Suharto should not have been overthrown back in 1998. Indonesia was not ready for democracy, there was no leader of Suharto's calibre who was capable of taking over his mantle. Instead, we have four presidents in eight years, and Suharto's fall made way for venal and inferior-quality politicians capable only of riling up hatred and suspicions amongst Indonesians, while robbing state coffers for their own benefits without anybody strong or feared enough to stop their depradations.

Worse, Suharto's fall greatly weakened Indonesia's secular nationalist Pancasila ideology at the time of international rise of Islamic radicalism. Such ideological vacuum allowed nutcase foreign ideology like Salafi jihadism to take root amongst a few of the many ideologically confused Indonesian Muslims. If Suharto was still in power, it is guaranteed not a single bomb would explode in Indonesia, and 92 Australians would not have died in Bali.

Suharto's fall also gave space to primitive ethnic-chauvinism a la Hitler/Milosevic amongst Acehnese and some Papuans. Luckily Indonesian military is still strong and these ethnicities only made up a molecule of water in Indonesia's ocean of diverse ethnicities (750 in total), hence in a few years these primitive ethnic-separatism has been successfully neutralised.

I strongly suggest President SBY to assert stronger control of the country and curtail the excessive "freedom" aka anarchy that still engulfs our country. President Putin of Russia should be a good example. Otherwise, it will take years, even decades, for Indonesian economy to grow like it did under Suharto or for Indonesian politics to be as stable as it was under Suharto. Meanwhile, the rest of the world would've passed Indonesia by. Indonesia at this stage in history works worse under free-for-all "democrazy" and works best under authoritarian rule.

What Australians can do is support Indonesian economic recovery and participate in fighting Islamic extremists that had killed many of your citizens. And stop giving sympathy to fringe groups with no future such as primitive Papuan separatists. All you will achieve by this is exarcebating anti-Western hatred amongst Indonesians that would only benefit Islamic extremists.

"Proud to be Indonesian", you obviously know very little about your own country's history and economy. Indonesia's GDP per capita is already about double what it was in 1998 when Soeharto resigned - his country in a shambles. He might have achieved high rates of economic growth for a while, but Soeharto's legacy was to leave it with 13% negative growth, 75% annual inflation, rioting in the streets of Jakarta, ethnic bloodshed, weak civil institutions, capital flight, a successor president lacking in legitimacy, and no mechanism for the peaceful transfer of power. Soeharto effectively "froze" Indonesia's political development back in the 1970s and it is the governments since his "lengser" that have had to make up for this by developing workable democratic political, constitutional, economic and legal institutions in the space of a few short years - thanks to Soeharto's dictatorial neglect.

Some patriot who calls ethnic groups in his own country "primitive" and is so distrustful of his own people that he thinks they are better ruled over by a dictator again!

Rogindon

It is clear you are ignorant about Indonesia's history and economy. Indonesia's GDP shrinkage and hyperinflation in 1998 was caused by IMF's program of liquidating banks and forcing the govt to implement high interest rate and contractionary fiscal policy. The consequence is bank run and collapse of banking system, while high interest rate and austerity program killed economic growth and caused hyperinflation. Suharto's fatal error was to surrender to IMF threats, as all Asian countries which didn't accept the IMF recovered quicker than those who did. That Indonesia's economy managed to recover is testimony of Indonesia's resilience despite Suharto's fall and IMF mismanagement.

Face the fact, it is the power vacuum following Suharto's fall that led to anarchy, with opportunistic Milosevic-like politicians easily provoking Indonesians to hate each other, triggering ethnic bloodshed in Poso, Ambon, Sambas, Sampit, Aceh, and Papua. None of the tens of thousands of people who lost their lives in these disturbances would've died had Suharto stayed in power.

Under "democracy", no figure is strong/feared enough to control politicians who protect terrorists and promote intercine conflict. Abubakar Bashir managed to avoid long jail sentence thanks to protection from Islamic politicians. Suharto did a very great job keeping Islamists in their place, which is jail or in exile.

About primitiveness, there is no other way to describe ethnic-chauvinism of GAM or OPM, unless you are one of those who think of Hitler's Nazism as modernity. Now that these primitive separatists have been neutralised, Indonesia need to control rampant corruption amongst local and national politicians, and to put down Islamists and their terrorist cohorts who are intent on turning Indonesia into an Islamic country. This can only be done under at least a semi-authoritarian rule.

At the current stage, seeing how easy it was to trigger ethnic conflicts and terrorism, it is clear Indonesia is not yet at the historical stage for democracy. Like China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Russia, Indonesia is still a country that needs strong authoritarian rule to work properly. Even Europe took thousands of years to develop democracy, becoming fully democratic only in early 1990s.

rogindon,
I wouldn't be surprised if Proud to be Indonesian sees himself as the new Messiah Dictator that Indonesia needs for its salvation. He sees uneducated unnarmed tribal people as a threat to Indonesia; obviously a fixation of his own power hungry mind. Though university educated it resides in a mind obsessed with authorative control over simple people.

You are right in saying that many of the conflicts were caused by the power vacuum left in the wake of Soeharto's fall in the 1998-2001 period. Dictatorships have a habit of leaving power vacuums because they usually do not provide any mechanism for the peaceful transfer of power. There was an even worse power vacuum when the Dutch (and other colonialists in the region) left in the 1940s and then again when Sukarno fell in 1965-66.

Look at the transfer of power from Megawati to SBY in 2004 from one democrat to another. It was incredibly peaceful because it was done THROUGH INSTITUTIONS - not through the barrell of a gun. Eight years after Soeharto's fall, the power vacuum has now largely been filled and ethnic tensions subsided.

See how much more efficient democracy is and how much less bloodshed it causes! Indonesia's GDP is currently growing at 6% per annum under a democratic government whose legitimacy was obtained via the ballot box. Would you have preferred SBY to have taken power through a coup and the murder of civilian politicians? I don't think you give your own countrymen enough credit for what they have achieved.

Even most of the fundamentalist Islamic groups like Partai Keadilan Sejahtera are using the ballot box to voice their aspirations for Sharia law and they are being defeated through the ballot box and through the votes of the MPR. Isn't that better than using guns and prisons?

Finally, you say we need dictators to stop politicians from engaging in graft and forming alliances with terrorists, but what if it is the dictators themselves who are corrupt terrorists?

Papua Merdeka !

PTBI
I find myself by and large in persetujuan with your first post.. but I think you could have paid more attention to the dark side of the Soeharto Regime.. mainly his 'sons' economic activies and nepotism.

Most Aussies will not comprehend though the vast gulf of difference in understanding of power between our 2 countries. The main difference though is that our 'nepotism' is directed towards not so much 'family' but 'supporting groups'.. business, consultancies, advertising groups etc....

There is a positive side to nepotism, where a strong united 'family' structure can be a stabilizing influence, and also ensure things are 'done'. But sadly, human nature being what it is, and especially 2nd generationism.. who do not appreciate the privilage, take it for granted, and the family of the Sultan of Brunei is a classic example.

I have 'inside' sources to what goes on there, with my wife being a relative by marraige of the sultan, (some generations ago) and others of her people working as tutors for his children. The younger brother tends to live as a law unto himself, and spends like there is no tomorrow.

Your points about the opportunities for extreme Muslim groups are well taken. My concern is more for the minority Christian groups who often become the victim of such groups, such as in Ambon and Sulawesi etc. 10,000 Christian homes destroyed by Muslim fanatics.. more than destroyed by Hurrican Larry in Cairns. I know there was destruction on both sides, but the odds were fully against the Christians as fanatics came from many other places in Indo.

You were less emotional in this thread.. keep it up and more people will see value in what you post, even though they may disagree.

Moga2 Tuhan memberkati, terutamanya, kiranya Saudara membuka hati dan jiwamu kpd Yesus Kristos, Isa Almasih, Juruselamat manusia. Jadilah dilahirkan baru di dalam Dia yang mahakuasa dan maha kasih, -Penyayang, pendorong, yang sudah menjadi korban kerana segala dosaku dan dosamu.

@rogindon

It is not true that authoritarian governments are not capable of peaceful transfer of power. China, a communist dictatorship, possess a highly effective mechanism for leadership change. Malaysia and Singapore which are basically single-party states with impotent opposition, changed its leadership without consulting the people peacefully for decades. Even Japan is a single-party government with the system deliberately rigged to make it impossible for any opposition party to win elections.

What Indonesia need is a supra-national, all-powerful ideological institution to ensure the core uniting ideological values of the country remain unchanged. In Turkey, this organisation is the army which defends Turkish secular nationalism. In China, it is the communist party defending communist party rule. In Thailand, it is the army defending Buddhism and monarchy. In Malaysia, it is UMNO/BN defending Malay bumiputra supremacy. In Singapore, it is PAP defending Chinese supremacy.

Indonesia should no longer allow individual-based dictatorship like Sukarno and Suharto regimes since once that one individual became discredited, the whole system collapsed with him. Instead, Indonesia should copy Turkish system. We should establish an all-powerful national institution to ensure Indonesia's core values of Pancasila secular nationalism remain unchanged. This can be in the form of an all-powerful nationalist party (eg Golkar) backed by an ideologically-unified military. Governments may be changed through ballot box, but if any president or MPs diverged from Pancasila nationalist ideology, this institution has the right to replace these individuals and force them to "retirement". It should be made illegal for citizens to promote replacement of Pancasila with other ideologies, particularly Islamism.

In current system, while Islamic fundamentalist parties calling for sharia like PKS may be using ballot box, they backed and protected terrorists like JI and violent groups like FPI or MMI which commit violence against minorities and Islamic "heretics". One MP from PKS was even arrested in Manila airport trying to smuggle explosives, and he was released due to Indonesian government pressure! Such double-faced snake attitude should never be tolerated.

@philo&coyote:

Fanatical lunatics like yous are the reason Indonesians shed few tears for those Australians killed by terrorists.

@BOAZ_David:

I do not miss the "dark side" of Suharto's regime: his family's corrupt depradations and choking monopolistic control of Indonesian economy. I also have "inside" source on Brunei's absolute monarchy system since my uncle is the palace's resident piano player and is well-acquinted with the Bolkiah royal family. I am thus familiar with Prince Jefri's depradations and sultan's second wife's affair with an Indonesian actor.

That is why I am completely opposed to absolute monarchy system like Brunei, and I disagree with individual-based dictatorship which is what Suharto's New Order was between late 1980s up to his fall in 1998 (which was basically just like an absolute monarchy). Instead of such fragile system, Indonesia should implement an ideologically-based authoritarian government like China, Malaysia, Singapore, or Turkey. In Indonesian case the uniting ideology should be Indonesia's original Pancasila secular nationalism. Had Suharto not chose to transform his regime from a nationalist-based to a family-based system in the late 1980s, by all probabilities Suharto's fall would not have happened and the New Order would still rule Indonesia today.

About Christianity, you need not worry. There are over 35 million Christian Indonesians, much more than the human population in Australia or Malaysia. Although they were outnumbered, the Christians of Poso and Ambon defeated radical Islamists' attempt to "cleanse" them (Christian population proportion after the conflict is the same as before the conflict). Now, the government is strong, unlike the weak Habibie and Gus Dur governments that allowed the conflict to become so bad. No similar religious conflicts will be allowed to happen again. In any worst-case scenario, there are far too many Christians in Indonesia, no power in the world will ever be able to get rid of us.

Proud to be Indonesian,
You have just proved what I have always thought that you are a terrorist sympathiser and animalistic thug by this comment: "Indonesians shed few tears for those Australians killed by terrorists".

PAPUA MERDEKA !

"Proud to be Indonesian", I am proud of you because in your last post you are finally saying something reasonable, balanced and based on some fact. You are absolutely true in saying that the Indonesian Christians have every right to exist and practice their religion in any and every part of Indonesia that they choose. I lived in Manado for 4 months and I also saw first hand the destruction and ethnic leansing wrought by the Muslim terrorists in Ternate and Halmahera. The Christians did bad things too, but not as bad as the Muslims and by 2003, when I visited, Muslims were being welcomed back to the Christian-controlled regions like Tobelo and Jailolo. Not so in Muslim-controlled Ternate and Tidore.

However, I don't agree that an authoritarian state structure like Singapore or China is the way forward. These kinds of structures are being dismantled in countries like Mexico, Thailand, South Korea, Taiwan and Turkey. Muslims have to be introduced to democracy. The alternative is for Muslims to view terrorism as the only way forward for them. Guys like Abu Bakir Basyir were nurtured by the New Order regime system in which they were forced underground, exiled and imprisoned. The Saudis oppose al-Qaeda, but it was they who nurture al-Qaeda by their dictatorship in which alternate views are punishable by death. Why do you think JI rose so incredibly fast after the fall of Soeharto? It's firstly because they were nurtured by the authoritarian regimes of the region and secondly because some New Order elements used them to create instability when Soeharto was in danger of being tried and his family stripped of their assets.

Proud to be Indonesian, your country's occupation of West Papua is brutal and illegal, a neocolonialist exercise in Lebensraum and the theft of resouces from a country you have no right whatsoever to be in (other than by bullying force of arms). Papua Barat Merderka!

Soon the West will realise their signal error in letting Indonesia take over what should be a free nation, just like Timor. It's awfully late for the many thousands murdered, dispossessed and raped by a Hitlerian military and hordes of Muslim transmigrant land theaves.

@philo&coyote:

LOL calm down, boys. Breath-in, breath-out. Being emotional won't help your arguments. Remember, keeping grudge over past online pwning would only exhaust your minds and hasten your deaths.

@viking:

LOL, I think your description is very apt for Australia.

It is clear your "country" Australia is the only "nation" in Asia-Pacific region that originated from a completely illegal landgrab based on the brutal and racist "terra nullius" concept whereby the Aborigines who had lived in Australia for 50,000 years was in one stroke completely deprived of their right to their land (read Mabo Decision). Those Aborigines who disagree with their land being stolen, were brutally massacred by white soldiers and settlers. You white colonialist invaders have no right whatsoever over all those native Aborigine land you stole.

You Australian white colonialists are the worst kind of your criminal race. Not only you stole Aborginal land, you stole their children as well and gave them to sodomising "Christian" missionaries where many suffered sexual abuse and degrading torture, in an extremely racist attempt to annihilate Aboriginal culture. Even in New Zealand, the whites asked permission from native Maoris to settle in their lands (Treaty of Waitangi), albeit accompanied with military threats. No wonder, considering the criminal origins of the first Australian whites.

Meanwhile, Papua is a legally integral and undeniable part of Indonesia according to two UN resolutions (UN Resolution 2504 [1963] and UN Resolution XXIV [1970]) based on UN-sponsored referendum in 1969 as arranged by 1963 New York Agreement between Indonesia and Netherlands. Unlike Australia, Indonesia actually protected and nourished native Papuan culture. Meanwhile, due to Australian misrule, the neighboring country of PNG has had its native culture destroyed by uncontrolled distribution of drugs, alcohol, and guns. Luckily, Indonesian government is wise enough to ban these destructive materials from entering Papua.

Give back the Aborigines their lands you stole! All of you thieves should leave your ill-gotten land and go back to whatever desolate English or Irish hamlets you came from. It'll be too late for the many thousands murdered, dispossessed, and raped by your criminal ancestors!

Stooping to tu quoque, Indonesian? As everyone is aware, Australia's settlement occured in an era when much was different. Indonesia's neocolonial exploits, on the other hand, occured in living memory. Ah yes, the Papuans voted to join Indonesia, didn't they... with hand-picked (by Indonesia) voters. True democracy in action. So your much-vaunted "UN Resolutions" are based on lies.

Crime in Papua New Guinea? PNG has its rascals, West Papua has the Indonesian military! Gun deaths in West Papua? Look to the army and police- as the perpetrators.

Respect the rights of native Papuans? I'm sure Javanese Muslim transmigrants just love pig-eating, penis gourd-wearing Highlanders! Indonesian "development" in Papua consists of mosque building, selling off resources to fatten the military, and gross mistreatment of Papuans- especially pagans and Christians.

Indonesia will have a short life-span. I predict it will breakup within a decade or two, and PNG will then be a unified nation.

Little Javanese apostate ! Papua Merdeka !!

I think it would be a bit naive to expect any democracy installed in Indonesia will succeed in one go. Democracies are very unstable.

In 1919 almost all of Europe was democratic. In 1939 only northern Europe was still democratic. New states are rushed into the EU to enable their fledgling democracies to survive. We have seen this in Southern Europe in the late 70's and in more recently in eastern Europe.

Even at the core of the union France has had a kingdom, two empires and five republics since its famed revolution 200 years ago and Italy's Berlusconi is the first PM since Mussolini to serve a full term.

All the former colonies in Africa started indepence as democracies but few still are.

Indonesia is not very homogenous. It is a patch work of provinces with different languages and cultures that have been independent for 60 years, just over two generations. Indonesia emerged out of the former dutch colony but most of Indonesia had not been under dutch rule very long. Dutch history books have many black pages with interminable wars to pacify Acehnese rebels, Bali wasn't conquered till 1911 (four years before Galipoli) and the highlanders of Papua were not discovered until someone flew a plane over it in the 1930's.

The dutch used a divide and conquer technique where Christian Molukkans were used as police and military in the western regions. While the descendants of the policemen are still in Holland pining for an independent RSM, the rest of the province still suffers reprisals. Dutch rule was very brutal, the secret service was literally evacuated to Australia on the eve on independence. Sadly the Indonesian military has continued many of its practices.

In these times which favour self rule and small states I fear that unless someone can inject a large dose of pan-Indonesian nationalism Indonesia might well break up.

That would be a bad thing for its citizens as these things rarely happen without blood shed and would be bad for Australia too. The illegal fishermen are trivial compared to the potential flood of refugees.

This is quite an interesting set of posts.....

I'm wondering if some of you picked up on one tiny but significant phrase in PTBI's post directed at me which included the word ... "us" .see if u tweak to what I'm referring to.....

PTBI.. that was quite a balanced post actually. I think you hinted at a very important point, being the Pancisila.. as an ideological basis for a new Indonesia.

35 million Christians ? well nominal at least :)... I'm encouraged.
Please reflect on my last words to you in Indonesian/malay.. I truly hope that all those 35million will experience the living Christ in a daily on going relationship rather than a cultural experience.

Its good that you point out our own 'sins' re indigenous land, there is no way (whether it was a different era or not) that we can flee from inherited culpability there. The problem today is that we are also now victims of history, not the perpetrators, but living with the result of what they did.

To all of those among us 'judging' PTBI, be careful, we are not spotless ourselves.

An interesting program on ABC tonight (Monday 27th Mar)
it quotes Transparency International, http://www.transparency.org/, that Indonesia has one of the largest 'corruption' figures in the world.

@viking:

Who are you trying to fool? We know that Aborigines were not even considered Australian citizens until 1967, that your policy of stealing Aboriginal children from their parents continued until 1970s, and your racist White Australia Policy continued until 1978. Until now, most Australian whites continue viewing Aborigines as sub-humans and treating them with extremely racist contempt. Your PM Howard still refuses to apologise for all the barbaric treatment you whites meted out to Aborigines throughout the history of white "settlement" in Australia.

We Indonesians are superior to your backward racist mentality. We accomodate Papuans' tribal heritage by establishing MRP (Majelis Rakyat Papua) as a governmental body to define Papuan tribal laws and arbitrage on behalf of it. We accomodate demands for autonomy from West Irian Jaya people by partitioning the area into a separate province from Papua. In Papua itself, all gubernutorial candidates MUST BE NATIVE PAPUANS, which actually discriminates against 50-60% of the inhabitants of that province who are transmigrants. Recently, both West Irian Jaya and Papua provinces held direct gubernutorial elections which went very smoothly and recorded more than 90% voter turnout, indicating that overwhelming proportion of Papuans are happy on their political status.

Both these elections were won by native Papuans, the winner in West Irian Jaya province is Abraham Octavianus Ataruri, a retired brigadier-general in Indonesian army. While in Papua province, the winner is Barnabas Suebu, an agitator for integration with Indonesia during Dutch rule, governor of Irian Jaya under Suharto, and former Indonesian ambassador to Mexico.

BTW, Indonesia has been around for 60 years, we are capable of switching modes of government from emergency war government (1945-1949), Australia-like parliamentary democracy (1949-1959), Sukarno dictatorship (1959-1967), New Order dictatorship (1967-1998), and back to democracy (1998-now). We easily defeated countless Islamist, communist, separatist, and foreign-backed rebellions without any serious disruption to peace. So, Indonesia will be around for a very long time. Deal with it.

@coyote:

Actually I'm neither a Javanese nor an "apostate". Your blatant display of racism and religious intolerance just shows what kind of primitive Nazis the Papuan separatists and their sympathisers are.

@BOAZ_David:

Indeed Pancasila secular nationalism has been the ideology that brought Indonesia its independence in 1945, and has been the national ideology eversince both under rule of Sukarno and Suharto. What Indonesia needs to resist destructive Islamisation that has become "trendy" recently, is to strengthen this original Pancasila nationalism once more.

Australian Christians need not worry about us Indonesian Christians, as not only are we superior in numbers, we are also more serious about our religion than Australians. For instance, while in their lives Australians only go to church for baptisms, wedding, and funerals, most Indonesian Christians actually go to church every Sunday. Otherwise, Indonesian Christianity has a much older history and heritage than in Australia, with the first Indonesian Catholics converted in 1500s by Saint Francis Xavier at the same time Martin Luther started his Reformation. Many Indonesians become Christian missionaries, not only in Indonesia but elsewhere, even amongst Amazonian Indians in Brazil, the world's largest Catholic country.

@gusi:

There is no need to worry about "break-up" of Indonesia. Pan-Indonesian nationalism is very strong and face no threat. Ethnic-separatism in Indonesia had only ever influenced two ethnic-groups out of 750 different ethnic groups in Indonesia, and only became a problem following the fall of Suharto. However, these two cases of separatism has basically died.

Successful military offensive in 2003 combined with effects of tsunami forced the more troublesome Acehnese separatists to surrender in 2005. In Papua and West Irian Jaya provinces, the separatists never presented much of security threat, while majority of population in these two provinces are transmigrants. Majority of native Papuans are peace-loving and law-abiding Indonesian citizens who participate fully in Indonesian national life, from becoming Olympic silver-winning athletes to national artists/actors.

Thanks to all on this thread for a genuinely educational experience.

In many other threads, the extremism that (inevitably) surfaces tends to hide, rather than illuminate the argument. Here, for some reason, it is different – a little surprisingly, given the relatively gentle, even wishy-washy, article.

For a start, underneath the obvious emotion, PTBI is delivering an object lesson in the meaning behind Robbie Burns' immortal lines:

“Oh wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursel's as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
And foolish notion”

The mirror he holds up does not make us look particularly attractive. For a start, his comments on our history are painfully accurate, as demonstrated by the indignant, but unconvincing rebuttals.

PTBI: >>Australia is the only "nation" in Asia-Pacific region that originated from a completely illegal landgrab based on the brutal and racist "terra nullius" concept...<<

Viking: >>Stooping to tu quoque, Indonesian? As everyone is aware, Australia's settlement occurred in an era when much was different.<<

PTBI: >>Who are you trying to fool? We know that Aborigines were not even considered Australian citizens until 1967, that your policy of stealing Aboriginal children from their parents continued until 1970s, and your racist White Australia Policy continued until 1978<<.... etc etc.

You have to admit, he has a point.

Out of all the heat come a couple of bits of semi-detached observation - gusi, thanks for this:

>>I think it would be a bit naive to expect any democracy installed in Indonesia will succeed in one go. Democracies are very unstable.<<

Democracy, as practised in various parts of the world in the twentyfirst century, is not necessarily the universal panacea that some people (hello GW?) would have us believe.

However distasteful it might appear to our over-refined political palate, the autocratic Lee Kwan Yew dragged Singapore into the twentieth century with only the briefest nod towards consensus.

Who amongst us can state categorically that a similarly unifying figure in Indonesia would not be the best prescription at this point in their history?

Keep going, I'm learning heaps.

Hear! Hear! Pericles!

And I hear very well indeed.

Well, Pericles, you might will find Slave to Indonesia's posts informative... I note that he glossed over the million plus deaths of Chinese (allegedly "Communist") as well as hundreds of thousands of Timorese and Papuans, in my lifetime, while lambasting us as Australians for the deaths of Aboriginals around 200 years ago. I would note that as a nation, we have come to terms with our treatment of Aboriginals, while Indonesia continues with ethnic cleansing to this very day.

I find it fascinating, too, that a Christian Indonesian can gloss over the near daily deaths of fellow Christians (the usual heroic stuff- staunch male defender of the Islamic faith attacks schoolgirl with machete, or mob burns down church etc). Unbelievable. Not only a propagandist for a corrupt and brutal nation, but a dhimmi to boot!

PTBI I'm not sure that Indo 'easily' defeated the various insurgencies attempted coups and extremist elements.. If I'm not wrong, when Soeharto took over, he did so in the wake of a significant number of Generals who were murdered by the Communists in an attempt to gain power. Hence the reaction against anyone with a slight tinge of red in their political heritage as Coyote mentions....I see the reaction as not only understandable, but neccessary, to stamp out this attempt to turn Indonesia into a godless marxist wasteland. Sadly, Im sure many innocents were the victim of grudge paybacks during that time.

Superior ? if you mean 'politically' so, re treatment of indigneous people.. well you may have a point.

Just like we need to learn more about Indonesia, you also need to learn a bit more about our own background. The 'stolen' children was not as straight forward as you declare. The taking of Aboriginal land was exactly as u say.

You yourself underline one of the primary reasons for the insurgency in West Papua "Transmigrants make up 50-60% of the population" if this had not happened, I doubt there would be many complaints. This is the very issue many of us are up in verbal arms about here. The influx of people of foreign culture can be devastating for the existing culture. There is no escaping this.

I also heard one prominent Chinese businessman claim "Up till the trouble, (mass attacks on chinese a few years ago) we controlled 90% of the economy, another few years and we would have had the LOT"

The more transmigrants, (I'm sure mostly Muslim) the more justification for 'serving their needs' with elaborate mosques and if Malaysia is anything to go by, the presence of just 1 or 2 muslims in an indigenous village is enough justification for the government to place a Surau (mini Mosque) in that village, seeking to change their identity. Then the appointment and employment of village leaders who accomodate such things... and so it goes on.

Pericles, well said. You will indeed learn much young Jedi :)

Viking, your accusation "lambasting us as Australians for the deaths of Aboriginals around 200 years ago", is philosophically fascinating.

Glossing over the fact that the "lambasting" was in response to your somewhat incontinent challenge that refers to "many thousands murdered, dispossessed and raped by a Hitlerian military", your excuse appears to be simply a matter of timing.

The early settlers' treatment of the native population was long ago, and the culpability diminishes over time... is that your argument?

So tell me, at what point does murder become simply history, and allows us to shrug our shoulders and "move on", as the psychologists advise us to do? Is it after i) one day ii) one week iii) one millennium?

Be prepared to justify your answer with examples. In fact, you can provide the exact date along with your justification, as in: "the Scots 'moved on' from the 1745 massacre at Culloden on 30th September 1904, because...", or "the Irish Catholics 'moved on' from the 1690 Battle of the Boyne on 12th January 2006 because..."

Throwing stones from within a vitreous structure is always fraught.

Boaz, you have a similarly cock-eyed view of history, but you are infinitely more subtle in presentating it.

>>The 'stolen' children was not as straight forward as you declare.<<

The hint here is that PTBI is being a little too sweeping in his claim that this is a shameful piece of Australian history. But you don't offer anything by way of mitigation, just a patronizing pat on the head... "you'll understand when you 'learn a bit more about our own background'"

Removing children from their parents in a systematic way is an appalling concept. The nearest parallel - and I know I am in the shadow of Godwin here - is the seduction of young children into the Nazi party in the '30s, where they were encouraged to betray their parents' ideology.

There is value in learning from history. There is no value in using it in the fashion of "my history can beat your history, so there".

Dear Pericles
Not cock eyed, but I don't think here is the place for a dissertation on the stolen generation saga. But.. you asked for mitigation, so here is a bit. Most of those taken were of mixed racial heritage, and this is the telling point. Your comment suggested that it was simply a wholesale removal of full blood aboriginals. It was considered that they would benefit from growing up in the 'white' side of their genetic make up... That consideration may in some cases have been misguided, in others not so, thats the problem. Policy seldom looks at 'case by case' it is aimed at the greater good for the greater number. Hindsight is always 20/20 as u know.

I'll resist the temptation to explore the injustice done to the Irish by Anglican Land grabbers from England :) or.. is that comment also also 'cock-eyed' ?

PTBI I hope you continue to point out our abysmal lack of progress in many areas. I'm sick of feeling '3rd world' at Tullamarine each time I return from 1st world Malaysia :) my my..

KLIA=> Superb State of the Art Airport + Fast train to city. au$10

TULLA => Crappy run down buildings, PAY for a damn trolly, overpriced car parks, noisy, smelly fumey 'courtesy' shuttles costing $50 to Melbourne. Or.. Taxi's... etc. not to mention the surreal chunks of stick protruding out of the ground on wierd angles as u approach Melb.. enough to put you off the rest ...bleerrgghh...

So Pericles, because we, as Australians, have a somewhat tarnished record of past relations with Aboriginals in our portfolio (bearing in mind that most Aboriginal deaths occured through disease, not warfare) we shouldn't comment on a real and present ethnic cleansing approaching gencide, right on our doorstep? What breathtaking (il)logic! Feel no need to comment on the millions murdered in Indonesia in quite recent times?

I really liked the observation Pericles made with looking at Australia through another's eyes.

I didn't interpret that to mean that Indonesia was 'better than' Australia. No country has much in the way of claim to moral superiority over another (just like people!).

I find PtbI's posts very arrogant and rude - but not without truth. Problem is some posters simply treat this forum as a pissing competition rather than engage in debate.

Indonesia certainly has problems - much more so than Australia given the size of its population. A few observations spring to mind - Pol Pot, Tamil Tigers, muslim persecution of christians and so on. However, it is also trying very hard to become a fair democracy - something Australia is losing sight of with the current Fed government.

There is nothing like having an outsider's perspective of our wide brown land.

I do find PtbI thoughts on Papauans offensive and derogatory - just like I find many other posters' thoughts on non-christians offensive and derogatory.

Maybe its time to have a good hard look at ourselves before judging Indonesia.

I could say 'let he who is innocent cast the first stone' - but what would be the point?

@viking:

Now your posts are degrading into emotional hateful bile that just underline your irrational hatred of Indonesia.

The truth is, the alleged "genocides" of Papuans and Timorese simply never happened. Those are separatist propaganda that have been allowed to spread freely without any challenge by Indonesian govt, so many foreigners mistake these allegations for the "truth".

The fact is, under Indonesian rule, the population of East Timor actually doubled from under 600,000 (Portuguese census) in 1974 to more than one million in 2000 (UN census). The same case with Papua, where native Papuan population nearly multiplied by five since integration with Indonesia in 1963. It is clear from these figures that not only no "genocide" could have possibly ever happened, but Indonesian health care greatly lowered infant mortality and boost both East Timorese and Papuan populations.

As for your stupid accusation of me "covering-up" attacks on Christians, if you bother to read my posts, you'll actually find that I advocated authoritarian rule in Indonesia in order to stop such kinds of attacks from happening, since the post-Suharto "freedom" has allowed violent religious fanatics to set-up shop in Indonesia.

@BOAZ-David:

I think you should moderate your hatred of Muslims. Did not Jesus teach love and tolerance instead of suspicion and hatred? As I said, by law, all Papuan governors and district chiefs MUST be native Papuans, discriminating against non-native Papuans. All Indonesian military and police chiefs in Papua are always Christians. Native culture is more preserved and protected in West Papua compared with PNG, where it has been destroyed by uncontrolled entry of drugs, alcohol, and guns. Not only that, it is Indonesian missionaries who are most responsible for spread of Christianity in Papua. For instance, the Catholic archbishops of Manokwari and Merauke are both Javanese Catholics.

If there are Muslim transmigrants to Papua such as Buginese, Javanese, or Makassarese, they never seek to convert people to Islam, but they were there to relieve overpopulation problems in their home provinces. Not only did these Muslim transmigrants successfully turn Papua into a rice-bowl area for Eastern Indonesia, they are also at the crux of local economic development, giving employment to many native Papuans.

Papuan separatism has got nothing to do with religion, but with some Papuans' primitive inability to accept people from different race/ethnicity living amongst them. Just like how the Nazis were unwilling to accept Jews living amongst Germans. If you think we Indonesian Christians sympathise with these primitive Papuan separatists, you are greatly mistaken, as we Indonesian Christians are extremely loyal to Indonesia and its founding ideology of Pancasila, where no one religion is put above others.

Indeed the 1965-66 anti-communist purge was done to defeat an attempt by Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) to turn Indonesian into a godless communist state. The ferocity of this "counter-revolution" is caused by strong memories of a previous abortive communist rebellion, the 1948 Madiun "Soviet Republic" rebellion, when the PKI murdered many nationalist soldiers and Islamic clerics while we were still fighting the war of independence.

A common misconception is that the 1965 violence was targetted at ethnic-Chinese community, while the fact is nearly all the victims of this counter-revolution were native Indonesians, since PKI almost exclusively consisted of native Indonesians.

Thanks again Viking for underlining my point - you have a happy knack of saying exactly what I expect you to say.

>>So Pericles, because we, as Australians, have a somewhat tarnished record of past relations with Aboriginals in our portfolio ...we shouldn't comment?<<

Of course we should comment. And observe. And form opinions. And make those opinions known.

What we cannot do is lecture other countries from a position of moral rectitude.

Further, none of us has the full picture. Heck, we don't even have the full picture on what we do in this country on a daily basis.

Fact is, we receive our information from sources that might not be entirely unbiased. Or from sources that might not be too careful how they string those facts together (I'm thinking Channel Nine News here), and instead prefer to go for the simple sound-bite over detailed analysis. Or from random observations that pander to our particular prejudices.

So stop with the hectoring, and start with the listening.

Boaz, this is confusing:

>>I'll resist the temptation to explore the injustice done to the Irish by Anglican Land grabbers from England :) or.. is that comment also also 'cock-eyed' ?<<

Are you suggesting that I have at some stage defended these folk?