{"id":6976,"date":"2013-06-14T06:00:09","date_gmt":"2013-06-13T20:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=6976"},"modified":"2013-06-17T09:40:59","modified_gmt":"2013-06-16T23:40:59","slug":"in-his-own-words-indonesia-and-sbys-speeches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/in-his-own-words-indonesia-and-sbys-speeches\/","title":{"rendered":"In his own words: Indonesia and SBY’s speeches"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

I\u2019ve recently\u00a0started looking at the\u00a0back catalogue of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono\u2019s public addresses<\/a>\u00a0to see what the Indonesian President has chosen to talk about to an international audience. Since January of this year, he\u2019s made 12 major speeches and public remarks in English. As I see it, these speeches are an important part of the national discussion on areas like Indonesia\u2019s role in regional security and relations with neighbouring countries, and it\u2019s worth examining how the President shapes his key messages.\u00a0They\u2019re also a useful snapshot of current thinking at the highest level of Indonesia\u2019s\u00a0leadership. Whether they\u2019re written by close advisors or under close direction of the President himself, they set and project Indonesia\u2019s image abroad.<\/p>\n

First, and not surprisingly given the choice of language, many of SBY\u2019s speeches talk about Indonesia and the country\u2019s endeavours in terms of regional and international settings (here<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0here<\/a>). It\u2019s also in line with the perception of SBY as an internationally-focussed president. Notably, except for the special case of ASEAN, there\u2019s no mention in these speeches of ‘middle power’ solidarity, BRICS, MIST and other kinds of exclusive groupings. Rather, SBY highlights Indonesia\u2019s place as part of a larger international communities including the G20, in particular, and the UN (noting, of course, there were four UN-related speeches in the sample).<\/p>\n

In the speeches, phrases like \u2018strategic trust\u2019 (in his\u00a0Jakarta International Defense Dialogue speech<\/a>\u00a0which I\u00a0wrote about<\/a>\u00a0a few months ago) are part of the projection of Indonesia\u2019s desire to play a leadership role in the region. Another notion dotting his public addresses is one of peace and harmony (evident in his\u00a0acceptance speech<\/a>\u00a0for the World Statesman Award), both in Indonesia and as part of the international system. Everyone wants peace and harmony, but here it probably reflects Indonesian disquiet about the constant regional rumblings of unrest and strategic competition. That\u2019s probably why SBY talks about harmony as a goal even in contexts as diverse as\u00a0promoting military sports<\/a>. In that address he talked largely about soldier wellbeing and professionalism but squeezed in mentions of international conflict. They can be seen as attempts to tie low-level cooperation to loftier aims. There\u2019s always diplomatic mileage in promoting the most righteous outcomes possible: if they happen, you take the credit, and if they don\u2019t, at least you can say you tried.<\/p>\n

And SBY certainly seems to see Indonesia as an increasingly influential country. Unlike Australia, SBY isn\u2019t interested in generating \u2018Asian Century\u2019 street cred or positioning the country as a key element of an \u2018Indo Pacific\u2019 system. Instead, his pitch is about Indonesia\u2019s transformation\u2014about doing rather than theorising. Rather than trying to\u00a0define\u00a0its place in the region, he\u2019s saying that Indonesia is naturally heading towards being an important player. This is a narrative about a democratic, religiously and culturally diverse state with stellar economic growth rates. As part of this story, there are several mentions (here<\/a>,\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0here<\/a>) of Indonesia being second only to China as the fastest growing economy in the region.<\/p>\n

Another selling point used by SBY is the ability of Indonesia to solve problems, with home-grown examples like successful peace agreements in Aceh and Timor Leste (see here<\/a>,\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0here<\/a>). These sorts of silver linings to Indonesia\u2019s history of conflicts can push issues like Papua into the background. But there\u2019s a contrast between the narrative of democracy and diversity being peddled (as there often is in speeches) and the reality of religious intolerance and violence in parts of the country like Poso.<\/p>\n

Interesting to note, however, is the low prominence of issues like counter terrorism. I\u2019d have expected this to have earned a mention in his JIDD speech, but it\u2019s reflective of where the issue stands in order of priority. In this, Indonesia is following the same path as other countries as 9\/11 and Bali recede into the past. Rather, when talking security, bigger questions of regional dynamics, US\u2013China relations, Myanmar\u2019s transition and the plight of Islamic communities are at the forefront. Palestine headlined his\u00a0speech at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation<\/a>\u00a0but Syria and Mali, alongside the Korean Peninsula and South China Sea, cropped up in his military sports address. There are elements of Indonesian foreign policy that relate to \u2018Islamic issues\u2019 and certainly, as time goes by, the issue of violence towards Rohingyas in Myanmar might become even more for salient for Indonesia. Nevertheless, in the speeches this year, SBY balances between flashing Indonesia\u2019s international Islamic community membership card and reminding audiences that there\u2019s more to his country than an Islamic state. In his\u00a0address to the International Tourismus B\u00f6rse in Berlin<\/a>, he goes as far as to explicitly say \u2018Indonesia is not an Islamic state\u2019 (and it\u2019s not, it\u2019s a \u2018Muslim majority state\u2019 and the official state ideology of Pancasila<\/a> recognises five religions).<\/p>\n

This is part of a larger research project that\u2019ll examine SBY\u2019s speeches throughout his second presidential term (2009\u201314) and which will hopefully shed some light on what\u2019s been shaping Indonesia\u2019s national discourse over the past five years. Indonesian language speeches will almost certainly give insight into the internal polity and the issues it cares about.<\/p>\n

Some of what I\u2019ve identified reflects Indonesian foreign policy and national ideology, but some ideas reflect SBY\u2019s personal leadership style. And, of course, some speeches will be permeated with the thinking of speechwriters and policymakers who are responsible for steering Indonesia towards its goals. There\u2019s also a larger project in waiting to work out how the particular values discussed have come about and how they\u2019re prioritised during SBY\u2019s Presidency, and which ones might survive a transition in the top job.<\/p>\n

Understanding how Indonesia frames and manoeuvres itself publically will be of help in deciding how Australia, in our domestic and international discourses, positions itself for future engagement. Ultimately, the more we can understand about Indonesia under a decade of SBY\u2019s rule, the better Australia will be in discerning the direction in which future Presidents steer the country in the Asian Century.<\/p>\n

Natalie Sambhi is an analyst at ASPI and editor of\u00a0<\/em>The Strategist. Image courtesy of President of the Republic of Indonesia official website<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve recently\u00a0started looking at the\u00a0back catalogue of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono\u2019s public addresses\u00a0to see what the Indonesian President has chosen to talk about to an international audience. Since January of this year, he\u2019s made 12 …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":6979,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[285,8,487,486],"class_list":["post-6976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-foreign-policy","tag-indonesia","tag-speech","tag-susilo-bambang-yudhoyono"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIn his own words: Indonesia and SBY's speeches | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/in-his-own-words-indonesia-and-sbys-speeches\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"In his own words: Indonesia and SBY's speeches | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I\u2019ve recently\u00a0started looking at the\u00a0back catalogue of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono\u2019s public addresses\u00a0to see what the Indonesian President has chosen to talk about to an international audience. 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