Optimism and Education: The New Ideology of Development in Indonesia

Abstract

Based on ethnographic field research conducted in Jakarta, this article argues that there is a new ideology of development in Indonesia that is cosmopolitan, nostalgic and individualist. To understand the new ideology, a historical sociological perspective is taken to examine the nationalist period of anti-colonial struggle, the state developmentalist period of Soeharto’s New Order, and the neoliberal period since 1998. Two interrelated arguments are made. First, the ideology of development in Indonesia has changed from earlier nationalist understandings of Pancasila to a cosmopolitan neoliberal ideology based in a nostalgic nationalism. Second, a modernist Islamic perspective on secularism and Islam both supports and is supported by this ideological shift. These arguments are illuminated through two examples of the advance of cosmopolitan neoliberal ideology: optimism and education. Optimism is focused on individual integrity to redress Indonesia’s problems with corruption. Education is offered by optimists as the escalator to development. Empirically, the Indonesia Mengajar programme of sending young university graduates to teach elementary school in remote parts of the country is examined for its neo-modernisationist assumptions. The article concludes that this dominant ideology abandons earlier solidaristic forms of nationalism and holds little hope for addressing the vast structural inequalities in Indonesia.

Key Words:

• Ideology
• Indonesia
• elites
• education
• individualism
• neo-modernisation
• neoliberalism

Acknowledgement

The author gratefully acknowledges comments from the reviewers and Kevin Hewison, which pushed the article towards its current more forceful version. Funding for the research was provided by a fellowship from the J. William Fulbright Foundation/International Institute of Education. Earlier versions of this article were presented and useful comments and questions were raised at the colloquium series of the Department of Sociology at University of Tennessee in February 2012, at the annual meeting of the Association of Asian Studies (AAS) in Toronto in March 2012 and at Paramadina University in June 2012. The author gratefully acknowledges colleagues and graduate students in the Department of Sociology at the University of Tennessee, and fellow panellists at the AAS, Cari Coe, J. Thomas Lindblad and Andy Kipnis. Finally, he is especially grateful to his hosts and colleagues at Universitas Paramadina, Anies Baswedan, Wijayanto, Totok Soefiyanto, Aan Rukana and others. They may disagree with the content and arguments in this article, but they were gracious and supportive during my time at the “little giant” university. All remaining errors are mine.

Notes

1 Most of his address was conducted in English, adding to the international atmosphere and the message of promoting a global, cosmopolitan outlook among all of those present. In other words, it was not for the author’s benefit as the Western visitor. Pak is short for Bapak which literally means father and is used as Mister in Indonesian. For consistency in English, I refer to him as Baswedan for the remainder of the article. Where Indonesian language texts, speeches and interviews are translated, those translations are by the author.

2 The author was placed at Paramadina University on a Fulbright fellowship for the 2010–11 academic year and is grateful to the Fulbright commission for the support. What shined throughout this research experience was the optimism of Paramadina’s leader, Anies Baswedan. During a visit to Jakarta in 2013, I attempted to contact Baswedan for an interview, discussion and debate of the views expressed in this article, but I received no reply. During that period as a visiting professor at Paramadina University, ethnographic research was conducted at the university, including attendance at multiple events at both the undergraduate and graduate campus, auditing a class at the graduate school on meeting business leaders, joining a university-wide campus retreat off-site for faculty and staff, holding individual and small group meetings with about 10 rectors and professors, and in general, accepting many last-minute invitations to seminars and shared meals. I view this work as an “accidental ethnography” given that my prior research interests were in political economy of natural resources. One of the only other usages of the phrase that I have subsequently found is in a blog by Robert LaFleur wherein he describes William Egar Geil, who travelled to five sacred mountains in China 90 years before LaFleur, as an “accidental ethnographer.”

3 Roudometof also observes that, among its many dimensions, cosmopolitanism includes both people’s attitudes and also a particular moral and ethical standpoint. These descriptive and normative dimensions are merged in the notion of cosmopolitanism used here. At the same time, I adhere to a class-based notion of the term because it captures the elite, largely urban, placeless and universalist vision that is examined in this article. Although “excluded others” may in some senses become cosmopolitan as well and recognising that variants of cosmopolitanism are internally produced in particular locales (Beck 2002, 33), the cosmopolitan vision of Jakarta elites is based on the political philosophy ideal. This ideal of a cosmopolitan “referred to ‘the person whose allegiance is to the worldwide community of human beings.’…[T]he term seemed to offer a clear-cut contrast to nationalism” (Robbins 1998, 2). For a recent survey of the large literature on cosmopolitanism, see Beck and Levy (2013).

4 In the summer of 2013, t-shirts were widely sold with pictures of Soeharto and the question, in Javanese language: “How are you doing? My time was better [more comfortable], right? (Piye kabare? Penak jamanku tho?).

5 One note on the Western dress; many women do wear Muslim veils. Possible exceptions to the lack of awareness of colonial history include small, radical groups such as Hizbut Tahriri Indonesia (HTI). HTI, for example, protested the visit of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Jakarta in September 2012 with a march on the US Embassy and a display of signs declaring that her visit brought colonialism to Indonesia (Hillary Datang Penjajahan Datang). See, for example, Reuters (September 3, 2012). Sukarno and other nationalists of the period of anti-Dutch struggle also mixed European and indigenous language and modes of dress as they navigated the ground of what is modern and what is Indonesian (Mrazek 2002).

6 There are 17 Indonesians that Forbes lists on its website among the world’s billionaires as of March 2012. Two Hartono brothers (cigarettes, banking) are in the top 200. Following them: Martua Sitorus (palm oil) is number 377, Sukanto Tanoto (diversified) is number 418, Peter Sondakh (media) is number 464, Ahmad Hamami (heavy equipment) is number 578, Sri Prakosh Lohia (polyester) and Chairul Tanjung (diversified) are tied at number 634, Kiki Barki (coal) is number 764, Murdaya Poo (diversified) is number 854, Edwin Soeryadjaya (coal), son of William Soeryadjaya who was a leading businessman during the New Order, is number 913; Tahir (diversified) and Hari Tanoesoedibjo tied at number 960; Garibaldi Thohir (coal) number 1015; Theodore Rachmat (coal) number 1075; and Djoko Susanto (retail) number 1153.

7 In an interview, Latif who is also a former rector of Paramadina University, emphasised that Indonesia is not an Anderson-like “imagined community” but instead unified by the state, and thus he prefers the moniker “state-nation” to “nation-state.”

8 In informal conversation at the launching of Utomo’s book on education, December 20, 2010, Baswedan rejected the idea that Teach for America was the sole model. However, in his 2012 presentation, Baswedan (2012a) shows Teach for America, founded in 1990, along with 10 similar programmes around the world.

9 All page numbers that follow in parentheses are from this book. All translations are by the author. English in the original is indicated by italics.