John Monfries

One of the puzzles of Australia’s diplomatic service is the comparative lack of informative memoirs by senior diplomats. Of the sixteen heads of Foreign Affairs mentioned in this book, only three apart from Richard Woolcott – Alan Watt, Alan Renouf, and Peter Henderson – have written memoirs (although John Burton wrote much about international conflict management, and Stuart Harris – more an academic than a public servant – has written about many international issues, especially economic ones). Some senior figures have contributed columns and articles, but many other senior and respected ambassadors have written nothing. Perhaps this is one reason for the lack of a profound appreciation of international affairs in Australia, which Woolcott so deplores. This book, however, is a substantial contribution to the literature, situated firmly in the realist tradition, and is probably the best memoir to date from a former Australian diplomat.

Professor Anthony Reid has added this volume on Sumatra, with special attention to Aceh, to his already huge corpus of publications about Indonesia. The book reveals that he remains master of the telling phrase. In this case, the phrase emerges, almost casually, when he tells us that since 1998 the ‘Indonesia project’ has been increasingly challenged. Indonesians might be startled to learn that their country was a project, but Reid presents plenty of evidence here for its incompleteness. Anyone tempted to superficial judgments about the Aceh problem and what it means for Indonesia and the region would do well to read this book.

Why is it that Indonesia’s northernmost province has received so much less Australian attention than East Timor? Aceh is of course further away, and no claims are made about local people supposedly helping our soldiers during World War II. Another reason is the uniquely emotive issue of the deaths of the five Australian journalists in Timor in 1975. A suspicion arises that the main reason is that the East Timorese are Catholics while the Acehnese are Muslims. Many Australians, especially church activists, could feel something in common with oppressed fellow-Christians in a nearby territory.

Repressive despot, or enlightened reformer? What are we to make of Suharto, four years after his fall? Was his prolonged rule an inevitable outcome of the Indonesian political process and of the mistakes and chaos of the Sukarno years? Or was it an illegitimate and corrupt militaristic venture, which has now been replaced by a genuine democratic political system, whatever its flaws and bloody dissensions? Is it too early to draw firm conclusions?