Like marriage, international relations need to be cosseted and cherished. Ours with Indonesia is going the other way through indifference.

Experiencing Indonesia (ANU Press), a collection of essays celebrating the Australian Consortium for ‘In-Country’ Indonesian Studies (ACICIS) 30th anniversary has just been published. Its contributors know about next door. The folk in that volcanic land aren’t close except in geography.

The mid-1990s was a golden time for Indonesianists. Paul Keating proclaimed that “no country was more important than the land next door” and signed a security agreement.

Among the believers was Dr David Hill at Perth’s Murdoch University. He decided to turn words into deeds with the Australian Consortium for ‘In-Country’ Indonesian Studies (ACICIS): a non-profit, educational consortium to develop and coordinate high-quality, semester-long study programs at Indonesian partner universities for Australian university students.

The idea appealed, for the electorate was receptive. Bahasa Indonesia was becoming popular for language learners, and Bali the exotic island for holidays. ACICIS was the bonding agent of the moment.

From then on, it should have failed – almost everything else did. First came Krismon, the Asian economic crisis; the rupiah falling like Icarus. Then chaos as the brutal dictator Soeharto quit his 32-year reign, and his successor BJ Habibie shredded the Keating deal.

John Howard suggested a referendum on the future of the blood-stained East Timor. The nearby island had been screaming for freedom since the 1975 invasion of the former Portuguese colony by Soeharto’s thugs. Watch the Australian film Balibo (banned in Indonesia) to........

© Pearls and Irritations