Global IssuesASIA PACIFIC: Know Your Indonesia - Australians Urged
One is cohesive, has a relatively small population and has been democratic since its foundation; the other is fragmented, is one of the world’s most-populous nations and only emerged from years of authoritarian rule a decade ago.
Yet, despite their obvious differences, close neighbours Australia and Indonesia are seeking to forge stronger ties.
As part of these efforts to build an even closer relationship, leaders from a broad spectrum of both nations - including political, business, religious, academic and civil society representatives - met in Sydney in late February for a three-day summit.
Key topics discussed included the environment, democracy, economic development and investment. The need to address how the two nations are perceived by each other was also a focus.
While the bilateral relationship has endured periods of strain, the respective governments currently enjoy good contacts.
In 2008, government ministers from Australia and Indonesia made 32 visits to each other between them, according to Australian foreign minister Stephen Smith.
Indonesia, the largest recipient of Australian aid, has committed one million Australian dollars (643,940 US dollars) towards reconstruction in the wake of the devastating Victorian bushfires and also sent a forensics team to help identify victims.
The two nations also signed a comprehensive partnership agreement in 2005, committing to cooperation in economic, technical and security areas.
Additionally, there are moves to liberalise trade between Australia and Indonesia as an adjunct to the recent free trade agreement between the Association of Southeast Nations (ASEAN), of which Indonesia is a member, and Australia and New Zealand.
Although areas of contention remain - including Canberra’s refusal to reduce its travel warning to Indonesia - there are concerns that these good relationships at official levels are not being mirrored in relations between the two peoples.
'We have a way to go in countering some negative perceptions of the relationship that persist in both Australian and Indonesia,' said Smith in an address to the summit on Feb.20.
Smith’s counterpart Hassan Wirajuda, head of the group of 70 Indonesian delegates to attend, said that although the Australia-Indonesia relationship had never been better, more needed to be done at the people-to-people level.
'The efforts to enhance the bilateral relations between our two countries and peoples are not the business of the two governments alone...we need the involvement of our people,' said the Indonesian foreign minister.
A 2008 poll conducted by Sydney-based international policy think-tank, the Lowy Institute, showed that although Australian perceptions of Indonesia appear to be improving, there is still some way to go before the public can match the glowing view of its neighbour expressed, at least in public, by the Australian government.
Of the 17 countries that respondents were asked to rate their feelings towards, Indonesia was ranked alongside South Korea with an overall 'neutral' feeling, ahead of only Iraq, Iran and Pakistan.
Despite 16 percent of the poll’s respondents believing that Australia’s relationship with Indonesia was becoming worse - in the same poll conducted in 2006 that number was 47 percent - they still felt 'warmer' towards China, the United Arab Emirates and Russia than they did towards Indonesia.
Although such 'cool' public sentiment is likely to be due to several factors - including the popularly-held view that Indonesia has posed the greatest risk to Australia’s territorial sovereignty.
There also are concerns over human rights breaches by Indonesian forces in areas including East Timor, Aceh and West Papua, as well as terrorism.
But, the Australian government sees education as vital in overcoming what it seemingly regards as anachronistic viewpoints.
'Australia needs to do better, a lot better, in our level of Indonesian language study, in development of Indonesian studies within our universities and in our schools and our understanding of the enormous complexity that is Indonesian Islam,' said Prime Minister Kevin Rudd at a dinner held as part of the bilateral summit.
Australia’s drive to forge a better understanding of Indonesia appears to be part of a process through which it wishes to engage with Asia as the region becomes more influential. The Prime Minister wants to make Australia 'the most Asia-literate country in the West.'
Associate Professor Damien Kingsbury from Deakin University’s school of international and political studies says that while there is a high level of ignorance in Australia about Indonesia, the same can also be said of the knowledge of Australia across Indonesia’s 6,000 inhabited islands.
'It’s not so much that the two countries are wilfully ignorant of each other. I think it’s just the nature of the types of countries they are,' he says.
Kingsbury told IPS that the differences have less to do with religion - Australia has a predominantly Christian heritage while Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation - than with their respective levels and courses of development.
He says that while Australia is a small, modern and cohesive nation, Indonesia is 'almost a polar opposite to Australia in that sense’’.
But if the number of students studying in each other’s country is an indication of the potential for better understanding one another, then Australia is clearly far behind.
Each year there are less than 100 Australians studying at universities in central and eastern Java through a government-funded programme. Conversely, around 15,000 Indonesian students are presently studying at Australian institutions.
Budy Resosudarmo, an Indonesian national now based at the research school of Pacific and Asian studies at the Australian National University, says that he has witnessed the effects of the increased number of Indonesians who have studied here.
He told IPS that he has organised conferences for social scientists since 1998. A decade ago, most speakers at the conferences had studied in either the United States or Japan, with very few having studied in Australia.
But at last year’s conference 'almost 50 percent of the presenters had an Australian educational background,' says Resosudarmo, adding that a similar shift can be noticed among Indonesian television presenters.
'At least from the Indonesian side, I’m quite sure that there will be more and more of an ability to understand Australia,' he says.
© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service