Politics and RI foreign policy

Politics and RI foreign policy

By Juwono Sudarsono

The following article is an excerpt of a paper presented at a
conference held by the Indonesian Students Association in
Australia in Canberra on Aug. 20 and Aug. 21, 1996.

CANBERRA: I would like to address the domestic-foreign policy
nexus in Indonesia through brief discussions on three general
areas: the political role of the Armed Forces, the position of
Chinese-Indonesians and Islam in domestic politics and foreign
policy.

President Soeharto's starting point in conducting foreign
policy effectively put the late President Sukarno's thesis on its
head: a nation cannot be respected abroad unless its leaders in
government deliver to its own people the basics -- human
security, food, clothing, shelter. He also firmly believed in the
imperative of ideological commitment and political stability as
preconditions for sustained economic development.

Party politics and the government of the 1950s did not possess
cultural roots within Indonesian society at large and was
responsible for debilitated governance. The demise of the
Indonesian Communist Party in 1966 left the Army leadership with
the challenge of the possibility that radical Islamists may want
to change the basis of the Indonesian nation-state.

The Army-inspired framework of state identity based on
Pancasila, initiated since the landmark Second Army Seminar in
August, 1966, was affirmed as the official national ideology in
1978. The consensus to settle once and for all the imperative for
political stability was given added commitment through the
promulgation of the series of legislation on political and social
organizations passed by the Indonesian government in 1985.

Rather more by default than by design, the Army became the
only institution that was capable of holding the country together
on a nationwide basis, gradually displacing the tumultuous party-
based politics which marked the 1950s and 1960s.

Foreign criticisms about the role of the Armed Forces in the
conduct of domestic and foreign policy were largely based on the
guiding assumption in industrialized countries that any form of
military involvement in the conduct of governance must be
illegitimate.

Popular depictions of "authoritarianism" and "militarism"
became the staple diet in many foreign journalistic and academic
writings on Indonesian politics in the 1970s and 1980s. Some of
these observations surface from time to time in the Australian
media, particularly when linked to unrest or demonstrations in
East Timor, labor issues and human rights violations.

In spite of these reservations, even the most rabid critics of
Indonesia grudgingly acknowledge that without the political
stability that the Armed Forces provided, Indonesian could not
have achieved the massive socioeconomic advancement that has
taken place over the past 25 years. In fact, the very success in
providing the political environment conducive to long-term
economic development engendered further debate on the legitimacy
of the development trinity of "stability, growth and equity".

Paradoxically, Indonesia's insistence on concentrating on
economic development enabled its international standing to be put
in a favorable light. Indonesia's low military budget, its
carefully calibrated links between domestic economic performance
and international prominence allowed it to play a more recognized
role in Cambodia, the Non-Aligned Movement, the Moro problem in
the southern Philippines and UN peacekeeping roles in Bosnia,
Somalia and Nambia.

Another important domestic-international nexus is the question
of the status of Indonesian citizens of Chinese origin. In the
past, because of close identification of the Indonesian Communist
Party with the revolutionary facets of pre-1978 People's Republic
of China, the Indonesian government's decision to resume
diplomatic relations with Beijing in August, 1990, constituted an
important landmark in the domestic-political life of the nation.

Indigenous Indonesians had long adhered to the popular
stereotype that all Chinese-Indonesians were always sympathetic
to the People's Republic of China, at best harbored dual loyalty
and held undue influence in all sectors of the domestic economy.

These questions remain touchy because of perceived preference
on the part of Chinese-Indonesians to invest in the greater China
area (southern China, Taiwan, Hong Kong) rather than in
Indonesia. But Indonesian foreign policy with regard to China
continues to reflect the unending issue of citizenship, political
loyalty and the economic role of key Chinese-Indonesian owned
conglomerates.

The recent presidential decree facilitating the process of
Indonesian citizenship to about 210,000 citizens of Chinese
descent marks another step in advancing our political maturity in
domestic as well as in international terms.

Although Indonesia is the nation with the largest Moslem
population, strict adherence to the principles of Pancasila
firmly puts in place the basis of a clear ideological framework.
With respect to membership in the Organization of Islamic
Conference, for example, Indonesia's unique position as "the
largest Moslem nation" was accepted as the basis for its
membership, rather than on the formal stipulation that the
organization's membership were based on clear affirmation of an
"Islamic state".

That is why, in the conduct of its foreign policy, Indonesia's
stance in respect of such issues as Palestine, the crisis in the
southern Philippines, the Gulf War and the Bosnian crisis was
made explicit on the firm notion that in advocating its national
interests, priority was given to the affirmation of an ideology
which placed all religions on equal footing.

Unlike Malaysia, Pakistan and other professedly-Islamic
states, Indonesia's adherence to a world view incorporating
acceptance and tolerance among all religions reflected its
internal concern to maintaining intercommunal and interreligious
harmony.

The large majority of Indonesia's Islamic leaders do not have
the gut reaction -- vehement and vitriolic -- to perceived
sleights from Western culture that have characterized some Middle
Eastern countries. To fall into the trap of locating anti-Islamic
animosity primarily in the West would be to reject the central
features of Islam -- love of knowledge, tolerance and
egalitarianism.

Indonesian Islam seeks to reflect religion as encouraging
breadth of vision, equilibrium and tolerance, as well as
fulfillment of human destiny in the universe. That is central to
the character of the Indonesian nation-state. That is also of
central importance to Indonesia's credibility across all nations,
cultures and religions abroad.

The writer is Vice Governor of National Resilience Institute
in Jakarta.