6 * 7 OCTOBER 2000
CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA
Indonesia Update
The most ambitious Indonesia Update yet held at the Australian National University in Canberra took place on 6 7 October 2000. Around twenty speakers participated, and discussion topics ranged over recent social and political as well as economic developments in Indonesia, with an unprecedented degree of attention being paid to historical background.
By ROGER KNIGHT
Acrude summary would be to say that the economists were sanguine (when have they been else?) about Indonesia's future recovery was well on the way while the serried ranks of 'political scientists', historians, and anthropologists were equally uniformly gloomy (ditto). Yet there was much more than this. The great strength of the two-day meeting lay not only in its panel of distinguished speakers but in an audience that contained an impressive cross-section of Australian and Indonesian scholars, students and commentators, civil servants and journalists. Most of the speakers respected this expertise, and left ample time for discussion sessions that were as lively as they were informed. The proceedings were accordingly much more nuanced than a crude summary might suggest.
Some of the economists, to be sure, still sounded as sleek as ever (a diet of their own words over the last two years must have proved nourishing. A pity the poor still find statistics so indigestible). However, there were others among the economic historians, in particular, some with experience outside the rarefied atmosphere of government and corporate offices, who sounded a note not only of caution but of scepticism about interpretations of the data on offer. Yet others took immense pains to review the pros and cons of their database in a way which notably enhanced the level of debate.
The extent to which continuing corruption and the failure of judicial and law reform stood in the way of the real resumption of economic growth also excited considerable interest, with a number of speakers from the floor querying whether corruption was necessarily an obstacle to growth. Not surprising given their past record was an apparent consensus among ANU economists that resumed growth would follow the lines laid down under the New Order, minus, presumably, the 'mishaps' of the last stages of the Suharto regime.
'Would Indonesia survive?' was obviously high on the order of discussion. Perhaps the most penetrating single comment on this score was a reminder that prosperity, as well as brute force, had always been a key element in the colonial and post-colonial state's existence in Indonesia, and that without it the prospects looked grim indeed. Or should we, perhaps, put it another way and suggest that empires collapse when they no longer make economic sense?
The post-Suharto regime itself came in for quite a pounding, not least from a trenchantly argued position that Wahid was himself so much a creature of the New Order that little by way of Reformasi was to be expected under him. Perhaps even more interesting, however, was another speaker's implication that George Kahin and his followers got it all wrong. We were reminded that, in so far as Indonesia was a 'nation built with words', its political tradition was at least as corporatist, integralist, and 'fascist' as it was pluralist and democratic. Given the temper of the times, the former were as likely to characterize the country's political future as the latter. Within this framework, Islam did not perhaps get the level of attention that it requires. The view from Wahid's camp, that Indonesian Islam retains its 'difference' in respect to its unique pluralism and tolerance, was ably presented, but any clear statement of alternative positions, inter alia a socially based discussion of 'Islamism', was sorely lacking.
As in any big and ambitious conference of this kind, there were curiosities. A misguided attempt to compare Sukarno and Wahid ('each became president at a time when the integrity of the Indonesian nation was threatened') was received with less mirth than it richly deserved. On the other hand, the conjecture from another speaker that the Suharto 'Security State' was so incompetent as to be ineffective did draw a barrage of well-targeted fire from one of Australia's most senior and level headed academics. One puzzle was why so little use was made a special half-day session, surely of the presence at the conference of the distinguished Indonesian editor of Tempo magazine. All of which points to the fact that the Update shaping up very well as the major regional forum for discussion of developments in Indonesia could very usefully have extended over three days rather than two. Inter alia, such an extended meeting might have given the participants full time to discuss the (tongue in cheek?) suggestion of a well-known Brisbane academic made at the end of the Update's final session that Java would be much better off divested of its empire, in a sensible dismantlement of the old Dutch imperium in Southeast Asia.
Dr Roger Knight is senior lecturer in history at the University of Adelaide, South Australia.
E-mail: knight@arts.adelaide.edu.au