Asian American Press


	Front - National - Business - Community - Health - Education - Arts - Op/Ed - Contact - Advertise - Subscribe - History

2008 Dragon Festival

The February 20, 2008 Lunar Eclipse was visible under clear skies over the Twin Cities, a place where cloudcover or bright lights of the metro usually prevent witness of many other celestial events.

An Indonesian View of the American Elections

Photo by Ted Meinhover

By Ted Meinhover

When it comes to the ongoing presidential race in the United States, people in Indonesia, on the other side of the world, seem to be hearing the same words as Americans: change, change, change. The Bush administration is on the way out, and a debate over how to change current US policies is heating up. Indonesians are well aware of the consequences that the results of the presidential elections of 2008 could have for their country – Indonesia’s relationship with the United States is complex, and what happens in the Western country has a significantly impacts countries around the world. This perceived change in the American political landscape is being greeted with enthusiasm by many both in and outside of the US – in Indonesia, many hope this change could bring an end to an era where the US-Indonesia relations have seen a steady decline. Anxiety about the effect of a troubled US economy on Indonesia and anger over the Bush administration’s unilateral foreign policies runs high in Indonesia. Most Americans, however, fail to realize the importance attached to the view that others have of their country and its government, and the implications that those views have on the future.

In November 2006, I reported with Imam Cahyono from Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, on the arrival of George W. Bush for a meeting with Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The massive protests that greeted Mr. Bush were a clear indication of the dissatisfaction that many Indonesians felt toward the American president and the policies he represented. Indonesia has the fourth largest population in the world and has the largest Muslim population of any country. It is also the freest democracy in South East Asia, with a vibrant, free press and many political parties that have emerged since the fall of the authoritarian Suharto regime at the end of the eighties. While the Indonesian government made every effort to welcome the US president, going to extreme measures to ensure security, the crowd of protesters, stretching over a mile as it moved collectively and in an organized fashion towards the site of the meeting, made full use of their freedoms of speech. Some called Bush a terrorist himself, accusing him of using the War on Terror to in fact wage a war against Islam. Bush remains unpopular today – Dila, a resident of Jakarta, recently told me that she didn’t understand why “Bush continues to fight a war in Iraq, and he did not join with the world to help reduce global warming in Bali – this is very selfish for a big country.”

The perception in Indonesia’s media and on the streets is noticeably different now, a year later, says Imam Cahyono, a journalist for the daily Kompas newspaper in Jakarta. Many Indonesians are fascinated by the drama of the US presidential elections, and he says there is even a degree of excitement.

Much of this fascination has been driven by the ascendance of Barack Obama as one of the leaders in the race – Mr. Obama spent several years of his childhood living in Jakarta, he is multi-racial, and his mother’s husband was a Muslim. Barack Obama’s autobiography, “The Audacity of Hope,” was translated to Indonesian and released in Indonesia last fall, and it has since been a top seller in the country.

Dila, again, says that while Bush remains unpopular in Indonesia, Obama is seen as someone who “can better understand other cultures, especially Muslim countries, and respect how they are different.” Marsen Sinaga, from the island of Sumatra, sees Obama’s success, starting with his victory in the state of Iowa, as an indication that “Americans, like Indonesians, now are becoming bored and angry about any policy taken by the current administration, especially related to the war of terrorism and want something new. And Barack Obama fits into that.”

However, the importance of Indonesia and other “second world” countries is generally under-appreciated in the US, according to Parag Khanna, a researcher at the New America Foundation. Writing in the New York Times, he says that, as the international balance of power changes, the US has lost its edge as the single super power. Increasingly in competition with China and Europe, it is the relationships with developing countries on the peripheries of the great powers, such as Indonesia that will give advantage in the new global market place. As an Islamic country as well as a developing economy in the rapidly growing South East Asian marketplace, Indonesia will play a major role in terms of America’s influence “for the next generation of geopolitics,” he says.

That is why Indonesians are paying so much attention to the American elections, and why people in the US should care. Imam, in Indonesia, says that the view that Indonesians have of America greatly affects the relationship that the two countries will have in the future, and that relationship has implications for both countries in the new global marketplace.

0 Comments

Posted on 22 Feb 2008 by Tlaventure