Indonesian-Australian relationship not as rosy as many believe
Indonesian-Australian relationship not as rosy as many believe
Duncan Graham, Surabaya
Australians will no longer be able to rock into Bali, get an
on-the-spot visa and wander the archipelago.
The new system requires applying for a visa weeks in advance
and paying a fee of about US$45. It will be a complex form and
must be completed entirely in Indonesian. Any mistakes, however
minor, will mean the application will be rejected and the fee
lost.
Nationals of other countries will be allowed to lodge their
applications via the Internet, but not Australians.
All young female applicants for visas who claim to be married
to Indonesians will be treated with suspicion.
All immigration and customs documents must be completed in
Indonesian.
Indonesians had been warned against traveling to Australia
following violence against mosques and women wearing headscarves.
The Indonesian government apparently doesn't think the Australian
government is doing enough to prosecute these terrorists and is
just hiding behind statements about 'free speech'.
Fortunately my exclusive leak has now been revealed as a false
document and the Indonesian government has yet to impose such
onerous restrictions. But there's no reason why it shouldn't,
because that's how Indonesians who want to visit Australia are
treated.
The Indonesian media has been carrying stories critical of
Western help given to the victims of the Aceh tsunami. Westerners
have been accused of having other agendas. These include acting
as spies, seeking to help the separatist movement and wanting to
'Christianize' the Acehnese who are almost entirely staunch
Muslims.
Most Australians, knowing their nation's indifference to
religion, may find this last claim a bit of a giggle - and the
idea that Australian troops want to get involved in a prolonged
and nasty civil war where Muslims are killing Muslims is far
fetched.
But not for ordinary Indonesians. Outside Bali and Yogyakarta
many are unable to differentiate between Australians, Americans
and Europeans. The term Belanda, meaning a Hollander is also
generic for any white skinned foreigner.
It's also useful to remember that Indonesians have so long
been fed misinformation by previous governments that they often
prefer myth to fact.
Americans are distrusted because of their perceived arrogance
and their foreign policies which are seen as anti-Islam. Others
remember that the CIA was allegedly involved in supporting
separatist movements in Sulawesi and may have had a hand in the
coup which toppled first president Sukarno in 1965.
The Dutch are widely disliked because they were the
colonialists who lorded it over the country for more than three
centuries, took as much as they could and gave little back.
Others who have seen the Australian flag and the portraits on our
currency laugh at denials that we are no longer a colony of
distant Britain.
We can certainly plead that we, the people next door, are
different and separate, but at the moment it's all uphill. We are
still seen as the lackeys of the US, anti Islam, pro-separatists
with territorial ambitions. A recent survey of 6,800 Indonesians
showed that our foreign policy was linked with the US as the most
disliked.
Indonesian media coverage of the foreign relief efforts in
Aceh gave the Americans the biggest share of positive publicity,
largely because they went out of their way to lionize local
journalists.
Someone with a bit of sensitivity should have told our
military in Aceh to wear uniforms identifying them as Australian.
Instead many wore ubiquitous camouflage and some used dark
glasses - a mistake in Indonesia.
Prime Minister Howard and Indonesian ambassador Iman Cotan
both claimed relations between the two countries are now better
than ever because of Australia's speedy response to the tsunami
tragedy. That's probably right at the highest official levels,
and probably correct among some intellectuals. I'm also sure it's
wrong almost everywhere else, except among the ordinary people of
Aceh who received our aid.
The Australian government and NGOs are doing excellent work in
Indonesia, helping the Aceh victims, rebuilding the
infrastructure, giving advice. But we are not doing enough in
other areas and we are not doing our PR well.
In 2003 the Australian Embassy in Jakarta issued only six
press releases and last year only 28 non-tsunami releases. Aid is
not free of politics; I want my country and its programs to be
well known and widely used. We have a good story to tell and a
culture worth promoting. A goodwill tour by Nicole Kidman, the
best known Australian in Indonesia, would do more good for our
image than 1,000 pictures of men in grey suits shaking hands.
Richard Gozney, the previous British Ambassador to Indonesia
and a fluent speaker of Indonesian, was something of a celebrity
appearing on TV talk shows and explaining his country in down to
earth terms. Our official representatives may register among
Jakarta's elite, but not in the mass media.
We have been outstandingly generous to Aceh, but before the
tragedy quite stingy. We offer less than 400 postgraduate
scholarships to a nation of 240 million. We fund Australian
Studies course at a handful of universities when there are
thousands who could benefit.
In Indonesia our cultural programs are miniscule. The French,
who have no historical reasons to be involved in the country, do
a much finer job pushing their literature, art, design and film.
The library in the Australian embassy in Jakarta has been
closed. The Western Australian Trade office in Surabaya has been
shut down. The best known English teaching franchise in
Indonesia is run by a European company. Travel warnings continue
to deter Australians from visiting Indonesia.
The Youth Exchange Program for young Australians to visit
Indonesia was canceled last year. The budget for the Australia
Indonesia Institute has been cut and cut again. The new chair of
the Institute is Allan Taylor, the former director general of our
spy agency ASIS, so Indonesian paranoia about our real motives in
Aceh now has some facts to feed on.
Indonesians get their ideas of the US - and by extension us -
from films and TV programs. Sadly these are seldom quality
offerings; most are B-grade trash which show handsome white men
and luscious blondes solving problems with guns and technology.
Their opponents are usually sinister dark skinned buffoons who
can't shoot straight and mangle English grammar.
My country is not a godless cesspit of pornography and
violence harboring colonial ambitions and I want Indonesians to
know that. My rants may be ineffective, but making it easier for
Indonesians to visit Australia and see for themselves is one way
to counter the myths.
Maybe making it as easy for Indonesians - as it is for
Australians - to visit the people next door.
The writer is an author The People Next Door - Understanding
Indonesia (University of Western Australia Press) and currently
living in East Java. This article was based on a speech the
writer gave at the Perth International Festival Writers' Week
recently. Graham can be reached at wordstars@hotmail.com