A
president worthy of a maritime nation and a sea power
Ziad Salim ; A
retired international civil servant
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JAKARTA
POST, 05 September 2014
When I was a boy, I used to go to the river
for everything, not just to play or swim but to do everything I needed to
survive as a poor boy in a poor village. I responded to all calls of nature
in that river, including hunger, by catching fish and prawns with my bare
hands.
Now, I wouldn’t dream of even dipping my toe
in that river: its water is a veritable chemical soup complete with traces of
mercury from illegal gold panning. So water is a big deal, for me but even
more so for the president of an island-nation, 70 percent of whose seas or
rivers have been used and abused as a dumping ground, just like that river in
my village.
It is also a big deal if he comes from a poor
family too, growing up near a dirty river and doing what I did. The
difference is that he came up with a vision to turn the country into a
maritime nation and sea power, while all I could do is dream of such a
country.
So when Joko “Jokowi” Widodo had to make his
victory speech and ran to the water’s edge at Sunda Kelapa and hopped onto a
local boat to make a short speech, at his side a short man who hailed from an
island and a city synonymous with sailing, I was ecstatic.
That was nothing short of astounding and since
then images of a new Indonesia steeped in its watery history and tradition
have been churning in my head, day and night.
So one night I dreamt I met Jokowi. As I was
sleeping, he sat next to my bed.
Feeling important (and him being so humble),
unbidden I gave him a little advice on how to quickly turn his dream of making
Indonesia “the world’s maritime axis” into a reality, at least symbolically,
within his first 100 days in office.
For a start, I told him to embark on a
long-term but sustained daily nationwide public campaign to clean up all the
country’s waterways (rivers, reservoirs, creeks, lakes, deltas, straits,
seas).
Then he
should urge Indonesians to eat the fruits of the nation’s waters (local fish
and other seafood) on one or two days every week.
Jokowi should buy up all of the Thousand
Islands and move the capital there.
I hesitated before imparting this next piece
of advice, as it goes to the heart of what makes him who he is: I told him to
stop the blusukan (impromptu visits), at least in Jakarta; the city still
harbors at least 95 disgruntled lawyers, dozens of resentful constitutional
law experts, bogus surveyors, scores of talking heads and thousands of paid
professional street thugs, all of whom have tried to bring him down.
I reminded him that Indonesia is not Jakarta,
but if he insisted on continuing his blusukan, I told him to sell the new
presidential airplane and buy a big boat instead, and fit her with all modern
communication equipment so he can get in touch with anyone anywhere in the
world.
The ship would be his floating blue water
palace, just like the one that used to be in the service of the head of the
British Empire before it ceased to exist.
Then I tantalized him with these images: the
new president of the new sea power would travel on his great ship to every
ASEAN or Asian city for his meetings or state visits; he would certainly make
waves, even if he didn’t (yet) rule the waves.
At home, he could regularly go and visit his
citizens in far away and far-flung islands; indeed, he could anchor in every
provincial capital for a week or two and run the country from there.
If he so chose, he could dock and go about his
blusukan, and upon entering a port, he would be ushered in by scores if not
hundreds of small vessels.
He would take such an opportunity to announce
a raft of new measures: the creation of a maritime bank specializing in loans
to fishermen and maritime industries; at Bakauheni or Merak, he would
announce that all inter-island ferries and ships would be upgraded and
regulated according to international maritime standards of sea-worthiness so
that no more Indonesians would die in shameful watery graves;
In Surabaya, he would announce the city as the
center of ship-building, with warship production to increase for the
Indonesian Navy; in Makassar, he would announce the creation of the best
maritime university in Southeast Asia or even the world; at Sunda Kelapa, he
would announce the purchase of a big ship as a floating hospital to travel to
every part of the country to provide rare medical services to the poor; and
finally, in Sabang, he would announce his plan to purchase one big cruise
ship and another, in Merauke, both of which would do the wira-wiri (to and
fro) as the floating platforms of his “toll laut”, or ocean toll road.
All these initiatives would galvanize the
people, increase the country’s unity and safety and the people’s patriotism,
and generate new sources of economic growth-- the McKinsey Global Institute
predicts that Indonesia could rank as the seventh largest economy in the
world by 2030 if it mobilized its maritime resources.
Last but not least, tourism would increase
because people would come to see not just a new Indonesia but also a new
country with a unique approach to life, development and governing and a
visionary new president.
Then I noticed Jokowi yawn and fall asleep. I
was hoping to continue by telling him to scrap the Sunda bridge plan as
redundant if his ocean toll road became a reality, and not to buy or use
drones because they are inconsistent with his maritime concept. He should
trust the millions of fishermen and the reinvigorated Navy to spot illegal
loggers, illegal fishing boats and smugglers.
Unfortunately, Jokowi fell asleep too soon,
left too soon and I woke up too soon too. Maybe he was bored with my speech
or he had planned to enact all these measures anyway.
But it was still too bad, because I hadn’t
given him with my last, best piece of advice: he should buy up all of the
Thousand Islands and move the capital there.
No more flooding and no more traffic jams, and
because all government employees and visitors would see water before they saw
anything else, their mind-sets would change and become more attuned to the
maritime nature of the country.
He could leave Jakarta. He could move from
place to place in a boat in his new capital, engage in blusukan through all
the rivers, reservoirs and canals that he has dredged and cleaned up and
loved so much.
Then we would have a president worthy of a sea
power and a maritime nation. ●
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