RI POLITICS REVVING UP

ROBBING ROADS TO KEEP RICE CHEAP  

Unlike their southern neighbours, Indonesians know when they’ll go to the polls - 17 April 2019. That Wednesday will be a public holiday to encourage a big turn out.  Voting is not compulsory.

In the 2014 election 135 million electors punched a hole in a ballot paper to make their choice - around 70 per cent of those on the roll - in the world’s third largest democracy.  

Next year voters aged over 17 will get the chance to directly elect the president, 580 members of the People’s Consultative Assembly (known as the DPR) and 128 to the Regional Assembly, (DPD). 

Fifteen parties will bid for seats but there are only two rematch contestants for the top job - incumbent Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo, 57, and former general Prabowo Subianto, 67, who lost his 2014 bid by just under seven per cent.

Though campaigning is not supposed to start till 13 October, jostling is well underway.  Now is the time for Australia to keep its head down; if we get dragged into the contest the collateral damage to relationships could be lasting.

For the opening of last month’s well-staged Asian Games, a video mock-up of Widodo powering a Yamaha FZ1 motorbike through Jakarta’s traffic quagmire to get to the event was a big hit.

A stunt man masquerading as the President flipped the 1,000 cc machine over traffic jams and weaved around blocks, a lift from Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible minus the gunfire.

One brief edit showed Widodo’s left hand and wedding ring - a shot at his divorced rival; the significance of the cutaway didn’t escape viewers in a society where marital status is a critical factor for candidates’ credibility.

Though not financial cleanliness.  At last count 33 general election contestants from 13 parties had been convicted for looting state funds.  

In Malang, the second largest city in East Java, 41 of the 45 local councilors have been charged with corruption by the national graft-buster, the Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi (Corruption Eradication Commission).

Although it has put hundreds behind bars and is widely supported by the public, the KPK is struggling to change a culture where cheats prosper;  five years ago Indonesia ranked 107 on Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index.  It’s now 96 of the 180 nations measured  (Australia is 13th, New Zealand the cleanest in first place.)

In many jurisdictions a criminal record would disbar candidates for high office.   Not in Indonesia where a Supreme Court ruling this month overturned an Electoral Commission regulation banning corruptors from standing.

Accusing political rivals of jangling keys to the public vaults is not the most effective assault; real woundings are made through charges of having Communist sympathies.  As the party has been banned since 1965 when Widodo was four years old, the tactic is to smear his late father Notomiharjo.

Grainy doctored photos have been circulating on social media.  These allegedly show  Dad a bystander at Red rallies before a coup against founding President Soekarno put the dictator General Soeharto into power for 32 years.

The other ploy is to claim contestants aren’t true Muslims. Neither Widodo nor Subianto is known for excessive piety, but the latter is more vulnerable because there were Christians in his family. 

The fall-back for Subianto’s urgers is a video featuring aging politicians awkwardly singing that it’s time for change - for no good reason as alternative policies are not in the lyrics.

Subianto’s Gerindra Party and its coalition partners are stirring nationalism, claiming the current administration is getting too matey with outsiders, not just the Chinese but all foreigners.  This is where Australia is susceptible.  

Even if our politicians refrain from castigating Muslims, and Ozzie teens lay off drugs in Bali, there’s enough old baggage, dating back to our support for the 1999 East Timor referendum. waiting to be unpacked by xenophobes.

On present polling Widodo is a shoe-in, but much will happen in seven months, particularly as politicians and parties often swap sides.  Many Western commentators stress the importance of religion, but voters are now better educated and prepared to separate faith and state in a private polling booth.

The rupiah has fallen nine per cent against the US dollar this year and is the worst performing economy in the region. To offset the risks of angering the poor by upping the outlay for basics, the government has been shoveling out subsidies.

To do this it’s been robbing the budgets for capital works that Widodo pledged to improve when campaigning in 2014.

The state oil company Pertamina has been hit by higher costs for importing oil, which it should have passed on to consumers.  Instead the pump price has been propped up to avoid revving-up motorists.

Taxes have been hiked on consumer goods.  Some household items are now well above the cost of similar goods in Australian supermarkets, but these aren’t essentials, like rice, cooking oil, sugar and meat.

Big infrastructure projects are still going ahead - obvious to any voter who takes a long-distance train or road trip and gets held up by earth-movers.  Much of the money is coming from China and the debt is growing fast.

Whoever wins next April will likely inherit a fiscal volcano threatening to blow, 

with the potential to create economic and social instability.

(First published in Pearls and Irritations, 18 September 2018 See: http://johnmenadue.com/duncan-graham-robbing-roads-to-keep-rice-cheap/

LOOKING NORTH, BUT STILL SIDEWAYS

We’re neighbors - why not mates?

The chorus has become repetitive. Tedious cliches spruiked by Australian politicians before thinning crowds:

Next door slumbers Traderland / opportunities just to hand

Middle-classes fattening fast / new roads, big ports, progress at last!

They need our protein, milk and cows / so get in there and sell, sell now.

And if you’ve minutes left to spare / shake some hands and say we care.

Few hearken.  Many are sceptical, indifferent; is their reluctance founded on research or prejudice?

If Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s big business backers were true believers they’d be dipping their fiscal toes into the Archipelagic waters and shouting: ‘Look, all safe! No sharks.’

Morrison has a good model for incoherence: second President Soeharto pushed dua anak cukup (two kids is enough) to brake population growth, though his wife Suhartini had produced six.  You must use condoms, not us.

So is Australia and Indonesia: Can we be friends? yet another list of solution-free nags? 

No, these authors are dinkum. If they ran the show there’d be shake ups aplenty. Endorsement: Their edgy ideas won’t be welcome in the embassies. Expect invitation list erasures.

Editor Jonathan Pearlman intros that ‘Australia’s relationship with Indonesia is not that it has gone backwards from a very low base, but that these two nations, despite their proximity, have successfully made themselves so invisible to each other.’  

A good clear-the-decks start; Australian leaders have sewn their lips on Indonesia’s faults, fearful prickly Javanese might spank foreign critics by turning back Bali-bound Boeings or recalling ambassadors.  They have form.

Unfortunately there’s only one Indonesian among the four contributors to the latest triannual Australian Foreign Affairs. Journalist Endy Bayuni is a sharp analyst, but is becoming the go-to guy for an Indonesian voice.  Not his fault, but there are others that Australians need to hear.

Responses to the 2002 Bali bombing and the 2004 Aceh tsunami brought both sides together; then they were splintered by the spy scandal and drug runner executions.

The veteran newsman has seen the baseness before, the excavating of primitive prejudices rather than elevating voters to higher ideals, the chest thumping, finger wagging. 

A former editor of this paper, Bayuni reckons his country still sees mine as ‘racist, arrogant, manipulative, exploitative and intrusive.’  Ouch! 

Yet he’s the most optimistic contributor, promoting a time-heals position, a ‘convergence in values and principles’ as Indonesia’s economy surges and last century’s enmities sink.

Can we wait for evolution?  Academic Tim Lindsey is less sanguine,  reminding of fermenting religious intolerance and open attacks on the once untouchables, like the Proclamator’s youngest daughter Sukmawati Soekarnoputri.

When accused of blasphemy by Islamic hardliners for reciting an old poem about women’s wear, Sukma went to water, crying apologies and whetting extremists’  ambitions to cut down civilized debate.

Lindsey directs the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society at Melbourne University. He urges Australia to ‘once again recalibrate its expectations’ as Indonesia ‘contemplates a very uncertain post-Reformasi future.

‘(This) may well prove to be more religious, less liberal and a good deal less enthusiastic about engagement with foreign nations (which)... may prove to be more difficult in the decade ahead than at any time since the last century’.

The thumpings continue: Former youth ambassador to Indonesia Dr Jennifer Rayner asserts that Indonesia ‘does not really need Australia today, and will need us even less in the decades ahead as its wealth and power continue to grow. 

‘In engaging with this country, we (Australians) currently have little of the leverage to call upon that strengthens our other major economic relationships: neither the bonds of history nor the demand for our goods.’

Rayner wants Australia’s leaders to cease their arrogance and learn respect; it’s a tough call, though the Lucky Country is now more likely to seek mates nearby as Donald Trump drags Uncle Sam out of Southeast Asia. 

She says Indonesians resent first learning of Australia’s policy flips and flops through the media; this failing of diplomatic protocols suggests Canberra thinks Jakarta insufficiently important to be kept in the loop.  That wouldn’t happen with London or Washington.

Rayner is familiar with the media and politics, but apparently not business board rooms. Hoeing into corporate Australian for not seeing the chances won’t impress directors  when statistics show Indonesia remains rottenly corrupt and a bureaucratic bog despite recent attempts to change.

This is where Can we be friends? trips.  No first-hand tales from companies which have tried to crack the code for investing.  Maybe the winners want to keep it to themselves, so we end up with the views of those whose skin in the game is intellectual.

Hugh White is different as he’s worked in Defence with those who put firepower ahead of wordpower.  For the professor of strategic studies at the Australian National University it’s time to talk new pacts and alignments as the US retires hurt, and China steps into the ring.

Indonesia’s foreign policy focus has long been regional, largely confined to ASEAN while the old boys play north.  Now the action is shifting south.  Realignments are underway with the Republic nuzzling-up to India, a major meat supplier, source of ancient Javanese culture and home to the world’s second largest Muslim population (180 million).

A strong Indonesia linking arms with Australia would be an asset, he writes. Policy somersaults ahead.  How these are executed will depend on who’s on stage as both nations perform to voters next year.

Australia and Indonesia: Can we be friends?

Australian Foreign Affairs, Issue 3, July 2018, 

Schwartz Publishing, Melbourne. 

(First published in The Jakarta Post 10 September 2018

RETREATING TO FLORES

Searching for peace 

The sign says Kampung Rohani (Soul Village) but it’s no standout. Vines are threatening to throttle the posts. The sun has warped the plywood and faded the lettering.


There are no landmarks on this uphill road from Maumere, the capital of Flores in Eastern Indonesia, so the chance of missing the small gap in the thick bushes is great. Best find a guide and a stout stick because the track is a rock-strewn ankle-twister.


The difficulties in finding this secret valley are a metaphor for its purpose - the search for serenity and the divine.


About 300 meters further down another sign - this one a shade more professional. It says Selamat Datang Peserta Camping, meaning ‘Welcome, Campers’. From here there’s the odd splash of light shafting through the trees, glare bouncing from roofs of corrugated iron.


Close up the houses are tiny and humble, knocked together from bamboo and rough-hewn timber. The facilities are basic: There’s a communal dining room and kitchen with an open-fire but the flush toilets are modern.

 On the architrave of one hut hangs an old blurred photo of a long-dead Londoner, John Main, founder of the World Community for Christian Meditation.

This is the retreat of Romo (Father) Siriakus Ndolu, a Carmelite priest who has built the camp to expand his belief in the benefits of quiet contemplation in an unspoiled landscape.


“I came across John Main’s writings by chance when a Dutch priest gave me one of his books,” said Ndolu.

“I thought Father Main’s philosophy had great merit so I translated his works Word into Silence and Way of Unknowing into Indonesian.

“There are now 120 centers throughout the archipelago.”

It was these fellow seekers here and abroad that Ndolu called on to help fund his dream of a haven which would welcome anyone needing a break and to be at peace with nature.


“I had a marvelous response,” he said. “Though not everyone could contribute at once they did so later.” He estimates it has cost Rp 600 million (US $ 45,000) so far though much work has been done by volunteers; the 28 hectares of forest was originally owned by a parishioner.


Guests don’t have to be Catholic or even Protestant, though some who follow other religions might be put off by the inclusion of ‘Christian’ in the movement’s title.

The sanctuary is open to men and women; the fees are around Rp 150,000 (US $12) a night which includes basic meals. It’s safe and adequate but the accommodation wouldn’t glimmer on a city hotel’s star rating chart.


What people do is up to them. They can ponder the meaning of the world, pause to reflect, talk to like minded folk, help with chores, plant trees and tend to the gardens, or practise Main’s meditation techniques twice a day.


This means sitting still and upright for up to half an hour with closed eyes while silently and continually reciting a prayer, sacred word or phrase. There’s nothing unique about this exercise - most religions embrace similar routines, but it helps if the environment is conducive to peace.

The vegetation is lush. A small river snakes through the valley. There are monkeys and wild pigs. This land hasn’t been farmed - it’s as Eden as anything can be in this geologically unstable isle. “I want visitors to enjoy the simplicity,” said Ndolu.


The sanctuary doesn’t feature the religious kitsch found in Maumere city like the giant concrete Jesus dominating a manicured park where many come to pray. The contrast is stark.


Main originally led a secular life, including in the army. Religious doubts pushed him away from the church and into law. After graduating he joined the British Colonial Service and was sent to what was then Malaya a mainly Islamic country. It was a fortuitous move.

In Kuala Lumpur he met an Indian yoga master, Swami Satyananda Saraswati. Back in Britain Main reconciled with Catholicism and taught in the US where he studied the writing of an early East European saint, John Cassian, finding parallels with the Swami’s Asian philosophy.
Main died in Canada in 1982 aged 56 but by then had published enough to launch a world-wide movement.

Ndolu was ordained in 1995 in Malang, East Java; originally from Flores he spent four years in a wealthy Perth suburb ministering to mainly ethnic Chinese Indonesians living well in the West Australian capital.


The experience gave his prejudices a thump. “In Indonesia I thought the West was secular and immoral,” he said. “Then I saw that the welfare services, though funded through high taxes, have been built on Christian principles.


Ndolu started work on the Maumere retreat when he returned from Australia four years ago full of ideas that had been fermenting while away from his homeland.


Slowly more facilities are being built. Though there’s no proselytizing a few Catholic artifacts are starting to appear which could shift the emphasis from spirit to faith and dissuade some.

The capacity is now around 80 campers.

There are ten small huts, three a bit larger and two halls.

Ndolu says he’s aware that if Kampung Rohani gets too big the atmosphere might be damaged so is cautious about expansion. There’s a narrow sealed road into the retreat but washed out by a storm and currently unusable.

So the only access is through the gap in the bush for surefoot walkers and determined seekers. No carbon monoxide, no rattling motorbikes, just peace.

First published in The Jakarta Post 4 September 2018

FTA :BIG SHOW, MANY WORDS, MUCH STILL TO COME

A DONE DEAL - OR A DEAL NOT YET DONE? 

Trying to do business in Java on a Friday is seldom a good idea.

The chantings that Prime Minister Scott Morrison heard mid-morning last Friday were not part of the standard welcome to overseas VIPs, but calling the faithful to prayer. That included Indonesian President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo, much of his Cabinet and most senior bureaucrats.

That Widodo took time to talk to his visitor on the Islamic holy day, when the Asian Games are concluding and campaigning about to start for next April’s presidential election, suggests he sees it’s important to maintain relationships with Australia, even if other politicians are indifferent or openly suspicious.

For the week before Morrison took his first overseas trip as PM, the Australian media ran curtain-raisers claiming a free trade agreement, properly known as the Indonesia Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, or IA-CEPA, was in the bag after an eight-year chase.

Not yet. The document under the PM’s pen was not a ‘trade deal’ as predicted - that may come by year’s end.  It will also have to be ratified by the Indonesian Parliament Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat.

By then all will be engrossed in the upcoming election and in no mood to arouse the anger of protectionists led by Widodo’s rival, Prabowo Subianto, 67.

This will be the former general’s fourth tilt at the presidency and he’s campaigning - much like Donald Trump - on sovereign rights and keeping outsiders outside.

The official release said Widodo and Morrison had ‘successfully concluded negotiations’. A few tid-bits were tossed to the media, like the 500,000 tonnes of ‘feed grains’ getting tariff-free entry; but otherwise it was soft jargon rather than hard facts. 

No surprise for those who read government announcements for a living, and only believe when they can hold the paper up to the light, check the adverbs and lab test the ink.  

Indonesians understand this well. Last month Mohammad Mahfud Mahmodin (known as Mahfud MD), 61, was widely applauded as Widodo’s choice for a running mate.  The popular former judge was waiting in a hotel for the call only to see on TV news another picked just before the close of nominations.

Hustled to the front by advisors, and to the President’s obvious chagrin, was hardline cleric Ma’ruf Amin, 75, ignored by commentators because of his hostility to ‘liberalism’ and lack of political experience.

If Widodo 57, gets a second five-year term in office as expected, there are fears Amin will steer the nation away from its moderate Islam position, impacting business confidence. 

There have been hints the IA-CEPA might include a relaxing of Indonesia’s opaque investor rules. Unless these are accompanied by a massive purge on corruption and rigid enforcement of the rule of law, few corporates will take the risk. 

If and when a real pact is completed between the world’s fourth most heavily populated nation and its few-folks neighbour (the ratio is 11 to one), the show won’t start till 2020.

Morrison’s visit was no earth-shaker, rating only 360 words on page nine of Kompas, the  most prestigious and top-selling national daily. It reported the signing was just a ‘framework for cooperation between the two countries’.

A little pic of the two leaders wandering the Presidential Palace gardens in Bogor lifted the verbiage. Absent were fun shots like those of Malcolm Turnbull and Widodo in 2015 doing a blusukan (freestyle wanderings in a market), an event which did much to set up a somewhat suspect bromance story. 

There was a bigger photo in the other mass-circulation broadsheet Jawa Pos though few words.  This exercise was always about selling our surpluses, with little interest in the Republic’s offerings,   

Australians may eventually start seeing a few more consumer goods from next door, like textiles, kitchen equipment, perhaps even Japanese-brand cars built in Javanese factories. 

Indonesia is also resource rich, exporting oil, coal, gas, gold, copper and other minerals in competition with Australia.  It produces little we don’t already get from China, Thailand  and Vietnam.

Australian universities may be allowed to open campuses in Indonesia if the DPR approves. This is one to watch as local staff who’ve bought their qualifications will fear skilled foreigners threatening their status and jobs.

The Indonesian equivalent of Australia’s energy debate is food security articulated as self-sufficiency. The goal will not be hastened by importing more primary produce from Australia.  Subianto’s isolationist supporters will likely make much hay while this sun shines.

What the Indonesian negotiators really want is access to jobs in Australia through an arrangement like the Seasonal Worker Programme now used by Timor Leste, Papua New Guinea and eight Pacific Island nations.

Workers stay for six months and must get a minimum hourly wage of AUD 18.29, double the daily rate for similar tasks in Indonesia. 

According to the World Bank more than nine million Indonesians work abroad; that’s almost seven per cent of the national labour force, mainly employed in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and the Middle East.  

In 2016 they sent around USD 9 billion back to relatives in Indonesia.  Villages supplying overseas workers boast double-storey houses with cars in driveways.

Adding Australia would boost the economy and benefit short-staffed employers; Indonesian workers are keen and obliging - as all who’ve stayed in Bali hotels know well.

However Canberra, always fearful of a flood, and aware this could become an election issue, is unlikely to agree.  To appease it’s offering training programmes.

So: Some important signatures, but not yet a done deal.

(The full Widodo-Morrison statement here: https://dfat.gov.au/geo/indonesia/Pages/joint-declaration-comprehensive-strategic-partnership-between-the-commonwealth-of-australia-and-republic-of-indonesia.aspx )

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First published in Pearls and Irritations, 3 September 2018.  See: http://johnmenadue.com/duncan-graham-a-done-deal-or-a-deal-not-yet-done/