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As an
Australian with a significant interest in Indonesia, it was with a
mixture of optimism and pessimism that I read about last week’s (March
3-4) Indonesia-Australia Dialogue at Sydney’s Intercontinental Hotel.
The keynote speakers at the high-profile event were Australia’s foreign
minister, Bob Carr, and the opposition foreign spokesperson, Julie
Bishop. Addressing former diplomats, senior academics and journalists
from both countries, the mood seemed buoyant and positive about the prospects
for the relationship.
Carr cited the government’s “Asian Century” white paper and its
particular focus on boosting the number of young Australians living and
working in Indonesia on the bilateral work and holiday visa. Bishop,
meanwhile, championed the opposition’s proposed scheme to dramatically
raise the number of Australians studying in the country.
Considering there will be an election in Australia later this year, it is
good to see that both sides of politics outwardly value the relationship
and have committed themselves to doing more to steer it in the right
direction.
But like at most of these big, flashy gatherings, there seems to be more
interest in patting each other on the back and saying how well everything
is going than actually discussing what has been going wrong. An
Indonesian I know described our countries’ diplomatic styles as being the
perfect antithesis of each other, yet oddly complementary. One likes to
talk a lot, while the other likes to nod and smile politely.
Despite the all the positive spin, the bilateral relationship is years
behind where it should be. And nowhere is this more evident than in the
education sector.
In any given year, there are only about 500 Australians studying in
Indonesia, and the vast majority of those are in short course programs of
about a month in duration. Meanwhile, as many as 20,000 Indonesians are
studying at Australian universities. It is ridiculous to think that
Indonesians have not noticed this imbalance and goes a long way to
illustrating what we really think of each other.
Back in Australia though, the situation is even more dire. Over the past
10 years, there has been a 40 percent drop in the number of students
studying Indonesian — by some counts, there were more Australians
studying Indonesian in the 1970s than there are today. If it were not for
plate tectonics, you could be forgiven for thinking our countries have
been drifting apart.
Over the years, both of Australia’s major political parties have had
ample opportunities to arrest the decline of Indonesian language studies
and yet precious little has actually been done. They have sat on their
hands while Australian universities continued to cut their Indonesian
programs and high schools struggled to fill their senior classes.
So why now? Why is it imperative that Australians go across and learn
more about their geographically and strategically important neighbor to
the north now and not, say, 10 years ago, when I was studying the
language in a university class of about 10 people?
At the risk of being called a cynic, could it be because of recent
revelations that, at current growth rates, Indonesia’s economy may
eclipse Australia’s in as little as 20 years? Seems an awful lot like a
relationship of convenience where we are only interested in being nice
neighbors when we can get something out of it.
Sure, it may be a case of better late than never, except for the fact
that there is another election on the horizon that will have far more
implications for the bilateral relationship. Next year Australia will
lose the most pro-Australian leader in Indonesia’s history and, with
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono out of the picture, who knows what
outlook the next president might have.
Unfortunately, Australia may have been caught napping with its jam karet
diplomacy and it is now a case of too little too late with this latest
push. ●
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