The hypocrisy of an imperialist down under

Max Lane, Murdoch WA, Australia

Since soon after the arrest of Schapelle Corby in Bali sections of the Australian media have waged a non-stop campaign agitating for her to be found innocent in her trial in Bali while at the same time launching persistent attacks against the Indonesian prosecutors, judges, police, prison system and legal system as a whole.

Much of this campaign has been based on lies and exaggeration fueled by racism. Probably the most outstanding example of the tone of this agitation was the front page headlines in one issue of the Sydney Daily Telegraph which screamed in huge letters: Kill her. This was supposed to be summing up the intentions of the Indonesian prosecution.

Of course, no Indonesian prosecutor ever called for the death penalty. Indeed, as The Jakarta Post editorial recently stated, no person, Indonesian or foreign, charged with any marijuana offense has ever been sentenced to death. The depth of deception in this front page headline is mindboggling.

The whole of this agitation rests on layer upon layer of hypocrisy.

Perhaps a central plank in the attack on the Indonesian system has been the criticism of the judges: Their record of never having found anybody innocent; their heartless statements about being "able to sleep well" after the sentencing; their seemingly being unmoved by Schapelle Corby's personal appeal in the court.

Of course, it is true that the Indonesian judiciary is a product of the last 33 years of the military backed dictatorship of Soeharto. During this period, the judiciary did not function as an independent institution but was rather an extension of the repressive state, an arm of the prosecution. At the same time, it became ridden with corruption.

Although Soeharto was overthrown by the student led peoples power movement of 1998, this culture remains strong in the judiciary. There are many Indonesian organizations and individuals, activists, lawyers and journalists, who have been fighting what they refer to as the mafia pengadilan (court mafia)

There is no doubt that life in Indonesian prisons can be very harsh. Attitudes from the dictatorship period still linger. Corruption, which reduces funds available for prison food and amenities, still exists. But the fundamental cause of these conditions, except in the directly military ruled areas like Aceh, is the impoverishment of the country as a whole.

Where does this huge income gap come from if not being a legacy of hundreds of years of colonialism, re-enforced by a neo- colonial economy consolidated under the dictatorship of the pro- West Soeharto. Indonesia had no industry, no technologically advanced agriculture, no higher education system, no scientific research capacity and no modern health system when the colonial Dutch ended their rule in 1942. Under Soeharto, despite more praised heaped on his government for economic progress, Indonesia remains a backward, impoverished economy incapable of sustaining a decent quality of life in town and village, let alone in prisons.

Today, Indonesia's economy is worsening as it implements the West's neo-liberal economic prescriptions. Factories close; sectors of agriculture shrink; trafficking in women expands; numbers of migrant workers becoming virtual slaves overseas increases; student numbers in the better universities decline because of costs. The Australian government, through its membership of the International Monetary Fund and other agencies, help enforce these policies.

At least, however, the mean spirit of neo-liberalism has not stopped Indonesian prison managers from allowing friends and family to visit prisoners frequently and to bring in food, drink and even mobile phones. It was reported in one Sydney Morning Herald article that in the prison where Corby is held prisoners can have almost unlimited visits from friends and family during the day time. Compare this with trade union activist, Craig Johnston, imprisoned in Melbourne, allowed only very rationed visits of short duration a couple of times a week.

The worse type of ill treatment that can occur in a prison is, of course, deaths in custody. I would be interested to a see comparing the rates of deaths in custody in Australian prisons and those in the civilian run sections of the Indonesian prison system, especially since the fall of Soeharto. Such a comparison may point to another aspect of the hypocrisy of the current anti- Indonesian agitation.

This hypocrisy is a reprehensible part of the Australian elite's racist, imperial mentality. But it is also something that can poison attempts to build good relations and solidarity between the working people of Australia and Indonesia, although little is being done to actually build those relationships at the moment. Even active links between trade unions and progressive political groups are weak. Moreover, the very economic imbalance between the two countries can also poison relationships at the grass-roots level, if there are not conscious efforts to build solidarity.

Guilty or innocent, there can be little doubt that Corby has suffered an injustice. Nobody should be in goal for 20 years for any marijuana related activity, and probably marijuana should in fact be a legally available substance. But the anti-Indonesia agitation of the last few weeks was never really about helping Corby. It was more about deepening fear among Australians of the non-Western world, that part of the globe now sinking deeper into poverty under the West's neo-colonial economic (and military) offensives.

Only real solidarity with Indonesians fighting this poverty and its causes -- namely, the neo-liberal and neo-colonial economics pressed upon Indonesia by the West -- can prevent the spread of the poison among both Australians and Indonesians that imperial hypocrisy can cause.

The writer is a Research Fellow of the Asia Research Centre at Murdoch University.