Gus Dur's new Asian paradigm

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.