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Your letters: On ‘strangers next door’

The article by journalist Duncan Graham (The Jakarta Post, April 23, 2018) presented a good and interesting summary of the book Strangers Next Door

The Jakarta Post
Sat, April 28, 2018

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Your letters: On ‘strangers next door’

T

he article by journalist Duncan Graham (The Jakarta Post, April 23, 2018) presented a good and interesting summary of the book Strangers Next Door. The response from the Australian Embassy’s Charge d’Affaires Allaster Cox (The Jakarta Post, April 25) is also important to read.

Mr. Cox makes a very valid point in that on so many levels, including education, business, culture and politics — where our two leaders do enjoy a genuinely close friendship — the relationship between Australia and Indonesia is in good shape.

It needs to be said, however, that for the majority of the populations in both Indonesia and Australia, our neighbors are indeed “strangers”, mixed with ignorance and sometimes ambivalence toward each other.

We have so many clichés thrown around about the relationship between our two countries — such as “needing more ballast” or “business and trade is underdone” — one cannot help but agree that there are some significant challenges to be addressed in order to deepen the relationship.

If we are really serious about this desire for a closer and deeper relationship between us, both countries need to make it far easier for our respective young people to meet each other through in-country experience (such as Australian Consortium for ‘In-Country’ Indonesian Studies), travel, technology, and holiday-work experience. Yet Australia makes it very difficult for young Indonesians to visit us, whilst Indonesia “drowns” young Australians wanting to study, travel or undertake internships in Indonesia, in
red tape.

If both countries want to seriously deepen and progress the bilateral relationship, then we need to focus on bringing our youth together, and with some 90 million young people in Indonesia who want to embrace travel, education and importantly technology, the opportunities are immense; but only if our national leaders facilitate this.

Failure to do so will continue to, indeed, leave many of us as “strangers next door”.

Ross B. Taylor AM
President of Indonesia Institute Inc.
Perth, Western Australia

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