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Commentary: Meet Obama, our new man in Washington

Ambassador Dino Patti Djalal, you can pack up your bag and come home

Endy M. Bayuni (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Thu, November 11, 2010

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Commentary: Meet Obama, our new man in Washington

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mbassador Dino Patti Djalal, you can pack up your bag and come home. Your services in representing Indonesia in the United States is no longer required. You have done a tremendous job these past few months in leading the embassy, but we now have a new man in Washington. His name is Barack Obama. He lives in the White House.

Indonesia cannot ask for a more effective representation in Washington than the American president.

And this is probably the biggest intangible result Indonesians came away with from Obama’s whirlwind visit here, a country where he spent four years of his childhood, growing up, speaking the local language and attending Indonesian schools.

Returning to Indonesia for the first time in his capacity as President, Obama pledged to help promote greater understanding and cooperation between the two countries. Just the kind of things any envoy in a foreign land is expected to do.

Obama wound up his visit on Wednesday having impressed his hosts, and not just because he still speaks their language. Beside giving a short speech after his meeting with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, he gave a longer address at the University of Indonesia. At both events, he talked about a democratic Indonesia growing in confidence that increasingly is expected to play a larger role on the global stage.

What impressed his Indonesian hosts the most was when he made improving relations between Indonesia and the United States almost like his personal mission.

“Not enough Americans know about this great country,” Obama said during a joint media conference with President Yudhoyono. “Hopefully my visit here will help to promote additional interest and understanding.”

And at the University of Indonesia, he stressed: “I am part of Indonesia.”

The Comprehensive Partnership, which was launched during his visit, becomes the showpiece in this new chapter of their relationship. While it hardly contains anything new — it simply brings existing cooperation programs under one umbrella — it also commits the two countries to broadening and deepening their ties.

Although Indonesia and the United States are already cooperating in many fields, there is room for improvement. Three areas which Obama singled out for greater cooperation were in trade and investment; soft-power issues like education, science, climate change, democratization and human rights; and political and security issues.

Obama was dismayed that the United States ranks third among Indonesia’s major trading partners after Japan and China. “We want to be number one,” he told Yudhoyono.

One area where their interests intersect is in responding to the evolution of Asia through the rapid rise of China and India. Now that the US has been admitted into the East Asia Summit, Washington and Jakarta would collaborate on building a new regional architecture that guarantees peace and prosperity for all countries in the region.

Skeptics have compared the short visit with the goodies Obama brought to India, where he spent three days before coming to Jakarta, and came to the conclusion that Indonesia is not all that important after all. Others saw that Indonesia is still faring low in US priorities in Asia when compared to Japan, South Korea, China and India.

While it may be true, they are unfair comparisons. For historical if not ideological reasons, Indonesia will never become an ally the way Japan and South Korea have, while the sheer size of China and India put Indonesia in a different league.

A fairer comparison would be to look at Indonesia-US relations today and a decade ago. We would learn that we have come a long way. They have certainly moved away from the time counterterrorism became the single overriding issue that defined the intimacy of our bilateral relations. Today, ties are broader and deeper.

Indonesia’s relations with the United States will never reach the same level and intensity that Washington has built with Japan, South Korea, China and India. We will never become allies, but more than partners, which sounds cold and impersonal, Indonesia and the United States should settle with being friends, close friends perhaps.

It has also helped that Indonesia has become a full-fledged democracy, a factor that makes the two countries feel at ease with one another because of their shared values and principles, at least when it comes to democracy and freedom. Like any two friends, Indonesia and the United States will likely continue to have their differences, but these should not affect their overall friendship.

Indonesia cannot find a better friend in the United States today than President Obama. He is not going to replace Ambassador Dino, but he certainly makes the job of any Indonesian envoy in
Washington a lot easier. The best is yet to come.

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