The example of Indonesia

I've been watching a little Olympic badminton today, including some matches featuring badminton-crazy Indonesia.

My father's job was deeply concerned with certain aspects of Indonesian culture, and we had Indonesian students living in our house sometimes when I was a child, he made near-constant visits there, my family spent part of my childhood in Indonesia, etc. Indonesia has and will always have a special place in my heart. I have always wondered why more isn't made of the example of Indonesia as a Muslim nation, in this post-9/11 world. Indonesia's government and democracy are far from perfect. But in most every way that matters, Indonesia is a pro-Western, progressive state, and could be a model for a modern Muslim nation, provided nationalist Islam (note, not radical Islam) doesn't become too powerful a force in Indonesian society. In the immediate aftermath of September 11th, many commentators and pundits waxed on about various failings of Muslim nations, and a saw I heard often was that there weren't any Muslim nations that ensured religious freedom. But this simply wasn't and isn't true; Indonesia is a dominantly Muslim nation, with the largest Muslim population in the world, but it also has small but strong Hindu, Christian and Buddhist populations. Bali, the tourist capital of Indonesia, is a Hindu island in the Indonesian sea of Islam. There are Christian communities throughout the islands, and though it is small, the Buddhist population is influential (owing in large part to its place as a religion of the affluent within Indonesia.) It's worth pointing out that in Bali and other islands there are prominent statues of the Buddha, hardly a common sight in Muslim nations.

When the "Obama was raised in a madrassa" meme spread, many people were surprised to learn (if they bothered to learn) that Muslim women in Indonesia wear pants, and in general enjoy freedom equal to almost any women in the second world. And if people investigate, they'll find in Indonesia a country that is broadly supportive of America. It's a difficult line for Indonesia to walk, but they pull it off, often enough. I imagine that perceptions of Indonesia anti-Americanism stem largely from the terrorist bombing of the Balinese nightclub, but it's important to remember that an attack like that was carried out by a very small number of people in a nation of millions. Also, that attack targeted a largely Australian nightclub, which suggest that the attack was connected to deep antagonisms between Indonesian (and particularly Balinese) people and Australian tourists. The treatment of Indonesians and Indonesia by Australian tourists is a source of deep anger, largely justified. (Let me be quick to say that, of course, while I find Indonesian anger at Australian conduct writ large in the islands to be understandable, the attack, of course, is not and could never be justifiable.) It is a mistake to look at the nightclub bombing as a gloss on larger notions of Indonesian attitudes toward the West.

Of course, Indonesia is functionally pro-American in spite of American actions, and maybe that's why the country doesn't get more approving press. Let's not mince words: American conduct in Indonesia in the 20th century was utterly reprehensible. The United States supported the Suharto regime for decades. Suharto was an absolutely brutal dictator, who embezzled hundreds of millions from an impoverished country; squelched dissent at every turn; tortured, murdered, and exiled activists and protesters; and by conservative estimates killed a quarter of the population of East Timor or more. The United States propped up his regime, provided him with American foreign aid, shielded his regime diplomatically, and did everything possible to support his horrible dictatorship. (A senior administration official in the Clinton White House famously called Suharto "our kind of guy", just about a perfect encapsulation of American foreign policy and its priorities.) As a child living in Indonesia, I resided with my family in Bali, and as the tourist capital the government took pains to minimize the presence of the military. But still, every once in a while black military trucks would drive by, filled with angry-looking soldiers.

There's also of course the matter of Suharto's path to power and the events of 1965. The conservative figure for the number of communist party members is half a million; but the real number dead may even be twice that. It is frighteningly easy, in Indonesia, to find people willing to take you to the sites of mass graves. The United States backed the Indonesian military's anti-communist purge all the way through. They provided lists of communist party members and espionage to the army in support of the murder of millions. In a common turn in foreign policy discussions, people who for years denied any American involvement have switched to affirmative defenses, in the face of volumes of declassified CIA and military files making the United States's support for the military takeover, and the purge, quite clear.

You get many now who will assert that it was okay for the Indonesia military to indiscriminately murder hundreds of thousands, because the people murdered where communists. This is the kind of zealous disregard for human life and predominance of ideology that we deride in, say, Islamic extremists. First, anyone who stood opposed to the army was killed, and you can bet that thousands of those dead had no particular connection to the communist party at all. What's more, context, please-- the Indonesian communist party was popular in part because it represented the only real alternative to military dictatorship. These people were impoverished peasants, not the Bolshevik army. And all of that is tangential to the most important point: communist party members have a right to not be murdered, and to pursue whatever political ends they might prefer, no matter how much libertarians and market conservatives might hate communism. Being a communist really means that you deserve death?

The Indonesian situation in 1965, by the way, is a favorite for those who like to employ entirely different standards of evidence between the United States's actions and those of other countries. "Aha!" they say. "The United States didn't kill anyone!" Which is true. The United States didn't kill any Indonesian peasants. They just provided those who were going on a murderous rampage with intelligence and logistical support for their mass murder, including literally providing hit lists to the Indonesian army, assisting in the murder of hundreds of thousands. Again I ask: isn't this precisely the kind of thinking that we have attacked so loudly following September 11th? Didn't we decide that we weren't any longer going to make distinctions between terrorists and their supporters? If Iran provided a hit list to a foreign country's military dictatorship, with the goal of eliminating threats to Iranian power, and that hit list was used in the elimination of hundreds of thousands-- what would we say? What would the neocons say? What would our response be, diplomatically and militarily? To some people such questions don't matter. There simply is nothing that America can do that actually invites serious reflection on the morality of our actions. But a nation that believes in a righteous foreign policy and the principles of self-determination is obligated to ask those questions.

Indonesia is our friend despite the fact that they have every reason to hate us. Every reason. Perhaps the message should be that we should spend more time developing friendships with other countries-- principally by leaving them alone and not manipulating their internal struggles or governments-- in order to get what we want, rather than with a dangerous, incredibly expensive and diplomatically suicidal foreign policy.