LISTEN TO THE LAND - IT SPEAKS

 REINVENTING THE POLITICS OF FOOD                                                  Duncan Graham 

Indonesian farmers are vanishing fast. Once the majority in the workforce, their produce was essential for stomachs and politics.  Founding President Soekarno was blunt: Food security was "a matter of life and death". 

Meals are more than avoiding hunger. If the land doesn’t yield enough, traders hoard and retailers ramp prices; food riots can topple governments. 

Farmers provide the world with "most of its healthy food acting from a sense of moral commitment to the communities of which they are a part." 

This dedication by the authors of Small Farmers for Global Food Security starts their collection of studies that “charter the demise and reinvention of moral ecologies in Indonesia.” 

It's a curious phrase.  Anthropologists Thomas Reuter (Melbourne University) and Graeme MacRae (NZ’s Massey University) define ecologies as a means of survival that “need to be sustainable if they’re to last.”    

That's agriculture and not to be devalued. Chewing magnetite doesn't build Iron Man muscles. 

Mining can keep us in pocket for a while but ores are finite and the business is fickle. Nickel quarries in Australia are closing because Indonesian companies powered by Chinese money produce cheaper ore.  

Here’s the moral bit: "An almost universal respect for land … embodied in rituals of gratitude, practices of conservation and ideologies of reciprocity with natural systems ... often mediated by divine agents." 

Though largely belittled in a society worshipping status (some Indonesian men grow a long fingernail to show they don't toil for a living), the sowers and reapers are the feeders.  

The practical comes with Sembako, a contraction of sembilan bahan pokok (nine essential foodstuffs) decreed by the Soeharto government last century to try and keep grains flowing and prices under control.   

Modern nutritionists are critical of Sembako - rice, sugar, cooking oil, meat, eggs, milk, corn, LPG, and salt. We now know filling can be unhealthy living. 

As in most Southeast Asian countries rice remains the basic.  In the past, a mighty carved hardwood chest (lumbung padi - domestic granary) was an Indonesian kitchen centrepiece.  Communities had barns.   

Now the government controls supplies through Bulog, the national logistics agency that runs warehouses across the country. 

 Australians are familiar with giant silos dominating Wheatbelt towns, road trains and mechanical elevators.  By comparison, Indonesia's storage and transport system appears primitive and inefficient as the grain is packed in 50kg sacks lugged manually.   

Bulog is often in the general news pages assuring consumers there's plenty of rice - even though much is now imported, usually from Thailand and Vietnam. 

Nationalists consider this shameful; in the early years of independence, the Republic was an exporter. The shrinkage of available land has crippled the idea of Indonesia as a country that can feed its own. 

The dwindling number of farm labourers left are best seen around sunup, pedalling or motorbiking on clap-trap machines. The women come later to pick, wash and pack. 

The workers are poor and their gear is simple: A shouldered hoe, a sickle across the handlebars, and a backpack sprayer, the only tool of modernity.  The rest are the same as those used centuries past. 

East Java’s independent small farmers till some of the richest land in the world, fertilised by volcanic ash falling like snow, irrigated by complex and ancient waterways.  Some areas are capable of three crops a year. 

Blocks are usually less than a hectare, enough to keep granddads busy but not feed their families. 

Younger men are rare; they’re usually on motorbikes in the city ferrying kids to school and adults to eight-hour air-con office jobs.   

Who'd want to dig and hoe, spray and harvest whatever the weather, hour or day? There's more comfort and money and no mud in the spreading concrete paddocks of housing and factories sealing nature forever. 

Socialism is a dirty word in Indonesia, though widely practised, the state forcefully interfering whenever it can. 

When the overuse of insecticides killed the natural predators of plant hoppers destroying rice, Jakarta introduced Farmer Field Schools to educate growers about handling plagues. 

All good until funds dried up, the bureaucrats departed and the pests returned.   

The book tells that Reformation (1998) brought some liberation from Jakarta centrality; farmers encouraged by better-educated local community leaders started to lose their feelings of inferiority. 

Now they’re mixing modern discoveries with ancient wisdoms, tossing aside government orders on how to better production. 

Top-down policies have failed, but bottom-up ideas are getting traction. 

‘Sustainability’, ‘bio-diversity’ and ‘climate change’ are entering village vocabularies, say the authors.  Organic farming is booming, driven by growers responding to market needs.  

Cooperation with other like-minded groups and networking are all made easier through social media. 

However, the problems with certification that troubled Australian producers in the early years of the movement, remain in Indonesia. 

Trusted official agencies are rare. The cost of getting a crop approved turns poor farmers away. The use of new strains of seeds and chemicals is constrained by suspicions that the national government is linked with  Big Agro. 

 Reuter and MacRae claim distrust has been lessening with the current Joko Widodo government, “which appears to be, for the first time, on the side of the farmers”. 

But how many are left? Late last century the population divide was 60-40 per cent in favour of rural areas.  Now it's reversed. 

In those 25 years, more than 40 million people have arrived.  Australia expands through immigration and natural growth - in Indonesia, it's only the latter and worryingly fast. 

The future of Indonesian agriculture is far more complex than keeping supply lines open and people in the paddy.  This book reveals the clumsiness of official policies as powerful agencies try to change and control the ways wee folk keep the world alive. 

Changes in Indonesian farming illustrate the benefits of  better yields  - and the downsides.  Pesticides and machines kill weeds but can also destroy jobs, lifestyles and community cohesion.

For our shelves and tables to stay laden with nutritious foods, hear this book's message: Take great care with change.  Think widely. Innovation, respect for the land and its custodians are as vital as new seeds and systems.

Small Farmers is published in Indonesian by Obor and in English by Cambridge Scholars. 

First published in Australian Outlook, 16 September 2024: 

https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/book-review-small-farmers-for-global-food-security/

RETURNING STOLEN GOODS HELPS DELETE GUILT

 

THE CURSED STONE RESISTS RETURN       

            

            Picture:  Dr Peter Carey

In an age of logic and evidence-based reasoning, modern research has revealed a thousand-year curse.  It could be stopping the superstitious and spiritually-conscious Javanese from vigorously striving to return a thieved “emblem of Indonesian cultural heritage.”

At first glance it's a ridiculous assertion.  But apart from a sudden surge of greed eroding goodwill, how else to explain rehabilitation failure when all parties have been willing?

In a Scottish cottage garden stands a 3.5-tonne stela, a man-high slab much like a gravestone, though there’s no body buried beneath – only the corpse of government resolve.

Indonesians call it Prasasti (inscription) Sangguran; the West label is prosaic - the Minto Stone.

Set on the southern slopes of Arjuno-Welirang in East Java it was consecrated during a Hindu feast on 2 August 928 AD, long before Islam arrived in the archipelago.  Almost nine centuries later it was ripped from near the equator and replanted in cold Roxburghshire County close to the border with England.

This year three international scholars reported the need for its return as “one of the highest priorities among the artefacts which the Indonesian government hopes to bring home.”

The trio also re-translated the Sanskrit and Old Javanese inscriptions to reveal the violence to befall thieves and vandals:

“If there are evil people who do not obey and do not maintain the curse that has been uttered … then he will be hit by his karma.

“Cut down his snout, split his skull, rip open his belly, stretch out his intestines, draw out his entrails, tear out his liver, eat his flesh, drink his blood, without delay finish off.”

Scottish military engineer Colin Mackenzie who shipped the stone to Britain never got to display the monument to British imperialism.  He perished on the journey, though not through such horrendous villainy.

 The Malang regent who let the stone be taken also died unnaturally.  Stamford Raffles, the British Governor of the Dutch East Indies between 1811 and 1816 and who gave the stone to Mackenzie suffered much misfortune.

His wife Catherine died aged 41 (she’s buried in the Bogor Botanical Gardens) and four of his children were victims of tropical diseases. Raffles was felled by a stroke on his 45^th birthday.

There are now expanding global demands for thieved treasures to be returned to their sources. ABC TV is running a documentary series Stuff the British Stole about plunders by the Crown as it swept the world conquering, colonising and looting along the away.

 Australia is negotiating for the return of culturally sensitive Aboriginal artifacts – mainly paintings, weapons, sculptures and even human remains.  There are almost 40,000 objects held in 70 British and Irish museums as historians push the UK to settle its colonial past.

High Commissioner Stephen Smith has been quoted as saying the deals are “part of the modern relationship” between the two Commonwealth countries.

Indonesia has also called for its antiquities to come home through government-to-government deals. Last year the Netherlands sent back 472 artefacts.

The British rule of the Dutch East Indies was for only five years (1811–1816) but resulted in “a voluminous transfer of Indonesian cultural objects to Britain and India.”

Picture 19^th Century artist unknown

Among them the precious Javanese stela on the land of a British hereditary politician with a mouthful instead of a moniker, the seventh Earl of Minto, Timothy Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound.

He’s hosted philologists studying the writings and has apparently “shown openness to the idea of repatriating the artefact to Indonesia.”

However,  reports from 2015 say that after agreeing to gift the artefact he changed his mind, when told Prasasti Sangguran might fetch US $500,000 on the open market. Earlier there’d been talk of an offer of 50,000 British pounds. There were also suggestions it’s ‘owned’ by a family trust so Earl TEMK can’t do a personal deal.

The Indonesian government has balked at paying for what it believes is its own property instead proposing “an award, as well as accommodation costs in Indonesia if the nobleman wanted to see the place where the inscription was placed.”

The Earl has not replied to requests by this writer to clarify his intentions.

In 2021 the Indonesian Director General of History and Archaeology Hari Untoro Drajat told the media that the stone’s upcoming return had been “facilitated by the Hanyim Djojohadikusumo Foundation” (an Indonesian philanthropic organisation).  He said it would be placed in the National Museum in Jakarta.

Two years later  Khofifah Indar Parawansa, the Governor of East Java visited Scotland;  her office reported she “tried to repatriate or return the Sangguran Inscription”:

 "This inscription is an important source of information for all of us Indonesian people, especially in East Java. Because here is written the history of the transfer of the capital of Ancient Mataram to East Java.”

Khofifah did not reply to questions about her failure to recover the stone.

Last year a Glasgow University conference considered “the history of campaigns for the restitution of artefacts to Indonesia …  and the shifting parameters of national narratives.”  Organiser Dr  Adam Bobbette wrote of the inscription’s value in the study of climate change:

“The stones also have much to tell us about early modern Javanese ideas about environmental disaster and catastrophe.

“We feel that the repatriation of the Sangguran is vital to Indonesia’s postcolonial development … The research and repatriation campaign are ways to address historic legacies.”

British historian and author Dr Peter Carey who lives in Indonesia and has studied the inscription, said "there's no interest or will to send things back at this stage.”   

In the meantime the locals in Ngandat, just below Batu, have built a concrete replica under a spring-fed banyan tree.  It’s flanked by Indonesian national flags and painted with words in Old Javanese. Handfuls of half-burned incense sticks in pottery bowls around the base suggest pre-Islamic beliefs remain strong.

Caretaker Siswanto Galuh Aji said he hoped the site would become a place to teach history. The original Prasasti Sangguran stood about 500 metres away and most likely lies in the foundations of the Buddhist Dhammadipa Arama monastery that was built about 50 years ago.

If government officials get brave and right the wrong by bringing the stone home, that could reverse the curse, stay well and help Indonesia thrive. Doing nothing condemns. George Orwell wrote:

“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”

##

MORE THAN A REFUGEE

BEAUTY WITHIN TRAGEDY                     

Life is uncertain everywhere but Cisarua is extreme. Unlike most Indonesian boroughs the locals are wary.  Greetings are rare. For the Bogor hill town is no longer a cool climate retreat for the well-known regulars fleeing the filthy Jakarta sauna, but an open jail for despairing foreigners on the run.

In decaying overcrowded flats the reluctant residents have a persistent question: Will I die here in exile or go mad first?

There are no threatening black-clads clicking safety catches to intimidate. The walls aren’t scarred by shrapnel. People come and go; there’s public transport to just about anywhere, though still no escape.  This is where thousands of refugees rot.

Trapped in this limbo for almost a decade was journalist Abdul Samad Haidari. Like most squatters a refugee from Afghanistan where the Taliban has been ruthlessly persecuting the Hazara ethnic minority and oppressing writers with dissident voices.

Abdul fled his homeland when he was seven and wandered Pakistan and Iran.  He got to Indonesia through people smugglers promising settlement in Australia even while knowing that portcullis had been dropped by former Immigration and then Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton. 

The tough-talking former cop and his colleagues had declared the seekers for safety “would never set foot in Australia”. That included the internationally famous Kurdish-Iranian writer and film-maker Behrouz Boochani, held for six years in Papua New Guinea.

After Dutton’s demotion to Opposition Leader, Behrouz stamped hard on the red dirt, raising dust by lambasting Australia’s approach to human rights and praising Abdul’s work.

Both men found freedom in green Aotearoa which has shown compassion by taking 150 refugees a year. Abdul says NZ’s “glad landscapes speak with God and the reviving fragrance of oceans clears the lungs.” 

Much personal damage is probably irreparable: “I survived the genocide but how should I survive the traumas?”

Abdul’s second book The Unsent Condolences has been published in Australia by Palaver. In a foreword Behrouz writes:

“Each and every poem builds the unconquered fortress within the human who has endured the atrocities of evil. (Abdul’s) erudite vision reverberates our hearts, harmonises our minds, ignites our humanity to stand up and take action. In our history, there are only a few poems that have inspired marches against injustice, here we have an entire collection.”

Unable to practice journalism in Cisarua, Abdul turned to poetry.  His first collection The Red Ribbon was published in 2019 by Gramedia, promoted as a search for “peace and hope in a country that has offered him a sanctuary of human love – Indonesia.” 

That’s generous; the Republic hasn’t signed the 1951 UN Refugee Convention so the stateless can’t work, get health care or education, only temporary sanctuary.  Abdul couldn’t even sign a publisher's contract for his book that became a best-seller.

Asylum-seekers get small support from the UN High Commission for Refugees.  There are more than 12,000 of these homeless strugglers from 50 countries – mainly Afghanistan.

Abdul told an interviewer in NZ that The Unsent Condolences was: “a form of resistance against the confiscation of our lands, culture, religious beliefs, language, and history … these poems bear witness to the bitter affliction of persecution, colonization, discrimination, and dehumanization faced by the Hazara people.”

His memories are raw.  He writes about his birthplace Dahmardah “where the glorious orchards were full of vibrant dreams, the magnificent mountains stood tall as God’s height, and the rivers flew like veins, singing in rhymes as though God and nature were in an eternal dialogue about life.”

Then roaring down the road comes reality: “Hilux vehicles sprouting white flags — two at the front; two held at the back.

 “Machine guns and loudspeakers up on rooftops, shouting Taliban Zindabad. Long live the Taliban.

“They march in the village; some head down to madrasa (an Islamic school) and some to Khanju (an area in Dahmardah) searching house to house, Kalashnikovs, their necklace of carnage; rockets rank their shanks.

“They hunt down adults, forcing them to submit, elders are ejected — ‘a waste of space’. Women are silenced, shut off, guns on their heads;

“Sharia Law is enforced to carry out the slow grindings. Mothers hush children to fall asleep with Taliban’s myth. I will call the Taliban if you don’t go to sleep”.

The Australian philosopher Professor Raimond Gaita (famous for his biography and film Romulus, My Father writes of Abdul’s work:

"As Australians, we should know that our governments have shamed us with their ruthlessly devised and enforced policy against refugees fleeing their homes by land and sea. Had we understood what Abdul tries to make us understand no government would have dared implement those policies.”

The Unsent Condolences is dedicated to family and backers impressed with his talent, like former NZ High Commissioner to Indonesia Pam Dunn: “You helped me overcome the feelings of darkness during the last five years. You have been the light guiding me to find the direction to home where my soul found comfort.”

His passion won’t move the concreted minds who mix Islamic refugees with terrorism, job losses and high rents.  But for the rational rest here are insights, language to stimulate, and wisdoms that transcend politics and lines on maps:

“I am but a journalist, the lord of my own words, giving volumes to moral and righteous voices which carry the truthful hymns of the voiceless.  I am engaged, remain curious, firm and utterly prepared. 

“Because I am more than a refugee.”

##

First published in Inside Indonesia, 9 September 2024:

 https://www.insideindonesia.org/archive/articles/book-review-beauty-within-tragedy

ACEH GETS A BAD PRESS - NOT OUR EXPERIENCE

Visitors, foreign nationals, and even native Indonesians may have already had their ears ‘bashed’ – as the Australians would say – by friends and well-wishers alerting them of fearful religious oppression in Aceh a.k.a. the ‘Veranda of Mecca’ – a place only few outsiders have actually visited.

Some experts in Java told us, before we visited Aceh, that we would not be able to sleep in the same hotel room or sit together in the back seat of taxis unless we could prove we had been joined in the sight of a Deity — though, in our case, that would be a civil registrar. My Indonesian Protestant wife, Polin, was advised to wear a jilbab (headscarf) in public and never behave in any way suggesting affection. The strict Sharia laws that apply nowhere else in the nation were upheld by morality police and could lead to public floggings for miscreants.

To put it briefly, Aceh has recurringly been painted by some people as an Indonesian version of theocratic Iran, which is not exactly the sort of image to encourage overseas investors and certainly not holidaymakers. Westerners are rare in Aceh and are mainly drawn by the surfing spots in the northern part of the province. No alcoholic drinks are allowed, either. Most tourists are usually from Malaysia; there are direct 90-minute flights from and to Kuala Lumpur, to boot.

As the warnings came from professionals and even senior staff from an international agency who had previously made many visits to Aceh, we decided to treat their advice seriously. We photocopied our marriage certificate and Kartu Keluarga (family residence card) and reluctantly bought a headscarf.

Our anxieties were reinforced once we arrived at the Sultan Iskandar Muda International Airport. In Jakarta, air hostesses were bare-headed, displaying splendid coiffures and trim figures. Here in the capital city of Aceh, Banda Aceh, the hostesses’ heads, shoulders, and chests were covered, making them appear shapeless and almost unrecognisable. In the airport arrival lounge, every woman covered their face and hands — except my beloved wife who wanted to preserve her religious identity without causing any strife. She drew glances more than stares from the locals, more likely driven by the sight of a cross-cultural couple than the outfit my wife was wearing.

Acehnese Women Wearing Hijab (Headscarf)

We sat together in the back seat of the cab without the driver demanding legal proof of betrothal. Instead, he volunteered that our stay would be peaceful and safe, and spent the 40-minute drive to Banda Aceh emphasising his point that a headscarf was unnecessary to wear by non-Muslim women. The unsought assurance was repeated at every contact. At the hotel where we stayed, no marital documents were needed to be shown, either.

In the supermarket where we stopped by, we saw a white-skinned mum wearing a headscarf which caused us a brief worry. However, at the next check-out, a bareheaded local assured us that there would be no issue whatsoever because the practices of other faiths were respected and, as a Christian herself, she had never copped abuse. Moreover, the small Chinese population in Aceh follows Buddhism and Christianity. On top of that, there is a prominent Catholic church in the centre of the city.

The locals joked with us that Aceh stands for “Arabic, Christian, Europa and Hindi (India)“.

We frequented kampong eateries and were never refused service. We held hands when crossing roads — not to irk anyone; we simply wanted to cross the roads safely. Annoyances, turned out, were minor. Banda Aceh had more places to pray than stay, we also discovered. Public attractions, such as the spectacular and moving Tsunami Museum, would close from 11.30 AM to 2 PM so that the Muslims could conduct their afternoon worship. The public signs, we observed, were bilingual. The second tongue here is not English as in Java and Bali; instead, it is Arabic.

It did not escape our attention that this December will mark two decades after the devastating Indian Ocean earthquake which was then followed by the world’s most powerful recorded tsunami that took 228,000 lives – the majority of whom were the citizens of Aceh. Out of the city, a flat grassed area with a single-wave memorial marked the mass grave of 46,718 unknown victims, their bodies too damaged to be identified. The survivors would regularly recall the horrors to help visitors understand the size of the tragedy. They were also keen to thank foreign countries for their help in rebuilding the city.

Human rights activist Farida Haryani was running a non-governmental organisation called Pengembangan Aktivitas Sosial Ekonomi Masyarakat (PASKA) Aceh that also helps the disabled who are the survivors of the tsunami. “I tell our 20 staff that we must accept God’s will,” Haryani said. “That doesn’t mean we cannot ease their plight through re-education, medical care, and equipment like wheelchairs to help them live [worthwhile] lives.”

The headquarters of the organisation is situated in Sigli; the building was donated by Canadian agencies. There were two camps near the headquarters, holding hundreds of ethnic Rohingya asylum seekers who fled Bangladesh after being forced out of the Myanmar homeland by a ruthless military junta. Despite stories of hostility towards the refugees, PASKA Aceh nonetheless made available a teacher to help these asylum seekers communicate; most of whom were monolingual and poorly educated.

Maybe we were lucky and only met helpful moderates during our visit, but none of our bleak predictions came to pass. In fact, we discovered that the people of Aceh were friendlier than those in East Java.

Should readers consider visiting Aceh as well? That should be a personal decision. Having said that, it should be noted that the roads there were relatively uncrowded and the traffic was generally smooth. The landscape was also enchanting and the climate was relatively tolerable. There were no ‘morning price’ touts, either.

There is much to see and admire in Aceh. Polin’s headscarf is for sale now; it has never been used. Turns out, Aceh is not Iran.

First published in Indonesia Expat, September 2024:  https://indonesiaexpat.id/outreach/observations/aceh-is-not-iran-an-expat-observation/

MATES WITH INDONESIANS - BUT NOT THE TNI

Which one looks like a miliary man?

 The paperwork signing late last month by Defence Minister Richard Marles (left) and his Indonesian counterpart Prabowo Subianto in Magelang (Central Java) is being paraded as an extraordinary advance in relationships. It’s not.

Why is this dud deal being sold like a Nobel Prize? Because scores of news outlets here and overseas are cutting-and-pasting press releases. In effect, much media has become a PR team for the government betraying voters.

Some facts to underpin this shameful assertion:

For the past two years, bureaucrats have been to-ing and fro-ing with the Australia-Indonesia Defence Cooperation Arrangement. Now ratified, it has become an “agreement”.

We, the Fourth Estate, aka chooks (as former Queensland Premier, Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen called us hacks), haven’t had a peep inside the thick covers and so have to take what’s fed.

Something more nutritious may come if independent experts get the full text to decode definitions and reveal what we’ve sold to appease our huge neighbour.

Marles’ media says the deal is about complex joint activities and exercises. The two militaries can “operate from each other’s countries for mutually determined cooperative activities” and swap soldiers for education and training in science and technology, though these are not disciplines where Indonesia is internationally admired.

Much hullabaloo so the lads can don camouflage and play in the same sandpit – something they’ve done before and are doing now.

Fellow journos, unarmed, doing their job, murdered by RI soldiers

Through design or coincidence, that signing night ABC Australia telecast the 90-minute documentary Circle of Silence with Indonesian subtitles. It’s the story of the Balibo Five journalists in East Timor, killed in 1975 by Indonesian soldiers who knew the men were reporters.

Marles’ opposite number is also president-elect and will take over in October. He’s a former general with a dark past allegedly involving human rights abuses.

Researcher Pat Walsh, who was involved with the East Timor truth commission report, Chega! wrote: “As a member then a commander of Kopassus, Prabowo undertook at least four tours of duty in East Timor… (he was) anything but an innocent or bit player.

“Kopassus is the Indonesian military’s secretive ‘special operations’ force. It specialises in unconventional warfare, counter-insurgency, intelligence gathering and anti-terrorism.

“In plain English, locals are recruited and bribed to do Kopassus’s dirty work and, if necessary, to take the blame.”

(It is not suggested that Prabowo killed the Balibo Five. He has never been charged with war crimes.)

In 1998, he was cashiered for disobeying orders so he ran away to exile in Jordan. That fact has rarely been mentioned since he was convincingly elected in February with a 58% majority.

Ten days before the Magelang signing, Prabowo came to Canberra, ostensibly to approve the “arrangement”. But according to the AFR’s James Curran, his real mission was for “more Australian involvement in the Indonesian economy, especially in agriculture and countering narcotics”.

Apart from watching body language and facial expressions, why did any media bother to front the Canberra show? Journos were told “no questions”, suggesting the ministers fear inquiries and are unable to be straight with their employers, the public.

The men’s minders know any professional would ask Prabowo about blood on his hands, and his resulting fury would destroy the “arrangement”.

Transcribed texts show the two sides are not on the same page.

Marles said it was “profoundly historic” and “the deepest, the most significant agreement that our two countries have ever made”.

Profoundly nonsensical. In 1995, former prime minister Paul Keating secretly signed the Agreement on Maintaining Security with dictator and second president Soeharto.

That was a biggie, though four years later it was shredded by his successor, Bacharuddin Jusuf ‘BJ’ Habibie. He was furious the Australian-led peacekeeping force had entered Timor after the people had voted 8-2 to free themselves from Indonesian control.

Marles and Anthony Albanese said four times that their “arrangement” was about “security”. Prabowo used the word once and prefaced it with “food”. The best label he could muster was a “good neighbour agreement”.

Apart from language slippage, what’s not mentioned in diplomatic back-slaps is often more important. Absent was Australia’s new agreement with the US for their fighters, bombers and spy planes to use NT bases.

Also not in the handouts was Indonesia’s proposed law to let “active-duty personnel hold positions in civilian government ministries and agencies”.

If passed, the Republic will return to the last century dwifungsi (dual function) policy of soldiers controlling domestic departments irrespective of their skills and merits. (In most Western democracies civilian and military affairs are kept apart.)

Also ignored was the Indonesian military’s actions in West Papua, a prolonged and brutal campaign against independence seekers that’s allegedly taken thousands of lives.

Instead, Prabowo stressed that whatever subtexts might be imagined, there would be no revision of the county’s neutrality:

“As you know we are, by tradition, non-aligned. By tradition, our people do not want us to be involved in any geopolitical or military alliances or groupings. I myself, am determined to continue this policy.”

If Indonesians thought their nation was secretly sliding into the US camp through a deal with the region’s “deputy sheriff”, riots would result and Marles’ arrangement trashed.

He’s already crept close. In The Washington Post the Marles reportedly said: “We’re working together (with the US) to deter future conflict and to provide for the collective security of the region in which we live.”

While many elsewhere-based reporters parroted Marles media, The Australian’s Jakarta correspondent Amanda Hodge got her cautions buried on page four but accurately reflected the Jakarta view that the arrangement falls “well short of a mutual security guarantee” and without the weight of a “visiting forces agreement”.

Another realist was the ABC’s Stephen Dziedzic, noting Prabowo only said the two countries had made “great progress” in “ironing out legalistic details” in the arrangement. That’s the job negotiators are paid to perform.

While Marles was in Central Java about 200 Australian troops were dashing around East Java’s north coast in the two-week Super Garuda Shield exercises. Also with the Diggers are almost 2,000 US Marines, supposedly thinking about cyber threats plus toys that go bang.

In the smog of industrial Sidoarjo are sweating soldiers from NZ, Singapore, Canada, France, Thailand and the UK. Not China this time, though the PRC participated in 2009.

Before The Australian implies this means Indonesia is in the Western camp and the signings aimed at “countering growing Chinese threats”, Lachlan Murdoch should know this:

The annual fun-with-guns games have been underway since 2006; next year Beijing’s troops will be starring in yet another “bilateral training exercise”.

If this wasn’t so serious, the idea of Grunts helping Indonesia, then their Chinese equivalents doing the same thing would be a fine film plot. Title suggestion: Dancing with Demagogues.

First published in Pearls & Irritations, 4 September 2024: https://johnmenadue.com/never-mind-the-quality-feel-the-words/

https://johnmenadue.com/never-mind-the-quality-feel-the-words/