Indonesian crossroad?
the country before Prabowo became president
I don’t recall when I became aware of Indonesia as a distant but endlessly fascinating place but most likely while I lived in Bangkok. I can recall telling students in Chicago that we ignored this secular government in a Moslem community at our peril. I also remember asking a speaker on fundamentalism and religion in 1993 to tell National War College students what would happen if Indonesia’s Islam became more repressive. I didn’t have evidence for my question but knew that we were seeing Islamic orthodoxy rear its ugly head in Sudan back then. I can’t recall the University of Notre Dame professor’s precise response but he had a pretty startled look on his face. We hardly worried about this quilt of a nation as a hotbed of radical Muslims back then.
I wish I spoke Bahasa, the language the archipelagic nation adopted upon ousting the Dutch in 1946, but it’s just a truly an incredible place spread over more than 17,000 islands. Aside from its geographic preponderance along the Equator, the 284 million residents constitute the fourth largest population in any country. Java, the densest island as well as the political epicenter of a myriad of cultures, languages, religions, and aspirations, is one of the most packed places anywhere. That island alone has three relatively autonomous subregions, reminding anyone of the tyranny of distance and poor transportation until recently.
Yet traveling to the islands still provides the visitor with an understanding of the rural portions of land straddling a challenging locale. A third of the terrain is defined as agricultural for pasture or crops while more than half, according to the CIA Factbook 2024, still contains forests. Part of the country’s natural allure is its centrality to the “ring of fire”, that band of volcanoes reaching from the southern Pacific Ocean, through Indonesia, Taiwan, Japan, Alaska, and back south along the Pacific mountain ranges of North and South America. While the “Ring” is known for volcanoes, it more accurately describes the earthquake belt those countries sit upon except in Indonesia where volcanoes are indeed prolific. Spewing out vast lava outflows of various types provides a stunning array of natural resources craved by many industrialized societies while constantly re-enriching the land with minerals from within the core of the earth. In short, Indonesia almost functions as the world’s natural laboratory on renewal. No wonder I think their coffee is so earthy, delicious, and desirable (yes, even above Colombia’s product).
Indonesia also sits at a crossroads for peoples and governing. Countless population movements over the millennia have brought in aboriginal, Malay, South Asian, Chinese, Portuguese, Dutch, English, and Arab populations (among many) as they sailed to these island to procure spices lacking in the west or as merchants from distant shores sailed across the South China Sea. In each case, the resulting newcomers brought new languages. They also brought some odd mixtures of religions: many Chinese in the islands are actually Christian while Hindus are the predominant culture and religion on Bali, for example. Borobadur, the world’s largest Buddhist temple, sits on Java yet we associate Indonesia today with a freer Islam than that of Mecca or Qom.
The Portuguese, then Dutch militarily overwhelmed the Javanese culture to rule brutally for about four centuries. The Dutch colonization was far from the English model of exporting entire families for long-term settlement; the Dutch, much like the Spanish or Portuguese in Latin America, came for the booty that would boost that trading nation’s role in the global community. “Indigenous population be damned” was their approach. The substantially different climate and health challenges from that of northwestern Europe made the assignment in Batavia, as the Dutch long named their capital, a hellish one. The colonizers then justified the sheer exploitation and subjugation as some sort of payback, securing spices, gold, other precious metals, then petroleum and rubber in the final stages of colonization, for export back to the Netherlands; everything else was collateral damage. Japan recognized this value as well, seizing the Dutch East Indies early in World War II; their goal was to acquire those same resources so lacking on the Home Islands of Imperial Japan.
Indigenous figures struggled for independence through much of this era, culminating with Sukarno ousting the weakened Dutch following World War II. This Indonesian nationalist, like other independence leaders elsewhere, weighed the appropriate political path to satisfy supporters while assuring their own bona fides as anti-colonialists. Sukarno hardly embraced participatory governance, however, arguing that the complexities of this place required a more “guided” rule, including ties with the nation’s Communist Party. During the Cold War, as the worldwide struggle between communism and capitalism intensified, Sukarno’s position as an “unaligned” leader became more tenuous until the country’s military overthrew him in 1965. The “Year of Living Dangerously”, a 1980s film based on the subterfuge, intrigue, and outside forces trying to sway the country into one camp or the other, is a remarkable story. For Sukarno, the story was also a fatal one as he died following his removal from office as the rivers of the nation supposedly ran red with blood.
As so common during the Cold War, General Suharto replaced the independence leader by taking off his stars and uniform for a business suit. Suharto and his family and an interlocking Javanese elite ruled the nation for the next thirty years until economic mismanagement, arrogance, and a dissatisfied middle class led to his ouster in 1998 as a result of the Asian Financial Crisis a year earlier. Fits and starts, such as Sukarno’s daughter Megawati as president, pulsed through the country for much of the next decade until participatory elections, alternating parties, and democracy Indonesian-style led to more predictable governance.
The first decades of independent Indonesia relied on the military as the dominant institution. They were nation-builders unifying this challenging array of islands and people. Put another way, the Army’s kept the country unified by using sheer force to stave off some of the internal chasms so dangerous and frequent in emerging societies, particularly with such a range of competing visions. Like India, the ruling elite sought to create a secular nation to bring everyone under the same fold but that was always a tough proposition.
The military, seeing itself as empowered to do what no one else could, has always faced charges of human rights abuses, particularly as Portuguese Catholics in East Timor demanded political independence around the turn of the century. The generals resented anyone criticizing their actions yet the U.S. Congress, particularly then-Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, penalized the officer corps for brutalities. One of the most common concerns centered on General Prabowo Subianto (Indonesians only began widely using surnames and given names in the past thirty years).
One of the groups most disenchanted with the secular trends the Army sought to impose were Muslims in the archipelago, many in communities where Saudi Wahabbi investments in mosques and madrassas (en lieu of public education) forwarded Sunni orthodoxy. Aceh, the furtherest northwest province, always was an extremely conservative hotbed but most foreigners were stunned when Muslim extremism burst out in Bali. A 2003 bombing at a beach frequented by foreign “infidels”, largely Australians, reminded all that Islam is the predominant faith in this vast place. That attack and a couple of subsequent ones aimed at foreign-held facilities reminded the world that Islam was not merely the purview of the Middle East but that the Ummah, the global population of Muslims, included the millions in what had seemed a secular society. Today, Indonesia is more Islamic than when I first visited in 1995 though still more tolerant than Saudi Arabia or Shi’ite Iran.
Indonesia succeeded in weaning itself off military dominance, although that institution remains important partners with civilian elected officials. Indonesia’s society, however, is more modern, more prosperous, and more engaged in advancing its future as a unified nation than it was a few short decades ago. Former military still play a disproportionate role in the society, as true in virtually any former colonial nation struggling to assure its institutionalization of new voices within societies. Elected presidents have become trusted partners within the Association of South East Asian Nations which, in truth, rests on Jakarta’s role as an interlocutor with neighbors and potential enemies. The country will taking a further step from its Dutch history by relocating the capital from the pitiful, broken down swampy area we call Jakarta to a newly created city of Nusantara on Borneo, once comppleted, to signal the future.
Indonesia still supplies many vital resources for the world. It has an interesting but tough relationship with China, warily respectful of Beijing’s unending yearn for resources yet mindful of the Chinese propensity to ignore the interests of anyone else. Jakarta exemplifies that exquisite Southeast Asian behavior of saying yes to everyone and no one at same time, attempting to protect its own initiatives and prerogatives, mindful of how much its priorities really are domestic rather than foreign. Indonesia is a major world player in so many categories because of its population yet rarely determinative about the future in the way Beijing seeks to be.
The aforementioned Prabowo is the newly elected president following a decade under Joko “Jokowi” Widodo. Questions about Indonesia’s future still abound, as Americans unfortunately seem less interested in anything other than China to the north. While Jokowi advanced his country’s economy substantially, global resource demand was the reason in many ways. The increase in demand put money into state coffers while enriching the same elite so influential under Suharto between 1965 and 1998, raising questions about the resiliency of the democracy. His actions also continue exacerbating global warming, a problem for an archipelagic country. Jokowi appeared to maintain civilian control over the military but that institution may well return to prominence under Prabowo as a former general and son-in-law of the late Suharto. More than a few eyebrows also rose as Jokowi’s son became Prabowo’s vice president, highlighting the pattern of intermarriage between political elites as classic anti-democratic behavior anywhere in the world.
Additionally, Indonesians still are not particularly keen to contest Chinese incremental adventures in the South China Sea at a time when the neighboring Filipine government and Washington seek to end such forays. Whether Prabowo, likely to still meet some resistance in Washington for his prior behavior, remains aligned with those seeking to thwart Beijing’s aspirations or becoming an enabler of such activities to curry favor with Chinese investors remains an open question. Since Prabowo only assumed office yesterday, we know nothing yet as he holds his cards close to the vest, obviously hopeful he can extract concessions for his personal and national interests as he walks onto the world stage. Time will tell but I am entirely certain that Jakarta’s role will be one to watch as it seeks to protect its options, much as it’s done since become the host for the first Non-Aligned Summit in the charming town of Bandung in 1955.
East Asia is amidst a year of transformation. Japan is holding a national election, Taiwan inaugurated a new president in May while Vietnam selected a new leader earlier this month. What effects will these have on this region, such as the enduring yet lethargic ASEAN ? On U.S. policy and options under whomever arrives in the White House?
I welcome and hope to hear your thoughts, questions, or rebuttals on Indonesia or any other topic. Please feel free to circulate this column if you find it of value. I appreciate your time today or any other day you think about Actions create consequences. I especially appreciate those who support this column financially.
Leaves are slowly reminding us of the shortening sunlight.
Be well and be safe. FIN
Central Intelligence Agency, “Indonesia”, The World Factbook, 2024, cia.gov, 2024 retrieved at https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/indonesia/#government