So tell me, when will we as Indonesians start to actually care about the REAL issues in this country?

So who cares if I’m an Indonesian? Who cares if you’re Malaysian? We’re both humans right? Honestly, I am pretty sick to my stomach on this stupid meaningless war between our 2 countries, because it really isn’t worth anything really. It’s only causing emotional distress and breakdowns which in turn will make us all mentally ill.

So how did it all begin? Here’s the story ladies and gentlemen.

The formal war between Indonesia and Malaysia started in 1962, also known as the Indonesia-Malaysia Confrontation regarding the future of Malaya, Brunei, Sabah, and Sarawak. Malaysia wanted to unite Brunei, Sabah and Sarawak as apart of the Malaysian Federation.
This wish was then criticized by Indonesia’s former president, Soekarno who was well known as a communist and a dictator who disliked European countries and was basically against everything being closely remote to being ‘Westernized’. Anyway, Soekarno stated that Malaysia is “A British Doll” and by making Brunei, Sabah and Sarawak a part of their federation, Soekarno was paranoid that the English would take control of Indonesia as well.

After 350 years of dutch colonization in Indonesia, things were pretty bad for the Indonesians. They were treated like slaves and dirt, it makes sense that Soekarno is paranoid of the Western Invasions. Mind you, during Soekarno’s regime, anything that sounds remotely close to the western world was banned from Indonesia, including songs, films, etc. Other than that everyone in Indonesia had to BE Indonesian, e.g. The chinese had to change their names and the only language to be used in Indonesia is the Indonesian language.

Britain-Malaysia

But despite the drama and hard life the Indonesians faced, this was not what the Malaysians faced. Before being granted self rule, Malaysia was already a sovereign state with little influence from Britain. And actually the English and Malaysians actually cooperated well together. During the British colonization, the Malaysians benefited a lot by producing goods for the british people, also the unifying of thier diferent languages in Malaysia. This is why today malaysia has a stable government and democracy and even today the country is economically sound.

Then what do these 2 countries have in common? The Japanese invasion in WWII. The Japanese Invasion drove both the British and Dutch away from Indonesia and Malaysia, which in turn after hardships caused by the Japanese rule, the two countries came about to obtaining their independence.
The Japanese gave Indonesia their Independence after their collapse in 1945 (giving no chance for Dutch to resume their authority in Indonesia), and although the British were able to resume their authority in the Malaysia after the collapse of Japan, they faced an entirely new political situation and those circumstances forced them to adopt new policies thus the British in the end gave Malaysia their independence in 1957.

Soekarno’s Ganyang Malaysia campaign

Anyway, Soekarno tried everything to decline the Malaysian Federation, thus Malaysians became quite angry at Soekarno’s attempt and they started an Anti-Indonesia protest in 1963. Since then, Soekarno, being a dictator as he is, started this “Ganyang Malaysia” campaign which then started this war from 1963 (Indonesia attacked first) to 1965.

This war ended in 1965 when Soeharto (who was an anti-communist) was able to take the authority away from Soekarno. Soeharto eventually became best friends with Mahathir Mohamad, a former Malaysian PM and since then the rivalry between the two countries actually subsided.

Soeharto and Matahir Mohamed

Honestly, as an Indonesian, I feel a little ashamed at Indonesia’s former authorities and why couldn’t they just choose to take a diplomatic act like the Phillipines. And Soekarno, being the controversial figure as he was, took everything just a little too far. Sorry to all the Soekarno fans, but in my opinion he was just too much for Indonesia to handle. He led the people to independence, but he didn’t have the emotional stability needed for a president, especially when he claimed that he will make himself a ‘Lifetime president’.

When Soeharto’s regime ended and then eventually taken over again by Soekarno’s daughter, Megawati, Soekarno’s fame began to rise again as her regime reflected more on her dad’s fight for independence but neglect to reflect the damage he had done after that.

And another key finding I can get from the history is that Indonesians are easily influenced. Really! That’s why a really good ideal president is really needed to lead the Indonesians to the right frame of mind, not to be emotional squabblers, and honestly, Indonesia’s current president, SBY, does NOT have what it takes.

The conflict between Malaysia and Indonesia started again in 2005, during SBY’s regime. In 2004, Indonesians sent thousands of workers for Malaysia. This then became a conflict when they had reports that Malaysians started treating the Indonesians badly. But hey, we’ve always had that report about workers in Saudi Arabia who had even worse treatments long before that right?? So exactly why did it exactly became such a big deal all of the sudden while you’re still sending Indonesian workers to Saudi Arabia?

tari pendet

In 2009, there was a cultural issue about Malaysia displaying Indonesia’s cultural dances and claiming it as a part of their own culture. Since then little stupid things have became big issues that made the rivalry quite obvious between the two countries. I think this is pretty stupid. Having almost the same culture as both countries actually consisted of ‘Malay’ descendents, wouldn’t it be merely a coincidence that we actually had the same cultural heritage?? And you know what, this type of dance are actually found to be close to the Thailand dance as well. And aren’t we be being a little hypocritical here??

Since when does Indonesians care about their cultural values?? Right now I see more youths in Indonesia trying to be ‘western’ than they are ‘Indonesian’. Indonesia has over 100 different cultures to begin with, since when did we actually start preserving these cultures??

Am I the only one who thinks that there’s something wrong here??
Honestly, I think this is more than just issues. I think this is an attempt from whoever the sponsor is to actually tear apart the friendship between these two countries.
Sometimes I think it’s a diversion. Because everytime a big internal political issue happens (such as Lapindo issue, or Century Bank case) this kind of news all of the sudden shows up to actually divert the public’s attention to unimportant things such as this! And it’s actually wasting a little of my time writing about it.

While Indonesians waste time bad mouthing other countries, they lack to realize real issues in the country some of which are:

We have lost 75% of our forest areas and biodiversity

More than 18% of Indonesia’s people live below poverty standards and then millions just merely above it due to non-existing infrastucture

Education inflation more than 20% while economic growth is only around 5%.

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