HARRY'S THEME

The onus lies here                                                          

It’s a bromide among politicians urging exporters: Australians must study Indonesian to sell more to the hungry customers next door.

It’s a line liked by academics, though their motives are less mercenary. Aussies should learn to look beyond Nusa Dua’s infinity pools.  Exploring reveals diversity; tolerance will thrive, and friendships flourish.

OK to a point, though not the whole story for veteran Indonesian journalist and independent thinker Harry Bhaskara. He reckons his former country also has to put in the hard yards, as Australians say.  That includes the government news agency Antara distributing enticing stories about Indonesia written in smart English.

Then Aussies might learn there’s more to the Republic than burning tires in Jakarta and motorbike prangs in Kuta.

“If Indonesia can become a decent country its relationship with Australia and the rest of the world will improve,” Bhaskara said.  “Much of the onus lies with Indonesia itself.

“By ‘decent’ I mean the nation should become a true democracy, uphold justice, eliminate the impunity protecting authority, and make the bureaucracy transparent.

“Investors won’t come if these issues aren’t solved.  Malaysia and Singapore are well run.  In the eyes of outsiders Indonesia is a problematic country.

“I don’t blame Australians – why should they bother if Indonesia is not doing well?”

Such comments make partisan politicians splutter about ‘sovereign rights’.  Crowing that they’ll ignore outsiders’ opinions plays to the crowd but warps the intent: Caring critics aren’t traitors damning their nation, only those rulers who put self ahead of state.
Bhaskara’s views can’t be easily flicked aside.  Although now an Australian citizen, he spent most of his working life with The Jakarta Post starting just after the paper was launched in 1983.
In the dark days of President Soeharto’s Orde Baru administration a free press was but a dream: “The army used to order us not to publish certain stories, like riots in remote areas. Useful alerts; we often didn’t know there was trouble.” 
At press conferences Bhaskara drew stares.  “I was too Chinese to be an Indonesian, but too Indonesian to be a Chinese,” he quipped.  There were hurts, like the government in 1967 forcing name changes. 
Sie Siang Hoei was born in Makassar (South Sulawesi) a fifth generation Indonesian who only knew Indonesian languages.  Not good enough for Soeharto. Enter Harry Bhaskara Kontutodjeng.

“Bhaskara is Sanskrit for torch. Kontutodjeng is a Makassar word for truth,” he explained, adding that a good translation is Harry Tru(e)man.

A fine name for a journalist.
Offsetting, though not negating domestic discrimination, was recognition abroad.  He won visiting scholarships to the University of California and Murdoch University in Australia.
Bhaskara was orphaned as a teen.  Before his mother Cecilia Tanzil died she urged him to continue his education. But the family had no money so the lad quit high school.
He worked in stores and workshops but his real calling was music.  Through teaching the guitar he garnered enough for a place at the University of Indonesia as a mature age student. 
He’d already taught himself English and excelled.  He was drawn to American literature and cultural critic Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956).  “I was so impressed with the way he handled language and the clarity of his prose that I decided to become a journalist,” said Bhaskara.
The respect stopped there.  Mencken was also a racist anti-democrat, his admirer is the opposite. Writing well is not enough.  Good journalists need to be cursed by curiosity, showing sympathy for the weak while revealing wrongs. Bhaskara’s work reveals he suffers from these bothersome qualities.

 “We used to sneer at Malaysians because they didn’t fight for their freedom so had no independence,” he said.  “Now they’re upholding the law by putting former prime minister Najib Razak on trial. We never brought Soeharto to justice”.

Razak has been accused of looting US S4.5 billion from the country’s sovereign wealth fund. Transparency International has alleged that Soeharto, who died in 2008, embezzled up to US $35 billion.

Bhaskara, now a spry 70, covered stories across the archipelago rising from reporter to managing editor before retiring to Brisbane in 2010 where he’s been sharpening perceptions of his motherland. 
He’s Queensland correspondent for the prestigious national daily Kompas. His report on Australian Labor leader Bill Shorten conceding defeat and congratulating Liberal Scott Morrison on his 17 May election win ranked second highest in the paper. 
“Readers were surprised because Shorten accepted defeat before it was official,” Bhaskara said. “That’s another cultural difference – Australians don’t like bad losers.”
If adjusting to life in Australia’s third largest city has been difficult for Bhaskara and his wife Melanie, you won’t find details here.  The couple mix with the wider community and deplore Indonesians who import their cultural and religious differences.  He’s an on-call interpreter helping Indonesian patients in hospital and gives guest lectures at unis.
Instead of whingeing (complaining) he gulped a lungful of street air and shouted:  ‘It’s clean.  No noise. No pollution.  I’m not stressed. Who’d go back to Jakarta after this?”
Although friends joke that he’s become an ‘Indonesian bule (foreigner)’ because he doesn’t drink coffee, admires rugby football and rarely eats rice, Bhaskara is not uncritical of his new home; he believes the government has “reached a stalemate” in trying to handle drugs, gambling and alcohol abuse.  Empty churches also distress.
“I know Indonesia has potential,” said Bhaskara; for a moment his Happy Harry persona slipped – then recovered. “It makes me very sad that it hasn’t become the country it should be – and that’s a super power.
“Things have improved.  I have great hope for young people seeking to serve, and who want appointments based on merit.  Much will depend on the character of the leader who succeeds Jokowi in five years.
“If we have the right people at the top then corruption can be conquered.”
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First published in The Jakarta Post 2 July 2019