To paraphrase Madeleine Albright, Indonesia is South East Asia’s indispensable nation.
It is now just over twelve years since Francis Fukuyama’s “The End of History” and Samuel P. Huntingdon’s “The Clash of Civilisations” appeared and caught the imagination of the world, if not a raw nerve. Both books, espousing two opposing world views, aroused considerable controversy and criticism, informed and otherwise. Many were inflamed at the supposed Western triumphalism, while others deplored its pessimism forecasting the decline of thae West and liberal democracy.
Francis Fukuyama took the view that liberal democracy, based on the twin pillars of liberty and equality, had now achieved such ascendancy in the Marxist/Hegelian sense of history as to be the final form of government. That is not to say existing liberal democracies are perfect and do not face challenges, or that the non-West would have to become western. What he said was that other forms of government, like theocracy, monarchy and totalitarianism contained fundamental flaws that would cause them to collapse.
Samuel Huntingdon saw the world through a much darker lens. He divided the world into nine cultural blocs or civilisations that will inevitably clash. Essentially, he foresees the continued relative decline of the West and the rise of China. Islam, he sees, as one monolithic culture, set irredeemedly in opposition to the West. He expects the Islamic and Sinitic civilisations to ally themselves in order to challenge the West, while the other six civilisations (Russian/Orthodox, Japanese, Hindu, Buddhist, African and Latin American) will either “bandwagon” or “balance” between the contenders as determined by their situation and interests.
So twelve years on, which world view prevails?
In the light of the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the continuing Israeli/Palestinian conflict, a general Islamic resurgence combined with anger at the West, most particularly the US, expressions of Islamic terrorism and fundamentalism, and the dramatic growth of the Chinese economy and regional military power, the world would indeed seem headed in an Huntingdonesque direction.
On closer examination however, Huntingdon’s view is superficial, if not deeply flawed. The nine civilisations he posits as the final and largest divisions of mankind and are destined to contend, based on the human need to divide the world into us and them. But this is not the totality of human aspiration. Given the chance, all men and women have demonstrated a fundamental desire to be free, to pursue economic well being, to think and worship as they please.
There are two fundamental problems with Huntingdon’s theory of nine civilisations.
First it assumes the West comprises the US, the European Community and the other developed European settler nations. The main problem with this is that despite the original common culture, US and Europe trade and social interests are diverging. Nowhere is this more obvious than with the US occupation of Iraq. Whatever their leaders decide, the fact is that the majority of Europeans feel it was a bad idea. In any Clash of Civilisations to come, Europe may well choose to balance and bandwagon with the US by turn rather than align totally.
Second, Huntindon falls into the classic “Orientalist” mode viewing Islam as one. As the late Edward Said, Palestinian humanist and Harvard Professor, pointed out:
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the Islamic world, which numbers a billion people, and includes dozens of countries, societies, traditions languages and, of course, an infinite number of different experiences. it is simply false to try and trace this all back to something called Islam”.
In particularly, Huntingdon takes no account of Turkic and Central Asian civilisation, a vast swathe of the Eurasian landmass, vastly different from and more tolerant than the Islamic cultures of the Arabs and Persia. No account is taken of the entrenched secularism in Turkey co-existing with Islam, nor the fact that Turkey has been invited to apply for membership of the European Community. Probably the most significant geo-political development since the demise of the USSR, a development totally ignored by Huntingdon.
Just as significant is the Islam practiced in South East Asia, in what is mainly the Malay civilisation ranged through the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and southern Thailand. This civilisation arising from the expansion of the Austronesian or Proto-Malay peoples is far too significant to overlook, as it so often is in the West. Historically, the Austronesians spread overseas from Southern China about 3,000 years ago in the face of Han southerly expansion. Passing first through Taiwan they expanded down through the Philippines, into Borneo and on into the Indonesian archipelago. Some turned East along the coast of New Guinea without penetrating far inland (where the earlier Negrito and Melanesians had long since settled) and onward, far out into the Pacific. These people, the Polynesians, were the most remarkable navigators the world has ever seen.
The other branch of the Austronesian peoples turned West, populating Indonesia and the rest of what is now mainland Indo-China. They were responsible for the succession of great Hindu-Buddhist empires that existed for 600 years in SE Asia until the 15th Century CE. Great maritime empires mostly, the Srivijaya, the Majapahit in Indonesia, the Golden Khersonese in what is now peninsular Malaysia , the Khmer Empire spreading at its height across modern-day Thailand, Cambodia and Southern Vietnam, and the kingdoms of Champa and Funan in what is today’s North and South Vietnam. Six hundred years ago they even sailed across the Indian Ocean and populated Madagascar. A culture that historically stretches almost from the coast of Africa through Asia and almost to the coast of South America is a culture worthy of some consideration I submit.
Apart from religion, the Islamic peoples of SE Asia have very little in common culturally with Arabs or Persians, despite money spent in recent years to promote Wahabism. They are far more likely to seek to preserve their independence by taking advantage of trade with China without becoming subservient to it. They are more likely to seek to “balance” China’s quest for regional hegemony by seeking good relations with Japan, India and the West rather than joining an Arabist jihad against those more distant and less threatening powers.
In this respect Indonesia is the indispensable SE Asian nation.
It is the founding heart of ASEAN and without it ASEAN could not exist. It is by far the largest country in that organisation in terms of territory and population. It enjoys huge natural resources and lies strategically athwart passage between the Indian and Pacific oceans. In recent years the country has made significant moves toward greater democracy and economic freedom. The recent series of national elections through 2004, culminating in the first direct presidential elections went far better than most people overseas expected. Is a “nation-in-waiting” such as this, likely to accept the South China Sea being turned into a Chinese lake? Good relations and trade is one thing, political subservience another. A far more likely scenario is that Indonesia and other ASEAN nations wishing to enjoy good relations with China, without being under its sway, will foster close relations with their neighbours, in Indonesia’s case, Vietnam, India and Australia, as well as the more powerful but more distant great powers Japan, the US and Europe.
Indonesia in fact stands poised to become again what it once was, a rich country producing goods all the world wants and at the same time standing at the crossroads of trade from all points of the compass.
For that return to greatness to come to pass Indonesia and its leaders will need to make further strides opening up its economy and satisfying the hopes and expectations of its citizens. The consensus over the past 50 years has been, and the facts bear it out, that the only way to prosper as a nation in today’s world is by moving toward liberal democracy, whatever cultural hat it wears. In that sense Francis Fukuyama’s book is a much more profound book and much nearer the mark.
