DEGRADING A-LEVELS
'Not worth the paper they are written on' was the judgement on the A-level qualification that had politicians and commentators queuing up to denounce Britain's Tory opposition leader Iain Duncan Smith. But this is a case of blaming the messenger. As much damage as the Conservatives did to education before 1997, the damage to the A-Level was entirely the work of the current administration, and much more than a question of public confidence.
It became apparent that the new A-Level examination was hopelessly undemanding in last year's exam results, its first outing, when the pass grades went through the roof. The harsh-marking of this years' exams was an attempt to repair the damage retrospectively, provoking outrage - not from students, but fee-paying schools whose income was damaged.
WHAT BECAME OF DEMOCRATISING INDONESIA?
'The whole world is watching Indonesia' said British Chancellor Gordon Brown in May 1998, just before President Thojib Suharto resigned. The last of his generation of anti-Communist Asian strongmen, Suharto had helped out America crushing the radical national movement of his predecessor, Sukarno, but in the post-Cold War era was no longer needed. On the model of Philippine 'People's Power' the 'donor nations' set conditions that destabilised the heavily indebted Indonesian economy by devaluing the Rupiah, then punished the poor by lifting subsidies on food and kerosene (Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents, 77). Finally Western nations gave a green light to anti-government protests making Suharto's position untenable.
The democratisation of Indonesia, though, was a top-down process, fostered for the most part by foreign intervention. Crushing the anti-Western Sukarno movement, Suharto had little social base outside the army - a weakness he tried to correct with the creation of the Golkar party, mainly a vehicle for channelling government resources, and the inauguration of the Association of Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals in 1990.
But despite the hopes invested in the 'revolution' in Indonesia, the opposition movement was equally weak. Students played the greatest part, offering the movement mass protests and six martyrs, but precious little organisation. Despite great hopes invested in her by the crowds, Sukarno's daughter Megawati Sukarnoputri held back counselling moderation. Unlike her father Sukarnoputri favours the west and market liberalisation. Other mobilisations came from within the elite, and late, like those of Amien Rais' Muhammidiyah movement and Abdurrahman Wahid (known as 'Gus Dur'). Characteristic of the apolitical character of the opposition was its exclusive concentration upon 'korupsi, kolusi dan nepotisme'.
When the national assembly voted Gus Dur President in 1999, overturning the popular vote for Sukarnoputri's party, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright rang up to suggest that Megawati should be the Vice President, a decision carried overwhelmingly the next day (Jakarta Post, 22 October 1999). Then last year the increasingly infirm Gus Dur was impeached on bizarre charges to make way for a Sukarnoputri presidency fully endorsed by the US.
Throughout the so-called democratisation of Indonesia, the mass of Indonesians have been left out, or at best treated - as were the student protestors - as a stage army, while the elite was formed by its relation to its Western sponsors. The so-called democratisation process has in fact kept the Indonesian masses off of centre stage, creating the power vacuum that are filled by bombings and religious agitation. Now the US has demanded that Sukarnoputri act against terrorists, and been rewarded with the same kind of repressive legislation that marked the Suharto era.
AUSTRALIA IN INDONESIA
One important crutch for the former dictator Suharto was his relationship with the Australian Labour governments of Bob Hawke and Paul Keating up to 1996. Since Britain adopted the policy of withdrawing from its imperial commitments 'East of Suez' Australia has had to struggle with its relationship to East Asia. Suharto's regime valued the sponsorship of the Australians and gave them an opening into an otherwise resistant East Asia. Military cooperation between the two countries before 1997 was extensive. When other Western countries advised their nationals not to go to Indonesia in 1998, Australia alone made an exception of the tourist island of Bali, which was largely untouched by the conflict.
In his book Engagement: Australia faces the Asia-Pacific, Keating attacks the incoming right wing Australian Prime Minister John Howard for throwing away the carefully nurtured relationship with Indonesia (Macmillan, Sydney 2000). In fact Howard's aggressive attitude to Suharto matched the change in US policy, allowing him to further enlarge Australia's military engagement, in the region, by challenging Indonesia rather than collaborating with it.
When the United Nations forced elections upon the Indonesian administration in the rebellious province of East Timor, a vote for independence was inevitable, and Howard leapt at the chance to supply the troops for a United Nations' occupation. Australia was right for the East Timorese operation, said Howard, because it was 'able to do something that probably no other country could do ... because we occupy that special place. We are a European, Western civilisation with strong links to America but we are here in Asia'. Intriguingly, as Howard saw it the intervention was as much to do with Australia's own need to define its identity as it was about East Timor: 'We spent too much time fretting about whether we were in Asia, or part of Asia, or whatever' (AFP 22 September 1999).
The current crisis over the Bali bombing has found the Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer once again exercising extra-territorial influence, sending a team of detectives to join in the manhunt. -- James Heartfield The 'Death of the Subject' Explained is available at GBP11.00, plus GBP1.00 p&p from Publications, audacity.org, 8 College Close, Hackney, London, E9 6ER. Make cheques payable to 'Audacity Ltd'