Bruce Gale, Senior Writer – During a visit to Jakarta in August, Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith described relations between Indonesia and Australia as having reached a 'historic high'. The two countries, he said, were entering the dawn of 'a new partnership'.
Diplomatic relations have certainly improved in recent years. The Lombok Treaty, which came into force in February, for example, was a significant step forward in bilateral cooperation in defence, law enforcement, counterterrorism, maritime security and disaster response.
It will be some time yet, however, before Mr Smith's 'new partnership' becomes anything more than an arrangement of convenience between political elites. Jakarta and Canberra may be on good terms now, but the reality is that the populations of the two countries know very little about each other.
And what they do know continues to feed stereotypes that hold within them the seeds of future diplomatic spats. The cultural differences are both myriad and fundamental. Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation, while Australian culture is heavily influenced by its Western Judeo-Christian roots.
Australians may be proud of their egalitarian social values, democratic tradition and unique wildlife. But to many Indonesians, Australia is defined instead by the likes of anti-immigration campaigner Pauline Hanson and the December 2005 Cronulla riots. The latter, which took place in Sydney, involved large numbers of white Australians attacking people of Middle Eastern appearance after the local media reported incidents of assaults and intimidatory behaviour by groups of non-locals.
And while Indonesians see themselves as a tolerant, socially accommodating people with a rich culture, Australians see the country through the prism of the 2002 Bali bombings. The apparent reluctance of the authorities to execute the perpetrators of this heinous crime is regarded as particularly galling, given the recent death sentences handed down to three Australians for drug trafficking.
The fate of Australian drug trafficker Schapelle Corby, now serving a 20-year jail sentence, is yet another frequently quoted example. Her sentence outraged many Australians, partly due to its severity and partly because many believed the photogenic beautician's claims of innocence. Ordinary Indonesians, however, are hardly aware that she exists.
Relations between the two countries have blown hot and cold for decades. Diplomatic ties reached one of their lowest points in 1999, when Canberra led an international peacekeeping force into Timor Leste. The move prompted Jakarta to tear up a defence agreement with the country. Tensions worsened in the following years when Australia demanded Indonesian action over asylum seekers and backed the 2003 United States-led invasion of Iraq.
The current improvement in diplomatic ties began when Canberra responded to the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami by providing a A$1 billion (S$1 billion) relief package. Yet public opinion in both countries still regards the other as a potential threat. The results of a survey by the Roy Morgan group for Melbourne University's Asialink Institute last month revealed that 53 per cent of Australians regard Indonesia as the country they are most worried about.
A matching poll in Indonesia found that 55 per cent of Indonesians had concerns about 'another country promoting dissent' inside theirs. The respondents were not asked which country they saw as most likely to interfere, but the Australian pollsters were fairly certain they knew. 'That's us meddling,' Roy Morgan's Mr Guharoy said.
Indonesians and Australians also have very different concerns about the future. Almost 60 per cent of Australians said climate change was their main worry. Indonesians, on the other hand, were more likely to fear the erosion of their religious beliefs.
Two out of three Indonesians also worry about 'the breakup of the country', which explains Jakarta's sensitivities over Australian actions regarding Timor Leste and Papua.
Yet there are reasons for optimism. The May 2008 federal Australian budget included a A$62 million allocation aimed at boosting the study of Asian languages, including Indonesian.
Part of the money will go towards helping Australian teachers spend time in Indonesia improving their language proficiency and cultural knowledge. Hopefully, they will also learn how unpopular the Bali bombers are in their own country.
Interestingly, the Roy Morgan survey revealed that half the populations in the two countries were afraid of another terrorist attack.
The road ahead is nevertheless likely to be rocky. And it will be a long time yet before Mr Smith's 'new partnership' becomes more