Indonesia facing difficult challenges

Indonesia facing difficult challenges

By Juwono Sudarsono

The following is an excerpt of a paper presented at the Asia-
Pacific Forum meeting on May 20.

JAKARTA: Indonesia's second long-term development (1994-2019)
promises to be far more challenging than the first (1969-1994)
25-year stage.

During the first phase, Indonesia's external and internal
environments were favorable to the country's determined efforts
to press ahead with national development based on political
stability, economic growth and social equity.

Externally, the international and regional environment enabled
the government to benefit from reconciliation with Malaysia and
Singapore, initiate the creation of ASEAN, and secure favorable
external economic assistance from an international aid
consortium.

The World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and private
multilateral agencies did their share in providing timely
assistance that Indonesia needed at crucial phases in the
development process.

From the outset, it was clear that Indonesia's transformation
from a regional recalcitrant into a regional peacemaker, its
strategic location in maritime Southeast Asia, its vast pool of
natural resources and its striking potential as a vibrant market
were crucial factors in the sustained focus and assistance given
to the country's national development.

The challenge for the 1994-2019 period is that at the present
stage of international relations, those favorable factors have
receded into the past. The post Cold War era has underscored the
rise of acute competition for investments, trade and market
access from other regions of the world Eastern Europe, China,
Vietnam, India, Bangladesh, even from Latin America.

Domestically, the success of Indonesia's concentration on
internal economic reconstruction has given rise to heightened
sense of urgency that the nation must give more attention to
perennial problems of defining central authority's relationships
with the periphery particularly in Aceh, Irian Jaya and East
Timor.

Differences in the scope, speed and intensity of globalization
of production, of investment, of financing and of marketing have
exacerbated relations between the modern sector in manufacturing,
mining, services and agri-business with the more traditional
sectors of agriculture, fisheries and village-based small scale
industries.

Centralized patterns of political and economic decision-making
must give way to gradual decentralization and regional autonomy.

More than ever, central government must provide the impetus so
that archetypical industrial centers such as West and East Java
facilitate a higher level of integration with the world economy
to the eastern half of Indonesia.

Political, commercial and transportation centers of "prime
cities" such as Medan, Palembang, Pontianak, Banjarmasin,
Balikpapan, Semarang, Surabaya, Ambon and Jayapura will have to
function effectively as intersecting points in a wider network of
exchanges of goods, services and qualified personnel across the
archipelago.

Key cities and resource-based provinces in the outer islands
increasingly interact with growth poles in the Asia-Pacific
region.

The rise of an emergent middle-class (estimated to be 18
million) will increasingly lead to more assertive political
demands for participation not only in the urban centers of
Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi and Kalimantan but also in the three
outlying areas of North Sumatra, North Sulawesi and Irian Jaya.

Political and administrative institutions more specifically
local bureaucracy and regional parliaments will have to bear the
twin burdens of good governance and timely delivery of public
goods: physical safety, ports, roads electricity, water-supply,
health care, primary and secondary education.

Culturally, Indonesian language, literature and arts will have
to flourish if they are to retain their vital roles as an
essential palliatives in maintaining Indonesia's unity and
cohesion in the face of increased commercialism.

Likewise, the Indonesian media will have to be more committed
to play an increasingly strategic role as public educators as
well as flourishing business enterprises. Regional universities
welcome the challenge to become centers of public education so
that human resources development expand across a wider spectrum
of the archipelago.

As the speed of information, ideas and commercial exchanges
spur wide-ranging structural changes in Indonesian society,
cultural impulses must be encouraged to provide elixir toward
increased freedom and the growth of civil society.

No less important, inter-ethnic and inter-religious harmony
must retain their vital roles in underpinning an increasingly
vibrant and self-confident Indonesian society, leading to
progressively larger freedom and protection of human rights.

There will be need for periodic adjustment of the scope and
degree of the political role of the armed services, though its
centrality in Indonesian political life will continue until
civilians improve their modes of leadership recruitment and
organizational discipline.

As the nation as a whole becomes more complex and specialized,
much of the technical and managerial roles which have been
undertaken by Indonesian officers at various levels of government
will naturally be devolved to their civilian counterparts.

Younger Indonesians, who now make up more than 40 percent of
the population, take Indonesian unity and cohesion for granted.
Inevitably, there are demands for greater participation in
decision-making based on merit and professional competence.

Indonesia will continue to care social, economic and political
problems that will be never-ending issues of contention between
officials and non-government organizations at home and abroad;
facing up to these issues fairly and squarely is part of our
maturing process as a nation.

Striking a balance between economic efficiency and political
imperatives will continue to test the ingenuity of leaders in
national and provincial government. As the western half growth
triangles (Singapore-Johore-Riau, SIJORI; the Indonesia-Malaysia-
Thailand, IMTGT) make economic sense, the East ASEAN cooperative
scheme must ensure that there is a complementary relationship to
strengthen Indonesia's sense of national identity and shared
prosperity.

An underlying problem, population growth cuts across a host of
other challenges such as youth unemployment, disputes over land
titles, unrest in industries increasingly pressured by
international competition, the all-important role of women in
caring and preparing for the next generation of leaders.

There is also the problem of matching population policy with
economic growth and protection of the environment; sustainable
development is an inter-generational commitment.

Intense globalization and regionalization has heightened the
dangers of fragmentation among and within nations: ethnic
animosity, racial antagonism, narrow provincialism, linguistic
assertiveness and religious fanaticism.

These intra-nation conflicts can spill over to regional
instability, leading to outbreak of hostilities among nations.

All Indonesians are determined that the nation will remain
united politically as well as sustain adequate economic growth.

Our doctrine of national and regional resilience make it
mandatory that we anticipate political, economic, cultural and
technological shifts of power affecting our will to provide
substance into political independence.

As member of ASEAN, chair of the non-aligned movement and host
of the next APEC summit, we are as dedicated to international
peace and security, just as we are bound to our commitment to
establish an equitable and prosperous Indonesian nation.

Dr Juwono Sudarsono is the Dean of the Faculty of Social &
Political Sciences of the University of Indonesia.