President Barack Obama's November 10 trip to Indonesia was short and bitter sweet: short because he had to leave before the Merapi volcano spewed more dark ash into the skies (what a metaphor!); bitter sweet because his voyage unfolded amid growing doubts about his "Muslim world outreach." Whether those misgivings subside or multiply will depend less on the atmospherics of diplomacy and far more on the substance of US foreign policy.
Indonesia's leaders welcomed Obama's carefully nuanced bid to link Indonesia to the Muslim world, even as they hesitated to fully embrace his mission. After all, while Indonesia has the largest Muslim population of any Muslim majority country in the world, Islam is hardly the sole or even most important basis of political identity in this multi-ethnic land.
That said, Indonesian society has seen a rapid a growth of Muslim consciousness. The country's leaders cannot ignore this trend; but if they indulge it, they risk politicizing Islam in ways that invite internal dissension. How can they sustain Indonesia's pluralist ethos while globalization relentlessly shrinks the cultural, religious and political space between Indonesia and the Muslim world?
In their effort to strike this tricky balance, Indonesia's leaders have wisely resisted allying with any one global or regional power. Domestic tranquility requires good relations with the US and with Muslim states, many of whose citizens remain profoundly unhappy with US policies. It also requires good relations with all of Indonesia's regional neighbors, not least of which is China, a global economic power increasingly at odds with Washington.
President Obama's speech at the University of Indonesia demonstrated admirable sensitivity to the diverse forces pushing and pulling at Indonesian foreign policy. Rather than depict Indonesia as a magical exemplar of "Muslim democracy," he noted that "Indonesia is defined by more than its Muslim population." Discussing the diverse ethnic, linguistic and ideological forces that have both animated and convulsed Indonesia, he even mentioned the violence that tore the country apart in 1965-66. If Obama avoided the horrific details (at least 500,000 people perished in a genocide directed at perceived communists), he lauded Indonesia's leaders for sustaining a vibrant democracy that has tamed the centrifugal forces that decades of autocracy had failed to obliterate.
Indeed, one purpose behind Obama's trip was to encourage Indonesia to shine the light of its own pluralist experiment on Southeast Asia and beyond. Predictably, neighboring autocracies would like to deflect such efforts by promoting trade, investment and economic development rather than democratic accountability. Rejecting this autocratic doctrine without naming its most powerful advocate, Obama insisted that Indonesia's "achievements demonstrate that democracy and development reinforce one another." He then praised Indonesia for taking the "initiative to establish the Bali Democracy Forum" and for "pushing for...human rights within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)."
Obama's public foray into the internal politics of ASEAN may not have warmed the hearts of many Indonesian leaders. Because ASEAN's charter calls for non-interference in the sovereign affairs of all member states, Jakarta's role in the Bali Democratic Forum is bound to antagonize autocratic Vietnam, Burma and Malaysia, not to mention China, a state that has secured a "special relationship" with ASEAN. Beijing's announcement—issued less than a day before Obama's arrival in Jakarta—that it will provide Indonesia $6.6 billion in infrastructural aid, highlighted the difficulties that Jakarta faces as it tries to promote democracy and derive economic and geo-strategic benefits from regional integration in Southeast Asia and beyond.
In an apparent effort help Jakarta manage these conflicting pressures, Obama promised that his administration would "strongly support" the right of Southeast Asian nations "to determine their own destiny." He then walked this implicit endorsement of real politick back by reverting to a language of global rights. "The people of Southeast Asia," the president asserted, "must have the right to determine their own destiny....Human rights should not stop at the border of any country."
In age of instant global communications, diplomacy requires using finely tuned political rhetoric to soften the embarrassment that comes with juggling the conflicting agendas and promises that competing states are prone to assert. But even the most inspiring rhetoric will fall flat when it is perceived as a mere cover for failed policies.
Obama's November 10 speech suggests that he appreciates this inconvenient truth. Seeking to revive his campaign for a "new beginning" with the Muslim world, he zeroed in on the key issue obstructing US-Muslim engagement when he admitted that Palestinian-Israeli talks had suffered repeated "false starts and setbacks." But his pledge that the US would "spare no effort" on this crucial front did not assuage Indonesian opinion leaders.
Indeed, when prominent Indonesian liberals responded to Obama's rousing words by highlighting the plight of the Palestinians rather than discussing the broader challenges of US-Muslim world engagement, they signaled that without Palestinian-Israeli peace, they can do little to galvanize public support for any new beginning with Washington.
Daniel Brumberg is an associate professor of government and director of democracy and governance studies at Georgetown University. He is also a senior nonresident fellow at the Project on Middle East Democracy. His work focuses on political, social and economic change in the Middle East and wider Muslim World.
