Michael Leifer, friend and critic of Southeast Asia

By Jusuf Wanandi

JAKARTA (JP): My colleagues and I, at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), first heard about Michael's health problems in 1999. It turned out he had a bout of prostrate cancer which suddenly turned for the worse in early March 2001. He was hospitalized but spent his last days at home and passed away on March 23.

I was in London during the second week of March and had the chance to talk to him on the phone briefly, which turned out to be our last conversation. He sounded very weak but, as always, kept his cool demeanor.

Michael had been a friend, advisor, and colleague for many of us at CSIS. Our first encounter dated back to the first half of the 1970s at an international meeting in Asia. But uppermost in my memory was our 1976 collaboration in organizing a one-day seminar on Indonesia at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) where he had been teaching since 1969. The meeting was disrupted by a demonstration of left-leaning students in protest of Indonesia's invasion of East Timor in 1975.

Michael argued that such a seminar was important as a venue where participants could exchange views on Indonesia's problems, policies, as well as the pros and cons of Soeharto's government. He thought Indonesia's leaders and opinion-makers should be given a chance to present their case and be criticized at the same time. That had always been vintage Michael: rational and willing to listen but also ready to criticize whenever criticism was due. I think he was the best scholar on Southeast Asia that I have ever dealt with.

Among his works, a book on Indonesia's foreign policy, published in the early 1980s has become a classic. He also wrote on Singapore's foreign policy, which was published last year. Michael wrote his best pieces on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), for him an evolving regional process, which he relentlessly scrutinized and criticized.

There were many points where he was right. I always tried to defend ASEAN, but in hindsight, I have come to realize how right his criticism was. He argued that the ASEAN way and ASEAN values alone would not be enough to push the organization through times of crises. His farsightedness had proved correct during, and in the wake of, the 1997 crisis. In addition, his argument on the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) that the organization lacks substance had proven correct, and we in ASEAN are still struggling to improve it.

Despite his straightforward criticism, Michael had always been an English gentleman: never vulgar and always balanced. He accompanied his arguments with sharp analyses and facts, and for us he was an exemplary scholar. That is why he remained friends with people whom he had criticized. We all knew that he was well- meaning and positive and he criticized in order to improve things for the future.

At its 25th anniversary, CSIS elected Michael to be its "Distinguished Scholar" together with a few Indonesian and foreign scholars. CSIS also invited him to become a member of its first International Advisory Board in 1999, all in recognition of his friendship, scholarship, advice and cooperation, and for training two CSIS scholars, Soedjati Djiwandono and Rizal Sukma.

Michael Leifer will be fondly missed, but his exemplary scholarship will stay with us for a very long time. And CSIS is very proud to have been associated with him for most of its 30- year long existence.

His beloved wife, Frances, who accompanied him on his many trips to Asia and Indonesia, has also become a very special friend. Her grief at losing Michael is ours, too.

The writer is chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Centre for Strategic International Studies in Jakarta.