The recent visit of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s (SBY) to Australia has generated much excitement about the good relations between Australia and Indonesia.
Certainly, his invitation to address the Australian Parliament was a positive sign. But during that address, SBY commented that “the most persistent problem is age-old stereotypes which are misleading and simplistic”.
Even with this current state of closeness between the two leaders, work still needs to be done to improve mutual understanding and knowledge.
Both SBY and Rudd would know that they are not the first leaders of the two nations to claim to have a “special relationship”. In 1975, then Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam was invited to accompany Soeharto to his residence in Central Java.
Only on rare occasions would Soeharto bring foreign leaders to his place of birth, and Whitlam saw this as a personal gesture of friendship and a pivotal moment in Australia-Indonesia relations.
But in October that same year, Indonesia invaded East Timor, during which five Australian-based journalists were killed in Balibo. Relations quickly soured, and Australians began to single out Indonesia as a ‘threat’ during this time.
During the 1980s both Labor and Coalition governments in Australia found it beneficial to work closely with Indonesia, and a 1987 Defense White Paper specifically emphasised the importance of maintaining and improving bilateral relations.
Yet during this time, surveys also showed that Australians regarded Indonesia as the country most likely to threaten national security.
During the early 1990s the two countries’ foreign ministers, Ali Alatas and Gareth Evans, had a very close personal friendship.
Yet suspicions lingered in the public mind in both Australia and Indonesia. A 1993 survey revealed that 57 percent of Australians believed Indonesia could threaten Australia’s security within the next 10-15 years.
During the 1990s then prime minister Paul Keating established a friendship with Soeharto, highlighted by the fact that he attended Suharto’s funeral in 2008. However, he was one of the only Australians to do so.
From 2000, top-level politicians from both Australia and Indonesia have claimed increasing closeness and cooperation.
In 2004, SBY and then-Australian prime minister John Howard claimed to have developed a close personal relationship. But in that same year opinion polls showed a steadily increasing proportion of Australians who nominated Indonesia as the principle long-term security threat.
A 2006 poll placed Indonesia fourth, behind only the so-called “Axis of Evil” — North Korea, Iran and Iraq — as a country Australians felt was the greatest threat to their national security.
More respondents agreed with the statement, “Australia is right to worry about Indonesia as a military threat”, than “Indonesia is an emerging democracy”.
Howard’s image as the United States “deputy sheriff” in Asia quickly lost him friends in Asian politics, including Indonesia. It didn’t take much for the apparent “close personal relationship” to be destroyed.
Thus, previous leaders have emphasised how we are not just neighbours, but friends. Rudd and SBY have taken this rhetoric up a notch, with the former saying “we’re not only neighbours, not only friends, we’re strategic partners”, and the current state of Australia-Indonesia relations expressed by Canberra’s adoption of the slogan “a new partnership in a new era”.
In a jointly-authored opinion piece published in Australian newspapers and The Jakarta Post before the visit, Rudd and SBY began three of the first four paragraphs with the words “our friendship”.
Perhaps they are true friends and relations are at an all-time high, and SBY’s invitation to address Parliament certainly gives weight to this argument, but public declaration of ministerial companionship is certainly nothing new.
History has shown that close personal relations between leaders means little to public perception or the overall reality of Australia-Indonesia relations. This is a conundrum in Australia-Indonesia relations.
As public opinion increasingly saw Indonesia as a security threat, conversely, government policy was pushing to form friendly bilateral ties with Indonesia. So just because there have been 69 ministerial visits between Australia and Indonesia since the Rudd government came into office, that doesn’t necessarily mean the relationship is at an all-time high.
More work needs to be done to improve public perceptions, with polling by the Lowy Institute released on March 8 confirming the ongoing problem.
It is too simplistic to place the blame solely on the mainstream media, as has been the tendency in the past. Relations and understanding between countries goes far beyond what is written in the press, and shown on television.
Both the Australian and Indonesian governments have tried to place greater emphasis on establishing “people-to-people” contacts, and some initiatives, such as the Australia-Indonesia Youth Exchange Program, have been highly successful in establishing friendships beyond a governmental level. But more needs to be done, particularly funding Australian universities to teach Indonesian studies and language.
Indonesia could place greater emphasis on tourism outside of Bali, and establish an easier system for Australian students to receive visas who come to study here.
Despite the historic occasion of SBY becoming the first Indonesian leader to address the Australian Parliament, the real test is the willingness and ability of our leaders to create greater personal connections between those outside their own ministerial circle.
As public opinion increasingly saw Indonesia as a security threat, conversely, government policy was pushing to form friendly bilateral ties with Indonesia
The writer teaches at the School of History and Politics at the University of Wollongong, Australia. He is currently a visiting scholar at the University of Indonesia in Jakarta, and holds an Endeavour Research Fellowship.
