Xenophobia, a dangerous road

Xenophobia, a dangerous road

The public accusation that foreigners have been meddling in
the presidential election, which was widely reported in the
Indonesian-language media on Friday, is not substantiated by
facts, but has still sparked controversy because it was made by a
senior Cabinet official, and specifically targeted Americans from
the U.S.

Under normal circumstances, such a wild accusation would not
have been worth entertaining. But since it has fanned a debate,
and unfortunately swayed public opinion, then we feel that we
cannot let such xenophobic remarks pass without tendering our two
cents.

Hard as he may have tried, Kwik Kian Gie, the State Minister
for National Development Planning, failed to present a coherent
argument to support his claim of foreign interference in the July
5 presidential election, at least in the way that his argument
was presented in Kompas daily's main headline story.
Unfortunately, his retraction or denial (we are not sure which)
through Antara sounded even less convincing so Kompas, the
country's largest daily newspaper, decided not run the story on
Saturday.

Kwik claimed that the issue of foreign meddling came up during
a Cabinet meeting led by President Megawati Soekarnoputri on
Thursday. He said there was a general concern among Cabinet
members about the strong role that foreigners played in swaying
public opinion in the aftermath of July 5 presidential election.

He singled out William Liddle, an American scholar who has
dedicated most of his academic life to the study of Indonesia,
and the National Democratic Institute (NDI), a U.S.-based
organization which has been involved in helping transform
Indonesia into a more democratic society.

Liddle's interest in Indonesia is clear from the tons of work
he has done, including the number of Indonesians who have studied
with him. NDI, until this year's election, had kept a low
profile, but it has been active for the past six years in running
a host of programs to promote democracy in this country. Kwik, or
the Cabinet members, could not have picked worse examples in
making their accusation. Going by their work, Liddle and NDI are
well meaning in their intentions to help this country.

What, in the eyes of Kwik, was their sin? This gets even more
ridiculous.

Liddle commented publicly about the outcome of the July 5
presidential election, which, going by the National Election
Commission's official count with over 70 percent of the votes
counted, will mean Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Megawati will be
in the runoff on September 20. Liddle is one of many local and
foreign political analysts who appeared in the media giving their
assessment of the election, including an attempt to explain why
Susilo, the former security chief minister, had bested his own
former boss. Because Liddle had studied about Indonesia
extensively, naturally his opinions were widely sought and heard.
It has nothing to do with his American citizenship.

NDI's "sin" was the publication of its "Quick Count"
projections about 10 hours after the polls closed on July 5. NDI
put Susilo ahead with 34 percent against Megawati's 25 percent.
The survey was actually conducted by the Institute of Research,
Education and Information of Social and Economic Affairs (LP3ES),
a respected Indonesian research group which received technical
support from the NDI to conduct the survey. So, it should really
be attributed to LP3ES. The official count is still proceeding,
but its provisional figures closely resemble the ones given by
the Quick Count. It was not absolutely precise as Kwik would have
us believe, but it was close enough for the likes of Kwik to
allege that the National Elections Commission was on the NDI's
payroll.

Presumably, the Cabinet ministers discussed the outcome of the
election, in which Megawati was running a distant second to
Susilo. But rather than searching for honest explanations, they
opted for quick answers: blame it on outsiders. They could not
have been more wrong in their claim about foreign intervention by
targeting Liddle and NDI. Even if Liddle did have clout among the
public (a gross exaggeration that Liddle would be the first to
admit), his comments were made after the election, and would
therefore have no bearing on who people voted for on Monday
morning. Ditto for NDI. Its ability to project so accurately only
confirms their projection skills.

Kwik and the Cabinet are grossly mistaken to blame Megawati's
loss in the first round on foreigners, but that is how Friday's
headlines in many local papers would have been read by the public
and by her supporters.

Such accusations are not only ridiculous, but dangerous at a
time like this when anti-U.S. sentiment is already high because
of the opposition to the U.S. war in Iraq. Coming less than two
months after the expulsion of Sidney Jones -- another American
scholar -- who was expelled for "meddling in our domestic
political affairs", we detect a disturbing xenophobic tendency
within this administration.

Megawati and her Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-
P) would do well to learn from the mistakes made by her father,
Indonesia's first president Sukarno. One fatal error Sukarno made
was to fan anti-Western sentiment among Indonesians to the
extreme, to a point that eventually cost the country its
international standing. Sukarno paid the price dearly but, worse,
the entire nation also suffered as a result of his error.