Book Review: Archipelago - A Journey Across Indonesia, by Ian Burnet as reviewed by Ron Witton

Ian Burnet, Archipelago: A Journey Across Indonesia, Rosenberg Publishing, 2015; 184 pp; illustrated; maps; rrp $39.99

This beautifully illustrated and informative book takes the reader on a journey both through the landscape of Indonesia and also back through Indonesia’s past. It weaves a spellbinding experience that will take many of us through memories of past trips many of us have taken and will also entice us to explore parts of Indonesia where we have not yet ventured.

Ian Burnet, a geologist by trade, first came to Indonesia to work in 1968 and has maintained a life-long association with the country. The book chronicles his recent fulfilment of a life-long ambition to cross the archipelago and to tell its (hi)story. His long-term interest in eastern Indonesia resulted in his 2011 book, Spice Islands, and is the background to the boat trips he organises to Indonesia’s eastern islands (www.ianburnetbooks.com).

It was of course the spices found in Indonesia’s eastern islands that were the magnet that for over a thousand years drew the world’s attention to the archipelago. Spices, were more valuable by weight than silver or gold, and brought Indian, Chinese, and later Portuguese, English and Dutch traders to seek their fortune through pillage and trade. In so doing they brought to Indonesia the world’s cultures and religions (Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Christianity) to Indonesia where they transformed Indonesia into its current cultural and religious mosaic. 

This is the tale that Ian skilfully tells. He begins his journey in the Malacca Strait, that important waterway that linked India to China . He then travels across Java where the Indianized historical feudal kingdom’s arose and created the wonderful temples of Borobudur and Prambanan, only later to succumb to Islamic trade and then European colonisation. He then crosses to Bali where Hinduism held out against Islam before eventually also being colonised by the Dutch.

His trip then takes him through Indonesia’s Nusa Tenggara islands with the fabulous komodo lizards and neglected cultural enclaves, the home of fabulous woven ikat. His journey ends in East Timor which had a similar history to Indonesia in terms of long European colonisation that was only brought to an end by revolutionary struggle, a story he relates in compassionate detail.

His journey is told through personal anecdotes that link directly to historical observations and insight, accompanied on virtually every page by often stunning photos taken by him en route.

This is a book that will delight, entice and inform both newcomers to Indonesia and old hands alike.

Ron Witton

Austinmer, NSW

rwitton@uow.edu.au

Ron was an Honorary Principal Fellow in the Faculty of Law at the University of Wollongong , NSW, Australia

Not a moment too soon: New Colombo Plan put to use in Indonesia for in-country study in Indonesia

The Australian Consortium for ‘In-Country’ Indonesian Studies (ACICIS) is one of the first organisations to test the New Columbo Plan, receiving $284,000 in funding for Australian university students to study in Indonesia.

And it could not have come sooner, after a PricewaterhouseCoopers report 'Passing Us By' revealed that Australia has not invested enough in trade relationships with the world's fastest growing region, especially in the ASEAN.

The New Columbo Plan aims to encourage university students to study in Asia and to develop closer ties and links as a result of cross-cultural experiences.

Hopefully such experiences will create a future involvement in and connection to Asian countries for both cultural and trade related purposes.


The Federal Government's New Columbo Plan is being piloted in four Indo-Pacific countries - Indonesia, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade oversees the program that offers scholarships and mobility to Australian students to live, work and study in Asia.


The New Colombo Plan has a budget of $100 million to spend over five years on scholarships and in-country study support for semester, short course, internship and mentorship options.

Knowing the importance of investing in Asia-literate future leaders, three businesses within the private sector have recently partnered with the Australian Government to deliver training to support students taking up the mobility arm of the program. 

ACICIS, an organisation that facilitates in-country study in Indonesia, will use its funding to make up to seventy scholarships available for students from eleven Australian consortium member universities for study in Indonesia.

Over twenty of those scholarships will be earmarked for students participating in the Jakarta Business Professional Practicum.

The funding will also enable ACICIS to develop a new semester program in Agriculture, Food Science and Resource Management. 

ACICIS’ Consortium Director, Professor David Hill said that with the projected dramatic growth in the Indonesian economy over the next two decades, it is inevitable that Australian businesses in all sectors of the economy will need to understand and operate effectively in Indonesia and the Southeast Asian region.

"Any student graduating from a business degree program in Australia will benefit from a knowledge of the business environment in Indonesia," Professor Hill said.

According to ACICIS, the Jakarta Business Professional Practicum will be modeled closely on ACICIS’ highly successful, existing practicum programs in Development Studies and Journalism.

Students will undertake a two-week language course at Atma Jaya University in Jakarta, followed by a four-week internship placement at a Jakarta-based business organisation.

Placements will include small and medium enterprises, government departments, businesses in the banking and finance sector and the Indonesian stock exchange.

According to ACICIS, networks developed over the course of the placement will sow the seeds of increased engagement between Australian and Indonesian businesses.


The New Columbo Plan is not just vital to people to people relations but for Australia to take advantage of the opportunities to do business with its closest Asian neighbour, slated to become the world's seventh largest economy by 2030.

'Passing Us By' provides a worrying indictment of the current scale of investment and engagement - paltry in comparison with our investment in other countries with smaller populations and economies.

According to the report, last year, just 5.7 per cent of Australia’s foreign direct investment went into ASEAN countries. 

"By contrast, Australia invested more in New Zealand, a country with less than four and a half million people and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth of 2.5 per cent," the report stated.

"The biggest issues seem to have at their core, problems in relation to culture, our willingness to deal with change and our ability to manage and operate in an Asian

environment. 

"Putting it bluntly, Australian business has operated in a relatively sheltered, comfortable competitive environment. And we have become complacent."

The report makes it clear that opportunities to have a solid presence in Indonesia could slip through Australia's hands if the business community is not prepared to invest in getting business and staff on the ground in Indonesia.

The New Columbo Plan is a great step in the right direction to prepare a generation of bright and talented Australians to go forth and connect Australia to Indonesia's, indeed Asia's, rise and rise.

Lauren Gumbs is Blog Editor at Indonesia Today and Director of Social Media at the Indonesia Institute.

Living dangerously with deforestation

By Lauren Gumbs

The excellent documentary series Years of Living Dangerously, just premiered on Australian television.

It could not have come sooner as Indonesian media again reported planes flying in and out of Sumatera are being grounded or forced to turn back due to a lack of visibility from forest fire smoke.

This happens frequently and smoke haze is a major problem in Indonesian communities, particularly around Riau.

Crippling air pollution is a result of the devastation of Indonesia’s forests, captured in full horror on Years of Living Dangerously.

The series demonstrates an intricate web of wide reaching climate change effects, now a globally visible phenomenon caused by human activities that have created a build-up of carbon in the atmosphere.

Nowhere in the series was human-led activity more terrifying than in Indonesia, where corruption, political apathy and major corporations work in gut wrenching unison to decimate Indonesia’s forests, releasing unprecedented amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and contributing to a cycle of warming that will soon be out of our control.

The rate at which Indonesia’s forests are decreasing, and the amount of smoke produced has made the country the third largest producer of carbon emissions after the US and China.

According to ClimateAdvisors.org, “About two-thirds come from the destruction of carbon rich rainforests and peat lands, mostly for expansion of agricultural commodities such as palm oil, timber plantations or mining operations (including the doubly damaging ‘rainforest coal’).”

Thousands of hectares of pristine natural forest and rainforest, including protected national parks, are cleared by big companies, some of whom are accused of forcibly evicting indigenous locals and who raze the land with impunity to create smoke hazes so dense that neighbouring countries, Singapore and Malaysia are also afflicted.

With patronage and clientelism part and parcel of the nature of Indonesian corruption, especially after deregulation (that produced enhanced opportunities for clients to shop around for patrons), environmental activists have faced brick walls when it comes to protecting the forests.

Not only are hundreds of years old trees being cut down, but they, and the peat land they sit on, are set alight releasing waves of noxious smoke across villages and into other countries, smouldering irrepressibly for months.

To the unacquainted, peat is the first stage of turning plant matter into coal, a rich soil made up of decomposed vegetation – thousands of years’ worth of dead trees – and a fossil fuel that is being burnt as a by-product of quick land clearing.

Former President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) initiated promising reforms that acknowledge the massive problem facing the country and he instigated several REDD (Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) based initiatives. 

In 2009 Indonesia pledged to cut emissions 26 percent by 2020 from business as usual emissions, and with international help, 41 percent.

In 2011 Indonesia put a two year moratorium on new licenses for forest clearing in primary natural forests and peat lands, and while it is filled with exemptions that neutralise its impact, it does indicate a paradigm shift from previous apathy and denial.

This was extended for another two years in 2013.

However, due to weak co-ordination between ministries and local governments, the government cannot be sure of the extent of concessions given out for land clearing and where they overlap. 

This is where ‘One Map’ and the Global Forest Watch (GFW) tools come into play, data portals that new President Joko Widodo has said he will utilise for better transparency and insight into land use. 

These data portals allow users to map out the boundaries of concessions and deforestation.

They provide satellite imagery, open data and crowdsourcing so users can monitor forests and track deforestation in real time.

Different ministries work together to provide information in One Map that covers a broad range of land uses.

Forests News said Data and accurate information on events such as wildfires and the amount of carbon emissions they produce, for example, is critical for countries like Indonesia to meet its emissions-reduction targets.

“Data is just one piece of the puzzle… defined concession boundaries are of equal importance in ensuring accountability for illegal logging.”

Then there are SBY’s special reform and anti-corruption units, specifically formed for forest preservation and headed by a minister of climate and forest affairs, able to review existing concessions and fine companies up to $9 million.

Civil society has also made headway and Indigenous rights activists AMAN won a landmark case in 2013 whereby the Constitutional Court granted indigenous peoples the right to land areas.

Civil society groups are now involved in emissions reductions and policy formation through the REDD Task Force.

Companies in the private sector are now starting to get on board and are becoming active supporters of sustainably sourced forest products, however links to illegally farmed land, human rights abuses and environmental degradation are still apparent in the relationships of many big companies and their suppliers.

President Jokowi is ideologically well positioned to enact the sort of reforms that are needed, but with a minority in the house, his political will is going to be tested by opponents who have power and patronage investments to lose.

In addition, the new Regional Election Bill abolishes direct elections of local and regional heads; a stick for accountable representation that means Jokowi’s policies could be blocked by regional leaders.

It also means less opportunities for reform minded politicians like Jokowi to enter politics at the local level and expose corruption in the resources sector.

Jokowi despite the touch challenges he faces, is more inclined than any other president to change the sociology of deforestation in Indonesia and he has declared his commitment to protect rainforest and peatland.

In his 42 page campaign platform Jokowi not only addressed corruption and illegal fishing, mining and logging, but also highlighted the effect of environmental damage on the economy and said Indonesia has pursued economic growth too aggressively and not paid attention to the environment.

Jokowi has agreed to continue the One Map initiative and may extend the forest moratorium - he has stated he wants to restore 2 million hectares of degraded forests each year and conserve and protect the remaining 20 million hectares of forests.

With a keen awareness of the severity of environmental issues in his country, Jokowi will be doing Indonesia a great service by continuing with the REDD targets and by broadening SBY’s programs with his own, unifying ministry regulations and tackling crimes related to deforestation by giving the task force greater authority and power to catch and prosecute such crimes.

The next time a film crew from Years of Living Dangerously interviews Indonesia’s Forestry Minister, instead of a shamefully laissez faire Zilkifli Hasan, full of excuses, we want to see a forest champion who is working hard and acutely aware of the interconnectedness between climate change, corruption and deforestation.

Lauren Gumbs is Director of Social Media at the Indonesia Institute and Editor of Indonesia Today.

Parting the fuel divide

By Lauren Gumbs

Indonesia is going to save a massive A$9 billion in 2015, by increasing diesel and gasoline prices RP 2,000 per litre (18c).

That’s $9 billion that can be allocated to poverty alleviation, health and infrastructure out of around $22 billion that is spent on the subsidy each year.

It keeps petrol at half the market price, RP6,500 per litre (66c), and other types of fuel similarly low.

To an Australian who pays around $1.50 a litre, a fuel subsidy is a fiscal profligacy that could not be justified as it reduces the cost of living for the wealthy and middle class at the expense of the poor who are left without adequate spending on things like health and education.

While Australia has its share of dubious tax breaks and schemes that favour high income earners, it would be unimaginable to provide concessions for private vehicle owners, encouraging more cars on the road and perpetuating import and fossil fuel dependency.

Indonesia is actually an importer, not a producer, and the expense of subsidising fuel has left the country with an account deficit for the past two and a half years.

Many Indonesians are heavily invested in cheap fuel and fear not just inflation of the cost of living, but corruption; savings they might never see translated into economic outcomes.

Fuel subsidy is a popular program for obvious reasons – using a vehicle is cheap, using a generator is cheap, doing business is cheap - and this does trickle down to the cost of living, but it is also an unsustainable program that disproportionately benefits the well off.

The price of subsidised fuel is not a ‘true’ price, it distorts the cost of resources and contributes to over consumption without actually adding value to the economy.

Fuel subsidy, like electricity subsidies, is a luxury concession and far outweighs spending on health, education, defence, social security or the environment.

Even in 2011 it was reported that in Indonesia the top 40 percent of income earners make up 70% of gasoline consumption and in countries with fuel subsidies, on average, the top income earners consume six times as much fuel as the bottom quintile.

In addition, the top five percent of households consume 82 litres of subsidised gasoline per month, whereas the bottom five percent consume only 1.7 litres.

The World Bank reported that the top 50 percent urban rich represent 84 percent of consumption. The bottom 10 percent consume less than one percent.

Jokowi inherited a budget from his predecessor but has since acted on an election pledge to reduce the fuel subsidy, allocating RP443 trillion (AUD $41.8 billion) for 2015-2019. 

He did not need parliamentary approval this year but he will need the legislature to sign off on the budget next year, which dominated by his opposition, will pose a challenge. 

Jokowi was unable to convince former President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) to reduce the amount before he left office to make room for Jokowi’s reform programs.

It was unlikely SBY would acquiesce his last budget to enable Jokowi’s reforms and shoulder the blame for price hikes, especially as he had been down that road before.

Over the past five years SBY spent RP 713 trillion (UD $67.3 billion) on fuel subsidies alone.

Yudhoyono increased fuel costs last year (some may remember lines extending kilometres from the local Pertamina as people rushed to fill up cars and containers after gasoline went from RP4,500 to RP6,500).

Increased fuel prices are predictably accompanied by fierce protests because many Indonesians believe the subsidies will not be properly re-distributed.

Fuel subsidies are a direct discount that can be felt in the wallet and benefits like infrastructure and poverty alleviation programs could be years into the future - if they ever materialise at all.

In a country facing endemic corruption in resource and service delivery, losing such a concrete concession program seems an unconscionable risk to many. 

The reality is that the ones who benefit the most from the subsidy are also those who can afford to absorb an increase, but because fuel subsidies look so much like a benefit, most people believe they are being short-changed. 

Students and workers have been particularly riled at the impost and staged protests around the country when Yudhoyono introduced cuts in his final term. They are vocal once again as President Jokowi introduces the new price increases. 

Yet such a move so early in the game could make him deeply unpopular and really create a frenzy – IMF mandated fuel subsidy cuts were part of Suharto’s final undoing, resulting in riots that eventually overthrew him.

Jokowi however, has stuck to a clear platform to address poverty and overhaul the economy and he is determined to phase out fuel subsidies across his four year term. 

He said he would tackle poverty, he said he would upgrade infrastructure, he said he would improve the economy and he has logically gone after the most obvious example of misplaced funds that will free up the budget to implement real, nation changing reform programs.

Jokowi now faces stiff resistance from those who have the most to lose from a redistribution of luxury concessions but also from those who believe it is cheap fuel that keeps the cost of living down.

The hard part is getting people to understand that fuel subsidies are not normal and are contributing to the wealth divide that drives the rich/poor polarity.

An increase in the price of fuel will have immediate effects, it will push the price of food and other commodities up, but this will level out as funds are redistributed. 

After all fuel subsidies made up 55 percent of total subsidies in 2011, a mind boggling amount that should be spent on pulling Indonesians out of poverty, and savings from cuts can be used to stall inflation in the aftermath of a fuel increase when there is some upheaval while the market settles.

But is Jokowi’s plan any different from Yudhoyono’s and will he have success in eroding fuel subsidy dependence? 

SBY was hesitant to take the plunge but in 2013 lawmakers voted in favour of a revised budget and, amid violent protests, fuel increased 33 percent.

SBY set aside $900 million for cash hand-outs to poor families but Jokowi said he will not do this because the money is spent frivolously on things like phones and phone credit rather than saved.

Instead he wants to encourage people to bank their money, so he will make funds available for withdrawal from banks using a welfare card.

Jokowi will use the $9 billion in savings to support farmers, fisherman and workers and to build roads and establish basic infrastructure like irrigation.

Not only will programs like this assist productivity, it will make transportation and doing business in Indonesia much more efficient – and society far more fair.

Spending money on programs that improve people’s quality of life and ability to become productive will allow for greater social mobility, a less prominent wealth divide and ultimately a stronger economy.

If Jokowi is to achieve a market based rate within four years, he will need to reduce dependency gradually, during low inflation periods, while at the same time making sure savings are distributed to transparent reform programs with tangible benefits.

If the Indonesian people can see what they are getting and where the money is going, Jokowi can rebuild public trust and administer a budget that adds value not just to the economy but to people’s lives.

Lauren Gumbs is a postgraduate Human Rights student and Director of Social Media at the Indonesia Institute.