten away with plenty of lies, either through malicious intent or ignorance. The tragedy is these media now hold world public opinion at sway and international institutions trust them as the gospel truth.

The imbalance is made worse with the cliche that all Indonesians are unthinking pawns of the government and the military. Nowhere is this more evident than in the condescending reaction toward the anti-Australian backlash here. When Australian journalists tell half-truths about Jakarta's role in East Timor to rally public opinion against Indonesia, no one makes a big deal of it. But when the Indonesian media start reporting stories that put Canberra in a negative light, it is accused of waging "propaganda".

Had Indonesian legislators rejected the East Timor ballot results, Indonesia would have been roundly demonized. No such sweeping labels for Americans, whose shortsighted congressman failed to ratify the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in October.

With the devastating effects of the financial crisis and the fallout of the East Timor ordeal, Indonesians have learned that in business and in politics, the West is at best only a fairweather friend. Jakarta has also learned that it has neglected Asia, Africa and Latin America, which can provide people with the goods and services they require, sometimes at a better price (and not at the price of what Gus Dur calls "our national dignity").

Gus Dur's new Asian paradigm is not merely a neo-Sukarnoist delusion based on narrowminded nationalism; it is pragmatics at work based on popular sentiments. He is seeking a new direction for Indonesia's future role, while debunking the myth propagated by late U.S. president John F. Kennedy, that some countries are morally superior to others and have a nobler purpose than self- interest.

Where were those noble values when Washington and Canberra supported Indonesia's push into East Timor in 1975? Did American financiers really care about the average Indonesian when they pulled out their capital during the financial and political crisis that began in 1997? Where was Canberra's voice in 1998 when Muslim clerics were being hunted down in a literal modern- day "witch-hunt" in East Java?

Only when the Howard administration saw a chance to show its "moral superiority" toward its northern neighbor did self- determination in East Timor become an issue. After years of presenting itself as an understanding ally, Canberra used Jakarta's moment of weakness to wrest East Timor from the nation's breast, instead of giving East Timorese the gradual and less bloody separation they deserved.

Such facts would seem to verify the fact that all countries operate out of self-interest. And in the spirit of pragmatics, Indonesia, under President Wahid, is just learning where its interests will be better served. While shared social and religious values alone, like those the nation has in common with people of Asia and the Middle East, cannot justify Jakarta's new foreign policy orientation, it does provide an effective jumping- off point.

The writer is a Jakarta-based journalist with the RCTI private television station. The views above are personal.