A Land of Contrast

There are many reasons Americans should be watching events in Indonesia, the Southeast Asian archipelago nation of more than 17,000 islands. While its booming economy is attracting millions in U.S. investments, officials are concerned about growing Islamic extremism.

The nation’s tolerant brand of Islam blends piety with modernity. While many Indonesians answer the call to prayer five times a day, they also answer friends on Facebook. Women in miniskirts amble alongside friends clad in the jilbab headscarf, and bars, nightclubs, karaoke and alcohol are easily found in most cities.

Indonesia, with 240 million inhabitants, is the world’s fourth-most-populated country and the world’s third-largest democracy. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has praised Indonesia as a place where “Islam, democracy, modernity and women’s rights can coexist.”

Indonesia: A few facts

• Indonesia’s economic revival is based largely on domestic consumption and its rich natural resources of oil, natural gas, coal and palm oil.
• Its annual per capita income has more than tripled from $1,000 in 2000 to a projected $3,500 in 2011.
• Foreign investment skyrocketed 52 percent last year to $16.2 billion; annual economic growth is projected at 6.4 percent.
• The rupiah is at a seven-year high against the U.S. dollar, and, according to the Wall Street Journal, “Indonesian stocks are perkier than a cup of java.”
• Economic progress has largely occurred since the fall of the 31-year authoritarian rule of Gen. Suharto (1967-1998), and has been made possible by a stable democracy led by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the nation’s first president to win by direct vote in 2004, who easily won re-election in 2009.

The nation’s challenges

• Endemic corruption has worsened under a Yudhoyono reform program to transfer political and economic power from Jakarta to the provinces.
• The United Nations says half the population lives on less than $2 a day.
• Millions still lack potable water, adequate sanitation and electricity.
• About one-third of children under 5 suffer from malnutrition.
• Violent attacks by Islamic fundamentalists are growing.
• Indonesia’s population is also soaring, which could negate future economic gains. At an annual growth rate of 1.3 percent, the population will reach 470 million by 2060, and 940 million by 2110, according to the National Family Planning Coordination Agency.

Source: www.sfgate.com

‘We Can be Model for Islam and Democracy’

Indonesia’s transition from an autocracy to a vibrant democracy can be an example to those countries in the Middle East experiencing political upheaval, says the country’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

“Indonesia can be a model where Islam and democracy exist hand in hand, with no contradiction between the two,” he told CNN.

“We are still facing some challenges to becoming a role model… there have been some difficulties, some ups and downs, setbacks, but we insist that democracy, Islam and modernity can exist together.”

President Yudhoyono became Indonesia’s first democratically-elected president in 2004 and has steered the country’s fledgling democracy towards greater political transparency and economic growth.

Countering religious extremism

Indonesian president on corruption We are still facing some challenges to becoming a role model but democracy, Islam and modernity can exist together.

A former general under the autocratic regime of President Suharto, Yudhoyono is seen by many as successfully taking a steady path towards confronting the problems inherited after 32 years of Suharto’s rule.

One of those was divorcing the military from the country’s political set-up.

“During our reform process, I was actively involved in implementing internal reforms in the military. Afterwards, the military relinquished its political role. The military started respecting democracy and human rights,” he said.

“So what’s happened in Egypt, the political power has to be first reformed, including the military, and together with the rest of society they can push forward reforms. Perhaps those are the lessons that can be learned by our friends in the Middle East and North Africa.”

Combating corruption and Indonesia’s reputation for “crony capitalism” has also been high on the agenda for Yudhoyono. The World Economic Forum has stated that corruption is still rife in Indonesia and Yudhoyono believes it will need to be addressed long beyond his term in office ends in 2014.

“Corruption is indeed our biggest challenge — my biggest challenge. I have to be frank on that,” he said.

“The practice of collusion between government officials and business has been rectified and it is not like what happened 10 or 20 years ago. I see that we are headed in the right direction. I expect that Indonesia will need about 15 to 20 years to implement a system that would spur a stronger culture or a climate of a fear of corruption.”

Yudhoyono credits better ties to the private sector as a reason for Indonesia faring well during the recent global economic crisis, unlike the financial meltdown that affected Asia in 1998 and led to the collapse of Indonesia’s currency.

Indonesia’s economic forecast is for 6.4% growth this year and is predicted to rise, but balancing that against other concerns is key, believes Yudhoyono.

“Growth is not our only economic target. We have other targets as well — such as job creation, poverty reduction and the protection of the environment,” he said.

“We choose to grow by about 7%… and I think this is achievable and we can do this without damaging our environment. This is important because we want to protect our planet, the environment and the future of our children and grandchildren. My government has declared that we are committed to a 26% reduction of emissions by the year 2020.”

(source : CNN Asia)

Indonesia Vs Thailand (again)

HERE in Bali, life is seen as a search for balance between the forces of galungan (good) and kuningan (bad), the festivities celebrating the triumph of the former over the latter having been recently completed.

The furious red-shirted demonstrators seized army tanks in Thailand

In Southeast Asia last week, we saw this same duality we find in all cultures played out regionally in good events (Indonesia) and bad ones (Thailand). In Indonesia, the first professional president the country has ever enjoyed, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, found his new party, the Democrats, triumphing in parliamentary elections.

In preceding weeks, we were visually confronted by huge billboards of candidates (usually stout well-fed pria) and troops of young men on motorcycles storming through this island with red banners (PDI – Megawati Sukarnoputri’s party), yellow (Golkar, the miraculously reconstituted Suharto party led now by vice-president Jusuf Kalla) and occasionally the blue of the Democrats.

They assembled at rallies, where they got their R50,000 (RM20), unless they were in car caravans (R100,000). So SBY, being the head of government and state, just had more money? No, it’s a lot more than that. Democracy, not just the Democrats, seems to be triumphing.

In Thailand, the opposite seemed to be happening. There, a leader has to show “the hand”, more than just the “strong fist” of Western dictatorships. It conveys the sense of strength from which even legitimacy, in the Thai mind, proceeds.

Same red-shirted people gathered in Indonesia, only more peaceful

If Abhisit Vejjajiva, the new prime minister, cannot even protect two narrow roads into an awesomely important regional gathering, he definitely lacks “the hand”. He can’t last long.

In Indonesia, an archipelago of 14,000 islands, patterns emerged. Here, people rally around strong leaders just as in Thailand; issues aren’t too important. SBY has had to take extremely controversial decisions, like a sudden doubling of gas prices a couple of years ago, on the theory that there would be violent protests against all incremental price rises, so why not bear the pain all at once? That’s leadership.

The existing alliances are probably breaking up. Golkar leaders are mooting partnership with the Democrats, with its 20 per cent of the vote so far, as is the smaller PPP, the United Development Party.

In contrast, the PDI-P party of Megawati is withdrawing from the so-called “golden triangle” of three parties, which included Golkar, and is trying to team up with two small parties, of Generals Wiranto and Prabowo respectively, each of which got more or less four per cent. That’s Old Politics. As for all the vote-buying, well, what’s new?

Democratic theory doesn’t rest on perfection. As far back as Aristotle, 24 centuries ago, it was seen that people would support good government, when “the shoe fits”, an apt metaphor in the Thai kingdom.

Throughout Indonesia, enough people saw that SBY was delivering good governance for his party to trounce its opponents. Now his re-election in three months is assured, and he can launch more pervasive anti-corruption programmes (note that heads have already rolled) along with reforms in devolution, participation and rural development.

In contrast, throughout the poor Thai northeast and north, the shoe hasn’t fit. The rich Bangkok alliance of high business and the political elite was increasingly seen for what it had become — a maladaptive form of governance. It had worked brilliantly for decades (no country in history grew as fast as Thailand between 1985 and 1995), but now with the king’s health declining, the country has not been able to find a balance.

Comes a rich populist demagogue, Thaksin Shinawatra, silencing his opposition as much as possible, buying off or shutting down media and threatening to replace the existing elite with his own. This would-be Mussolini broke all the rules, even attacking the throne, and finally got the heave-ho in September 2006.

But his replacement government was lazy, and didn’t show “the hand”; especially the successor patchwork coalition government led nominally by Abhisit. The result has been confusion and chaos that a divided military has not been able to contain.

Just imagine holding the 14th ASEAN summit (odd that it wasn’t the 13th!) and this happens. The great importance world leaders attribute to the alliance was shown by the attendance of the Chinese premier, Korean president and 20 others. And then the unprecedented disaster — a few hundred “red shirt” supporters of Thaksin outwitted the security forces and even broke into the hall.

It was dazzling in the extent it humiliated the Royal Thai government. History suggests that the time is ripe for some unexpected general to find within himself the power to show “the hand”, but not someone as arrogant and headstrong as Thaksin.

Indonesia is on the make; Thailand has to catch its breath and find the will to get back on the adaptive path it followed for many decades, even centuries. But so much damage was done last week that it isn’t going to be easy, and a new leadership will have to design policies that finally draw in support from the poor northeast and gain national legitimacy. It’s happening beautifully in Indonesia.

The writer was emeritus professor at the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy, Tufts University.