Indonesian Nationalism is now Essential

By Asep W.

 

Today’s buzzword in regards to Indonesian investment is “nationalism”. This is generally seen as favouring Indonesian companies over international companies, characterised by the lack of a fair playing field. However it is worth looking at some of the background.

“Dutch Disease” is metaphorical affliction arising from large increases in a country's income, primarily associated with natural resource discovery and exploitation. Indonesia founded Royal Dutch Shell and has certainly suffered significantly from Dutch Disease. Decades of resource extraction have not only caused extensive environmental damage, but also disenfranchised local communities and the nation as a whole. Few have benefited at the expense of many.

Resource development and extraction was overwhelmingly undertaken by international companies who came in, profited mightily from resource exploitation, and left little for the local population but crumbs and environmental wastelands.

For example PT Arun in Aceh was the world’s largest LNG exporter for over 30 years, yet outside the barbed wire fences that protected the camps, airbases, production facilities, golf courses, medical centres, and schools, nothing of substance existed. No dentists, leaking thatched rattan schools with mud floors, and a ferocious civil obedience order to ensure the locals’ compliance in their exploitation.

South Sumatra has produced more oil daily than many in the Emirates, but at great cost to those living there; widespread pollution, near total destruction of ground water resources and very few local benefits. The only asphalt roads for years led to multinational company facilities.

Tangguh in Papua, produces billions of dollars of gas per year despite the still uncertain future of those forcibly moved from villages like Kampong Merah without adequate compensation other than perhaps a small new house and a single family member employed during the initial construction phase.

Freeport McMoRan PT is observable from space. It is the world’s largest mine, yet it has divested entire communities and eco-systems of their resources without effectively contributing to local development. Advertisements displaying smiling faces of the few token locals who were educated and employed by the company are used as propaganda to show the value of the mine’s business to the local communities. In reality the lucky few who obtain degrees pales in comparison to the masses killed in order to perpetuate these extractive enterprises.

Foreign companies’ exploitation of vast acreages of peat and rich farming land for palm oil plantations and other agriculture has been highlighted by commentators focusing on environmental devastation, but discounts the dire economic burden such agriculture places upon current and future local populations. In many cases villagers have become de-facto slave labour as foreign companies lobby to keep wages super low. Not much has changed since colonial times in regards to villagers’ economic prospects.

The wonder of modern communications now lays bare these inequities but many argue it is too late, by 2018 Indonesia will be the World’s largest importer of Oil. So who benefited from these systems of economic extraction over the last 50 years? Certainly not those living in South Sumatra, East Kalimantan, Madura etc.

Domestic gas consumption will soon overtake gas production and supplies will be significantly diminished within 20 years. Again, who has benefitted? A large percentage of the country is becoming a barren wasteland, annually set-on-fire for plantations or open cast mined, water resources poisoned, wildlife decimated and villagers forcibly moved at gunpoint to meet big businesses’ demands.

Now imminent trade treaties lacking any real form of reciprocity will strip out manpower and labour opportunities for Indonesians by allowing foreign nationals to provide unlimited services and labour throughout the Republic. Nifty names like Comprehensive Equal Partnership Agreements sound good, but equal partnerships I think not. An Australian or Dutch national can get a visa on arrival, yet how many hurdles and costs do Indonesians encounter prior to getting a visa for their countries? How competent in Bahasa Indonesia does an Australian need to be to work Indonesia compared to the level of English competency required from Canberra?

The reality is that Indonesia has been and continues to be on the losing end; looted and pillaged mainly by foreign national companies with no concern, interest, or benefit for the majority of the local populace. Well prepared colourful mission statements, and reassuring corporate policies in regards to health, safety and the environment, environmental assessments, and ISO Certifications are just pieces of paper not worth the environmental damage their raw material production caused. Corporate social responsibility is an oxymoron if ever there was one when there are few examples of multinationals sticking by their obligations to socially responsible operations. Not to mention the contested role of capitalism in development where central and local government, state companies and the international lending bodies such as the World Bank, ADB and international Aid are concerned.

Agencies have and continue to be instrumental in this dire state of affairs, but where was the moral guidance of the large foreign companies, their funding partners and foreign governments in overseeing the legitimate implementation of such policies of corporate responsibility?

Nationalism, it could be argued, is now the right thing to do, indeed the only way forward, in order to let Indonesians as a whole benefit from the sliver of resources that remain.

Asep is a university student and a member of the Indonesian Student's Association in Melbourne.