T

he prime minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, has joined us on a working visit and to conduct bilateral talks. Jakarta, the Republic of Indonesia's capital city, has become an attractive political and economic destination for visits by heads of state and government.

As that commercial sponsored by the National Investment Coordinating Agency (BKMP) keeps reminding the international audience: Indonesia is a country with a GDP of almost US$1 trillion, with almost 250 million people it has the world's fourth largest population, a high percentage of young workers, a stable political situation, an abundance of natural resources, friendly people, and it is a charter member of, and home to, the successful regional organization ASEAN, as well as a member of the East Asia Forum, APEC, the G20 and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

The Netherlands, on the other hand, is a vibrant member of the European Union, with a total population of roughly 17 million, per capita GDP of $42,900, a relatively manageable unemployment rate by EU standards of 5.3 percent and is the site of a number of prominent international legal institutions as befitting a country that has produced the 'father' of modern international law, Hugo de Groot (1583 ' 1645).

With such contrasting geopolitical facets, one might wonder whether there is anything special about Prime Minister Rutte's visit.

There are many reasons to categorize his visit as one of those routine stopovers to Jakarta by a head of government as recognition of Indonesia's increasing strategic importance. And in the case of the Netherlands, being an agile trading nation, probably as an attempt to probe Indonesia's expanding market opportunities.

However, we view Prime Minister Rutte's visit in a wider historical framework. We do not mean to rekindle the centuries of dreadful colonial history when a small West European country could colonize and govern a vast archipelagic territory, such as the East Indies (Indonesia).

We also do not have in mind the 12-year-long Dutch'Indonesian dispute on West New Guinea (Indonesians referred to it as West Irian, now Papua and West Papua provinces). That dispute remained as a festering sore on Netherlands'Indonesia relations, pushing it to the brink of war in 1962 after Jakarta severed diplomatic ties with The Hague.

Thanks to the hardheadedness of foreign minister Joseph Luns who refused any form of interim compromise, the dragging out of the West New Guinea/West Irian conflict radicalized the entire spectrum of Indonesia politics.

The end products were very unpalatable: a megalomaniac president Sukarno, an ambitious Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) that lurked waiting for the right moment to grab power and a pervasive and nervous Army (TNI).

The West New Guinea/West Irian conflict also pushed to the foreground an outstanding and courageous Dutch diplomat, Ambassador Herman van Roijen. When he was chief of mission in Washington DC in 1962, he defied his arrogant boss and pushed through a peaceful solution with Indonesia.

When he left his post in 1964, a columnist at The New York Times referred to him as the 'diplomats' diplomat'. His recently published political biography, Herman van Roijen ' (Een) diplomat van Klasse, is highly recommended.

We welcome the visit by Prime Minister Rutte and his delegation because we consider it as a timely opportunity for both the Netherlands and Indonesia to underline our global partnership in jointly facing a complex and uncertain future.

Precisely because the two nations are not unknown to each other, we will show to our neighboring countries and to the world at large that a former colonial power and its former subject colony, now a sovereign nation that wrested its independence through a people's war and deft diplomacy, can cooperate amicably and productively.

When I was interviewed last week by prominent Dutch television channel NOS as a curtain-raiser to the prime minister's visit, I was asked what could the Netherlands offer to demonstrate its sincere attitude of empathy. I suggested two ideas:

First, offer assistance to Jakarta Governor Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo in the form of the services of a consortium of Dutch engineering companies to design and construct a seawall along the Bay of Jakarta in order to protect the city from sinking incrementally.

'But our tax payers will protest and the parliament will criticize the government for wasting money in a country that is already riddled with serious corruption,' the interviewer responded aggressively. I pointed out that preliminary sketches have already been prepared ' talk to the deputy minister for public works ' and the Netherlands with its outstanding expertise in constructing complicated sea defenses could provide the seed money, the design, modeling and construction management, including assisting the auditing supervision.

The bulk of the funding could be provided by the Indonesian government's infrastructure fund, the Asia Development Bank and a host of other funding agencies.

My second idea caused a puzzled expression on the interviewer's face. I reminded her that the first conciliatory Netherlands-Indonesia deal, the Linggarjati Agreement, was completed and initiated in November 1946.

It was negotiated by the Republic's first prime minister, Sutan Sjahrir, and the head of the Dutch delegation, the former prime minister William Schermerhorn.

They shared similar political values embedded in humanist social democratic thinking.

During the height of the Indonesian Revolution in 1946 when armed clashes and rampant killing took place all over Java and Sumatra, Sjahrir pushed through the initial peace agreement. A prolonged armed conflict, Sjahrir and Schermerhorn agreed, could lead to the idolization of violence among the youth and the emergence of neo-fascism in Indonesia.

'But who is this Sutan Sjahrir?' the interviewer asked. I explained to her how Sjahrir went to the Netherlands in 1930 to study law in Amsterdam but became involved in the circles of the Socialist Students Action Group. He spent most of his time reading the works of prominent European political thinkers.

He had to return to Indonesia in 1932, in order to strengthen the Indonesian Nationalist movement. Consequently in 1935, he was detained and sent into exile by the East Indies' attorney general, initially in Boven Digul, West New Guinea, and later transferred to Banda Neira, in the Moluccas.

When he was in the Netherlands, he fell in love with Maria Duchateau and married her in absentia while he was in exile. For eight years during his captivity, Sjahrir wrote letters to Duchateau. They are not merely letters that a lonely husband might write to his wife in a far away country. Sjahrir's letters reveal so poignantly the intense agonizing of a searching young Indonesian intellectual who had become acquainted with the humanistic and ethical values of modern Western civilization through the window of the Dutch language ' which he mastered perfectly ' and culture.

Professor Kees Snoek, who is currently lecturing on modern Dutch literature at the Sorbonne University in Paris, has managed to rescue more than 100 of Sjahrir's letters, retyped them and provided them when necessary with footnotes. He has been unsuccessful so far in acquiring the funding to publish the complete set of Sjahrir's letters.

'Those letters, when published,' I said seriously while facing the camera, 'will be an enduring monument to what the Netherlands achieved in ushering generations of Indonesians into the values and thinking of modern Western civilization through the window of the Dutch language and culture.'

A modest amount of publishing assistance would go very far indeed. Let us see what will happen, both, with the projected Jakarta Bay sea wall, and the publication of Sutan Sjahrir's collection of letters.

We wish Prime Minister Mark Rutte, and his delegation, a pleasant and productive visit.

The writer is a senior editor at The Jakarta Post. He has served as Indonesia's ambassador to Australia.