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‘Srawung’ diplomacy as an alternative for building a peaceful world
Srawung diplomacy assumes that humans are homo socius (social beings), rather than homo homini lupus where the human ego can negate the existence of other humans.
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Growing ties: President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo greets United States President Joe Biden (right) as the US leader arrives for a mangrove planting event on the sidelines of the Group of 20 Summit in Nusa Dua, Bali, on Nov. 16, 2022. (AFP/Pool/Dita Alangkara)
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ocial engineering can be done in two ways: evolution and revolution. Karl Marx defined revolution as a class struggle between the proletariat versus the bourgeoisie. However, revolution can take place through a leapfrogging strategy.
Leapfrogging is a revolutionary internal change to catch and keep up with competitors. Economist Joseph Schumpeter uses the term “creative destruction” to describe the capitalist system, which sometimes requires a revolutionary change to promote innovations that will help a nation stay in front.
History shows several nations and leaders have succeeded in leapfrogging. The Meiji Restoration (1868) changed Japan's 250-year-old isolation. Meanwhile, the founding fathers of small countries like Singapore, Taiwan and Israel managed to turn natural limitations (small size with limited population) into modern, prosperous and world-class nations.
Leapfrogging needs a strategic vision supported by technocratic calculations, rather than ideology. The ideology of collectivism was instilled by Stalin and Mao to force farmers to increase agricultural production, but the result was disastrous as the policies claimed millions of lives in the Soviet Union and China.
In the case of Indonesia, its first president Sukarno and seventh president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, share a similar ambition to accelerate nation-building through leapfrogging, taking into consideration Indonesia’s strategic position, abundant natural resources and large population.
The two subscribe to a multipolar world vision, which suggests that amid great powers rivalry, a big country like Indonesia should play an important international role and be a force to be reckoned with. Sukarno used the Asian-African Conference in 1955 and later the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) to show Indonesia’s and the developing world’s mettle, while Jokowi is pushing for the downstreaming of the mining industry through mineral ore bans in spite of the challenge from the international trade regime.
However, the war in Ukraine proves that international relations are more complicated than one may have thought. There are at least four lessons we can learn from the ongoing war.
