The Foreign Service Journal, October 2004

I NDONESIANS WANT A CHANGE IN U.S. FOREIGN POLICY BECAUSE THEY BELIEVE THIS CHANGE WILL REVERBERATE IN DOMESTIC I NDONESIAN POLITICS . B Y D INI D JALAL F O C U S O N T H E 2 0 0 4 E L E C T I O N S decade ago, as a student in London, I would often meet Indonesians who would ask me why I had not chosen to study in the U.S. The pro- American sentiment followed me on my return to Indonesia soon thereafter. American brands were wildly popular, as were holidays in the U.S. Parents aspired to ship off their teenagers to U.S. high schools and colleges. The American embassy in Jakarta and its staff were seen as a positive presence, a window to the world. Fast forward 10 years: The embassy in Jakarta is now a veritable fortress, obscured by barbed wire from the regular band of protesters demonstrating against “American colonialism” or “U.S. hegemony.” Parents of children who could not obtain return-entry to the U.S. are enrolling them in Australian schools. Vacationers, too, look to other locales, as tourist visas to the U.S. take months to process. Now, when I explain to Indonesians that I live in the United States, they look at me not with envy, but with pity and concern. So much has changed since 9/11! Two Countries, Two Democracies 2004 is an election year for both the U.S. and Indonesia. But the similarities do not end there. Superlatives often accompany descriptions of U.S. democracy, “the world’s oldest” being the most oft-repeated. But superlatives also suit Indonesia’s fledgling democracy. With some 150 mil- lion eligible voters, Indonesia is the world’s third-largest democracy, and the world’s largest Muslim democracy. If you factor in voter turnout, Indonesia easily becomes the world’s second-largest democracy, after India. Consider the numbers: during the 1999 elections, the country’s first free vote in four decades, voter turnout was in excess of 90 percent — the highest in recent world his- tory, according to the Asia Foundation. Indonesia may be coming late to democratic politics, but the country is on a rapid learning curve, and may soon teach its peers a thing or two about free and fair elections. Indonesians rich and poor, young and old, long insecure about the strides they’ve made in democratization, are increasingly making this observation. Take the 42-year-old administrator of a quiet Jakarta hamlet, Suyatno (who, like many Indonesians, uses just one name). Underneath a makeshift tarpaulin tent on a swel- tering July day, he joined dozens of neighbors as they patiently watched the counting of votes in the country’s first direct presidential elections. Aware that I was making a 30 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / O C T O B E R 2 0 0 4 T WO D EMOCRACIES , S HARED C HALLENGES Dini Djalal, of Jakarta and Washington, D.C., writes for the Indonesian newsweekly Tempo and its daily newspaper, Koran Tempo. She is also producing an independent documentary that compares the elections in the United States and in Indonesia.