Look into Indonesia, not over it, Jokowi's First Year and Two-Track Diplomacy

Selamat datang ke blog Indonesia Institute!

Thanks for visiting and checking out the latest news.

Our news and updates will now also be popping up on Twitter and Facebook - 'Tweet, tweet!' We'd love you to follow us there too!  If there's something that you think we should know about you can use these platforms to get in touch with us also.

We'd like to take this opportunity to formally welcome Pak Aryo, the new Western Australian general manager with our sponsor Garuda Airlines Indonesia.  The Indonesia Institute has enjoyed a strong and extended relationship with Garuda Airlines and are delighted to welcome Pak Aryo to his new position.

To highlight couple of events...

The Ambassadors' Dialogue with I Gede Ngurah Swajaya, Chairman of the Indonesian Economic Diplomacy Task Force on the 29th of July in partnership with the Perth USAsia Centre and the AIBC WA was a great success.  Great to see so many of our members there!  We'll be posting a recording of the lecture soon for those of you who were unable to make it. Thanks to the Perth USAsia Centre for making this available.  Stay tuned!

The AIBC WA is hosting a breakfast with Pak Amien Sunaryadi, Chairman of the Special Task Force for Upstream Oil and Gas Business Activities Indonesia on 20th of August.  All are welcome to attend.  Members of the Indonesia Institute have been offered the same discount rate as AIBC members for this event, if you are interested in attending this event you can register here.

With the Australia-Indonesia relationship arguably 'returning to normal' and we start to look at Jokowi's first year as Indonesia's president, many commentators and diplomats are very frank about the state of affairs in the political arena and call on business-to-business and people-to-people to establish and maintain good relationships with our neighbours.

For those relationships we need to look no further than our human spirit and the commonalities between Australians and Indonesians.

We hope that you enjoy our collection of articles below.

Sampai jumpa

Ed.



Java drama: Favours and Foreign Affairs: Joko Widodo's first year as Indonesian President, by Hamish McDonald (July 2015)

Look into Indonesia, not over it, by Matt Linnegar (July 2015) Discussing the human impact of decisions made around the cattle trade and the welcoming experience given by Indonesians to leaders of the Australian Rural Leadership Program.

The Gold Farmers, by Nancy Lee Peluso (July 2015) Heart-capturing photo essay and write up about the perils and opportunity of small-scale illegal mining in West Kalimantan.

Injustice to Indonesia on the radar for Australian Lawyers Alliance, by Stephanie Garber (July 2015) “It's been our view that the Indonesian fisherman, who are hard-working peasant businessmen, have had their boats taken and destroyed when there wasn't any lawful reason to do it.”

A Shot of Reality, by Duncan Graham (July 2015) 

Australia-Indonesia Partnership lacks 'genuine resilience', by Peter Varghese (August 2015)

Australia-Indonesia relationship is back to 'normal', meaning fragile as ever, by Colin Brown (August 2015)

Inept officials, database slow efforts to curb water crisis, by Syamsul Huda M. Suhari, Ganug Nugroho Adi and Suherdjoko (August 2015).  Government support not being received by farmers impacted by the prolonged dry season in Indonesia including in our sister-state of East Java.

The need for 'track two' diplomacy in Australia-Indonesia relations, by Kyle Springer (July 2015)