http://www.smh.com.au/national/yudhoyono-calls-for-change-20100310-pze1.html
Yudhoyono calls for change PETER HARTCHER March 11, 2010 INDONESIA'S President has broken out of the polite ceremonials of a state visit to Australia to tell us bluntly the central problem with the relationship. It is the old ideas we each carry in our heads about the other, according to Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. He's right. The official relationship is the best it has been in its 60-year history. But Yudhoyono was looking to reach beyond, to speak to the people of both countries, to look for a transformation. ''The first challenge is to bring a change in each other's mindset,'' he told a joint sitting of both houses of the Federal Parliament. The leader of the world's third-most populous democracy said he was ''taken aback'' by a Lowy Institute poll last year that found 54 per cent of Australians doubted Indonesia would act responsibly in international relations. He railed against ''the persistence of age-old stereotypes''. And he accurately summed them up. Yudhoyono pointed out that some Australians still see Indonesia as a military threat or a hotbed of Islamic extremism. And in Indonesia, said Yudhoyono, ''Australiaphobes'' harboured their own set of conspiracy theories. White Australia remained alive, and Australia supported the break-up of Indonesia. ''We must expunge these preposterous mental caricatures,'' said Yudhoyono, universally known as SBY. It is because the two peoples know so little about each other, because dark suspicions still linger, that the relationship falls easy prey to a mishap or piece of bad news. It is unthinkable that Australia's relationship with the US, Japan or New Zealand could turn on an ugly consular case. Yet relations with Indonesia routinely go into crisis and convulsion when Jakarta arrests an Australian drug trafficker. Yudhoyono has been central to Indonesia's successful emergence as a moderate, stable, peaceful, secular democracy. Now he wants Australia to forge a modern relationship with his new Indonesia. Yudhoyono said that to give meaning to happy sentiments, the two countries needed to solve problems together. He demonstrated that he was serious. First, he told Parliament that Indonesia was about to criminalise people smuggling, under penalty of five years in jail. Second, he signed a new agreement to increase co-operation with Australia in stopping people-smuggling. Third, he demonstrated the continuing solid Indonesian performance in counter-terrorism of the past few years by announcing that one of the Bali bombers, Dulmatin, had been killed by Indonesian police. For Indonesia, he made one strong demand. Australia should ''understand and appreciate'' that the ''success of peace and reconciliation'' in the provinces of Aceh and Papua, home to some separatist aspirations, were ''a matter of national survival for us Indonesians''. This is a clear red line. The two countries are fated to live next to each other forever. But the quality of the relationship is a matter of choice. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
