Indonesia’s Transformation and the Stability of Southeast Asia. By Angel Rabasa and Peter Chalk. Santa Monica, California / Arlington, Virginia: Rand Corporation, 2001. xx, 115 pp.; Maps, Bibliography. Reviewed by Ashton Robinson (South East Asia and Pacific Branch, Department of Defence, Australia) (review written as a private citizen).

Rabasa and Chalk canvass the challenges created by the enormous political change in Indonesia and explore the strategic consequences for South East Asia. This is a brave undertaking. The cathartic evolution of Indonesia’s political landscape shows every sign of going through several more stages yet. Always an introspective nation, Indonesia’s absorption with its own problems means it is likely to have little premeditated strategic impact on the region for some years.

But as the authors emphasise, Indonesia’s size means it cannot be ignored even if it were to become a hermit kingdom. It is the world’s largest Muslim nation at a time when the War on Terror increases the importance of Islamic points of reference in international security. Accordingly, Rabasa and Chalk argue that the consolidation of Indonesian democracy will have a critical bearing on stability throughout the Islamic world. This may overstate Indonesia’s influence in the Islamic world. Despite its size, Indonesia has tended to be an importer of Islamic ideas rather than a centre of Islamic learning or a driver Islamic norms internationally.

The authors describe Indonesia’s democracy as a fragile experiment. More than forty years of authoritarian rule under Suharto and the latter years of Sukarno mean that for many Indonesians the workings of democratic government are a continuous process of experimentation. Democracy is as much about free institutions as electoral processes. Suharto had a distrust of institutions as a trammel on his rule. The New Order was a period of economic growth accompanied by almost deliberate institutional decline. Suharto left the Parliament, judiciary and mass social organizations such as Chambers of Commerce and Trade Unions as husks. As Rabasa and Chalk assert, Parliament in Jakarta ‘…is now more powerful and legitimate than at any time since the 1950s’. Indeed it is. Decades of forced inactivity, however, have left many of its members inexperienced both in shaping effective legislative compromises or even in gauging or leading the mood of the electorate. A short term result is the risk of Parliament having power without effectiveness.

Rabasa and Chalk look at the impact on Indonesian unity of the convulsive change since 1998. The contrast with the concrete solidity of the Suharto years is striking indeed, so much so that it is easy to overlook the cohesive strengths of the Indonesian state. Rabasa and Chalk sees Jakarta’s ultimately unsuccessful experience with East Timor as ‘…the first major crack in Indonesia’s territorial integrity’. It is hardly that. East Timor remained an issue for Jakarta because it was a question of unresolved Portuguese decolonisation, not of the strength or weakness of the Indonesian state. East Timor’s ‘undecolonised’ status gave it standing with the UN quite unlike the situation in any Indonesian province. Indeed the East Timor experience makes it easy to overlook the achievements of Indonesian nationbuilding since independence; building one national language, a truly national armed forces and a national education system have all contributed to a Indonesian national identity.

So as Rabasa and Chalk point out, no separatist movement in Indonesia ­ apart from the special case of East Timor - has come close to success. Few secessionist movements in the world in recent times have been successful without external assistance. No external state desires the break-up of Indonesia and the absence of foreign state support for secessionism in Indonesia that has existed for the past fifty years is likely to continue. Rabasa and Chalk argue TNI recognize this and accordingly worry more about the weak separatist movement in Papua (formerly Irian Jaya) than the well armed rebels in Aceh. TNI’s logic is that Christian Papua has a better chance of appealing to the West than Muslim Aceh. Nevertheless, Rabasa and Chalk incline to the view that separatism will strengthen in Indonesia. The account the authors give of the communal fighting in Maluku is a sobering, detailed and valuable contribution to our understanding of this underreported and complex tragedy.

Rabasa and Chalk capture well the stark alternatives Indonesia faces as it rebuilds following Suharto. The book went to press as Wahid was about to fall from power. Its immediacy is not lost by the developments since. It is, however, more a book about Indonesia than about South East Asia. Despite its title, it posits stability in South East Asia only in terms of Indonesia as a driver. Indeed, the authors limited coverage of neighbouring views allows Australia’s Prime Minister John Howard to be misidentified as a Labor politician and his Labor predecessor, Keating, as a conservative. But this book remains a vigorous critique of Indonesia’s strategic significance and a useful commentary on the profound current change in one of the world’s largest nations.

(This review was uploaded to www.antarakita.net on September 26, 2003)