The pain of disrespect
From Griffith REVIEW Edition 9: Up North
© Copyright Griffith University & the author.
Written by Dewi Anggraeni
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Dewi Anggraeni's biography and other articles by this writer
On March 31 this year, a cultural performance was organised to raise funds for the tsunami victims in Sumatra. It was specifically staged for Australian school students who were studying Indonesian language and culture. Two young Indonesian university students were appointed MCs. Before the performance they asked me what they should say at the opening. I suggested they emphasise the link of youth, that this was an event from Indonesian young people to Australian young people.
I have now lived in Australia longer than half my lifetime. I am an Australian citizen, yet I keep a very close relationship with my native Indonesia. Emotionally, I feel both Indonesian and Australian. Each step Australia or Indonesia takes to move closer toward each other fills me with warmth and pride, the two sides of me coming together. Each time something happens that pulls the two countries further apart, I feel the pain. And I feel embarrassed when Australia or Indonesia takes a step in the wrong direction.
The phenomenal global response, especially from Australia, to the Boxing Day tsunami that devastated some parts of Sumatra, as well as parts of Thailand and Sri Lanka, deeply touched the survivors in the affected areas who had lost loved ones and had been left with nothing. And in a self-centred way, it added to my pride in being Australian.
Australia pledged $1 billion, deployed six C-130 transport planes and HMAS Kanimbla to Aceh – the worst-affected area – and additional funds came from independent community fund-raising. There is no doubt of the spontaneity of this enormous generosity.
When some international relations analysts in Indonesia expressed concern that Indonesia should be more cautious in accepting this assistance, I felt somewhat annoyed. It appeared that they were indulging in an unnecessary national pride when hundreds of thousands of people in Sumatra could only think of one day at a time, if they were well enough to think at all. This was even harder to take considering that the local authorities had neither been well co-ordinated nor organised in their efforts, causing long delays in help reaching those who needed it.
Putting my journalist hat on, I glanced back at the relationship between Australia and Indonesia in the past year and I began to see what the negative-thinking analysts saw.
DURING THE 2004 ELECTION CAMPAIGN, AUSTRALIA'S PRIME MINISTER, John Howard, said that he would not hesitate to order a pre-emptive strike against terrorist bases overseas. This comment may have been part of his campaign strategy, taking advantage of a fear of terrorists who reportedly had Australia as their target. The word "pre-emptive", however, inflamed the region's Muslims because of the pre-emptive strike by the Coalition of the Willing on Iraq, which increasingly turned out to have been based on false premises. Was Howard too focused on domestic politics and winning an election, or was he too cavalier when it came to offending countries in the region? Maybe both.
I knew the statement was not lost on Indonesians because I was in Indonesia at the time and witnessed the reactions even among liberal Muslims. Most Indonesians when moderately offended, resort to their favourite means of assimilating the irritation: humour.
"Pre-emptive" sneaked into various levels of jokes and bantering. When someone was going to jump a queue, which happens all the time in Indonesia, the person behind him would immediately close the gap, saying, "Pre-emptive step, mate!" and everyone would laugh. At a seminar I moderated, I stood up and was going to remind a speaker his time was up, when he turned around and said, "Yes, I know. I was going to wind up anyway." Without thinking, I said, "Wow, that was a timing pre-emptive move!"
I don't know what kind of response the statement had on the ground in other countries in the region, but I know that Indonesians are comparatively much more laid-back than their regional neighbours. The PM's statement reinforced the "deputy sheriff" stance that had placed Australia even closer to the United States, while distancing it from countries like Indonesia and Malaysia, just when Australia was trying very hard to be part of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).
I often ask my friends why it has always been Australia, which only follows the US, which gets the flak? Why not confront the US itself? Their answer, in various versions, is, "The US is over 10,000 miles away and Australia is here." The unstated truth is that the US is so big and powerful that countries around the world, openly and privately, are resigned to its making its own international law and getting away with it. The same acquiescence to power does not extend to Australia; if it wants to be accepted as a friend rather than a bully, it has at least to be seen to abide by international law.
I have often thought that some of Australia's regional neighbours indulge in paranoia from time to time, and this was such an occasion. The statement should have been regarded as an election campaign gimmick, and as such, not credited with such importance. In the neighbours' view, however, this was not an isolated incident showing Australia's contempt for other countries in the region. A month earlier, in August 2004, Australia revealed plans to equip its fighter jets and aircraft with its newly acquired long-range cruise missiles. These missiles have the capacity to directly attack Australia's neighbouring countries. And there was some tension in the confusion about whether Australia had consulted its neighbours beforehand. Howard was quoted as saying, "We have no hostile designs on any of our neighbours." If that were the case, it would be courteous to make sure the neighbours had been consulted, rather than the dismissive, "We thought we had consulted you. You may recall we ..." Knowing that their neighbour, an ally of the powerful US, had the capacity to cause considerable damage, it was not surprising that they took the Prime Minister's suggestion of a pre-emptive strike a little more seriously than they would have otherwise. It may have been an inadvertent omission, but to those who suffered the omission, it was inadvertent disrespect. It is in some ways worse than deliberate disrespect, where at least you know you are hated, not just dismissed or discounted.
In conversations with Indonesian friends, I invariably pointed out that the PM did not necessarily voice the opinions of the majority of Australians, but was left speechless when a friend retorted, "That's a ridiculous proposition. He was re-elected for the third time. If what you said is true, then there's something wrong with the democratic process in Australia."
The question was, and still is, "Who is Australia thinking of using the missiles against, and what for?" If it were to combat terrorism, would terrorists be that easily identifiable in order for the country's fighter jets and aircrafts to come out in force to fight them? If they were so easily identifiable, would September 11 have happened in the US, a country with the most the powerful and sophisticated intelligence and weaponry?
Then, in December 2004, Australia proposed a new maritime security zone that required all ships travelling to Australia to provide details on their journeys and cargoes if they entered the 1000-nautical-mile zone. Any vessel coming within 200 nautical miles of the Australian coast would also be required to give extra details on cargo, ports visited, location, course, speed and intended port of arrival. This move seemed to be a response to Washington's call on its allies to follow its own measures in raising maritime security standards amid fears of extremist attacks on ships. On the face of it, it is a reasonable move, knowing the unpredictability of terrorists' movements. However, Indonesia's Foreign Minister, Hasan Wirayuda, was nonplussed. "We can't accept this concept because it breaches our maritime jurisdiction. We view this as having the potential for violating international maritime laws," he told a media conference, after meeting Australian Defence Minister Robert Hill, adding that he saw a US-inspired unilateralism on Canberra's part.
Wirayuda elaborated that the 1000-nautical-mile zone touched Indonesian waters off Maluku and Sulawesi islands as well as most of the Java Sea. However, all Hill said was, "We would like to try to identify ships that are travelling to Australian coasts earlier than what we currently do, to ask ships that are coming to Australia to identify themselves, give us early advice of what cargo they are bringing."
I see another instance of inadvertent disrespect.
IN REALITY, DISRESPECT IS FAIRLY COMMON IN BOTH INDONESIA AND AUSTRALIA. In Indonesia, even during the New Order rule, where the Suharto Government showed ever-readiness to pounce on any signs of disrespect toward him, his family and his entourage of political elite, there was disrespect everywhere: in folk theatre, in literature, in the media, always shrouded in a way that the audience could spot it, but it was elusive to the unwieldy heavy boots or guns, though from time to time, some did go down. Disrespect in Indonesia has mostly been deliberate, like the deliberate disrespect in Donald Rumsfeld's calling France and Germany "old Europe". In Indonesia, it is aimed at the political elite.
There is a parallel situation in Australia, where deliberate disrespect is aimed at the power wielders. The difference here is, Australia has lately been showing inadvertent disrespect toward Indonesia, not the other way around. It was as if Australia forgot Indonesia was around. And Indonesia retaliates with irritations and defensivenes, coming across as thin-skinned and precious.
Australians are known to be casual and laid-back. Maybe this is because we have ample space to get away from people we don't want to be with. We are so used to having vast expanses of space around us that our reaction to a sense of threat is to put even more space between us and the next person.
Indonesians, on the other hand, have always had to negotiate sharing limited space, living in close quarters with each other and with neighbouring countries. In fact, most South-East Asians expect to have others around at all times, regardless of anyone's moods. Only a tiny minority of Indonesians would look for isolation for their holidays, while in Australia it is easy to find people who seek out isolated spots. And if they go to crowded places, they want to be able to retire somewhere with privacy at the end of the day.
If consulted earlier, Indonesia might have understood Australia's urge to extend the expanse of space around it, even co-operate with it. However, seeing Australia's planned maritime zone touching its own crowded territory presented as a fait accompli was a different story.
Being an ally and emotionally attached to the US has more than once landed Australia in serious problems with its regional neighbours, the latest example being its reluctance to sign the ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Co-operation (TAC). Understandably, this reluctance is viewed suspiciously by South-East Asian nations, considering Australia's keenness to be accepted as part of ASEAN. Neither Australia's prime minister, nor its media, felt compelled to give detailed explanation. In fact, Howard was quoted saying something rather enigmatic: "The treaty was delivered to the region by a mind-set that we've all really moved on from. I don't think it appropriate that Australia should sign."
While the region was bursting with articulated and unarticulated misgivings, Malaysia, in the persona of its mellow prime minister, Abdullah Badawi, declared that if Australia did not sign the TAC, it would not be invited to the next summit. The Japan Times suggested that Australia did not want to upset its relationship with the US, seeing that this powerful ally did not like the South-East Asian Nuclear Free Zone, and by signing the TAC, Australia would accede to it. If that theory were proven, it would reveal Australia as a hypocrite, having formed a South Pacific [you are right] Nuclear Free Zone with New Zealand. Why then should South-East Asia not be nuclear-free?