TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Your letters: On 'foreign policy vs. Indonesia Inc.'
The two letters below refer to an article titled âForeign policy vs
Change Size
T
em>The two letters below refer to an article titled 'Foreign policy vs. Indonesia Inc.: Time to reap diplomatic dividends', (The Jakarta Post, July 27) by Tantowi Yahya.
I would rather that we help Myanmar etc. because we care; not because we expect to get profit out of it. But maybe I am naive on this. The second part of this article is about a recipe for a successful bureaucracy, called Indonesia Inc., whose key element is the synergy among government institutions, the private sector and the people.
But this is not really helpful, since Indonesia Inc., as formulated, is simply a reformulation of the same problem (you cannot be successful without synergy and, conversely, once you have synergy, success seems obvious). Furthermore, the idea of solving a macro problem by 'adopting a spirit of xyz' no longer works in modern days.
The machinery of the New Order era failed exactly because civil servants were treated as olden day patriots, expecting them to work their socks off for the glory of the nation.
Well, that didn't work, did it? This country should be led by applying good management, by technical people who know what they are doing. But actually, before we even come to that, and since the author is also a senior lawmaker, he should know that no technical solution will work without first having a working political platform.
The latter seems to be becoming a worsening problem for Indonesia. As long as political parties refuse to implement internal reformation, it will remain very hard for them to attract into their fold people with integrity who are truly capable, and thus to lead the country.
Sudarshana Chakra
Jakarta
Sadly Indonesia can't even get its own house in order, either politically, financially or socially, and so what does it really have to offer the rest of the world in terms socioeconomic development, infrastructure and welfare programs right now? What China had to offer to Myanmar and what Myanmar wanted from China was investment.
Certainly the one thing that Myanmar didn't want was any further examples of corruption and poor governance as it attempted to emerge from the stagnation of its military rule. As for mandated UN peacekeeping actions in Bosnia and Herzegovina back in 1995 and the building of a mosque in Sarajevo, well, this hardly counted for a lot in terms of direct sociopolitical investment let alone in the development of infrastructure directed at the overall rebuilding of a war-ravaged region either.
Additionally, a hospital in Gaza and vocal support for Palestinian statehood doesn't really go that far, I'm pretty certain, in guiding the Palestinian people into recognizing Indonesia as an overwhelming socioeconomic savior or a major humanitarian investor either.
Indonesia is not Japan. The writer of the article is certainly correct about this. If it were, I just wonder where it would be both socially and economically today and also, not least, in terms of its due international standing.
He is also pretty much correct in his summing up (contained within the final paragraph) of what is required for Indonesia's own development (maybe with the exception of the bit referring to defamation ' after all it's rather difficult not to defame someone who regularly doesn't appear to know the difference between his own ass and his elbow) and we can all only fervently hope, for all of our tomorrows and for the benefit of the world at large, that one day soon the country finally wakes up to this essential fact.
May Ling PFE
Jakarta
