Looking Forward in Indonesia

The Asia Foundation’s country representative in Indonesia, Hana Satriyo,  is a veteran advocate  for women’s and minority rights and a champion against disinformation who’s worked tirelessly with government ministries, civil society, and local governments across the Indonesian archipelago.

 Dive into our impactful initiatives in Indonesia with Hana.

Learn more about our work in Indonesia.

Transcript

Hana Satriyo (00:03):

People are all aware that the demonstrations on May 1998 is the last straw that topple Suharto, but then what's next is even more important. In that important moment, everybody put their heads together. That's an amazing experiment of a nation building.

Tracie Yang (00:22):

Looking back and looking forward with a development veteran in Indonesia today on In Asia from the Asia Foundation. I'm Tracie Yang.

John Rieger (00:31):

And I'm John Rieger. Today we welcome to our studios, the Asia Foundation's new country representative in Indonesia, Hana Satriyo. She's well known to the foundation having begun as a program officer some 30 years ago, in addition to her long experience as a development practitioner in Indonesia, she collected some diplomatic experience when she accompanied her husband, the Indonesian ambassador, to the UK as a trailing spouse. And that expression invariably makes me smile. Hana Satriyo, welcome to In Asia.

Hana Satriyo (01:00):

Hi, John, Tracie, happy to be here.

Tracie Yang (01:04):

So Hana, why don't you tell us a bit about your personal history, including your experience in the UK. That makes a nice counterpoint to your obvious accomplishments as a development practitioner. Did it give you some new perspectives?

Hana Satriyo (01:20):

It is a very interesting experience because all of my life I've been development professional, but as trailing spouse, what you referring to, it's a role that is very complex, because even though you're not officially representing the country, but you are.

Tracie Yang (01:43):

Are development practitioners in diplomats wired differently.

Hana Satriyo (01:48):

Well, when you're entering the diplomatic world, you realize that there are different ways of conveying messages. And I think in the development world, we are probably more straightforward and we also have a lot of jargons that we throw to people that we sometimes don't really reflect whether people understand what we're talking about. But something that is common I think is the understanding that we're here for a purpose, for a reason, and then how we serve best the objective of our work.

John Rieger (02:24):

Hana, let's talk about Indonesia today and how it got here. I want to go back in time to 1998 and the end of the Suharto regime. What were the stakes after Suharto stepped down and how did leaders address the threats and the possibilities of that tumultuous period?

Hana Satriyo (02:44):

1998 is a very important period in the Indonesia's history because that's where Indonesia embark to a new era of democracy. We started in 1945 as a free nation after the colonization. So when we have authoritarian regimes for over 30 years until 1998, there's a huge hope that we can be a modern country. So, people are all aware that the demonstrations that happens on May 1998 is the last straw that topple Suharto, but then what's next is even more important. In that important moment, everybody put their heads together, not only those who are holding powers and holding positions, but also all the way to the civil society and then the students. And this is where you will see the Indonesian versions of people's power on the street. This is where Indonesia then look at... We would like to have the free and fair elections. This is the first actions that we have in 1999. And for the first time in our history, we have more than three political party. We used to have only three. And basically it's a one party that wins everything and suddenly we have 48.

John Rieger (04:07):

48.

Tracie Yang (04:09):

Wow. It's a lot.

Hana Satriyo (04:11):

And people was just like, "Oh wow. Okay."

John Rieger (04:15):

Were any of your politicians looking at the scary example of post Cold War Yugoslavia during this time and thinking that is-

Hana Satriyo (04:23):

Oh, definitely, yes. And one of the things that we don't want is the breakup of the country. Indonesia is a vast country. If you can imagine from London to Moscow. So if you can imagine the kind of diversity you have in terms of 13,000 islands and 600 local languages, 600 ethnic groups, and of course we're quite lucky to have the Bahasa Indonesia as our unifying language, and we have this sense of a nation. But it's not without risk, because we also have, due to the authoritarian regime, resentment from the local community, from the local government, will we be oppressed by Jakarta like before or not? So decentralization was the answer to prevent the breakup of Indonesia.

John Rieger (05:21):

Decentralization?

Hana Satriyo (05:22):

Decentralization.

John Rieger (05:24):

Yeah.

Hana Satriyo (05:24):

So Indonesia then decentralized in one of the most radical way across the world. We decentralized not to the province or similar level like the state in the US, but to the district level. And currently we have 500 district that each of them are powerful and they all have the authority that's quite large for a country that's previously so centralized and now we are so decentralized. But well, that's what keep the country together.

John Rieger (05:58):

That's an amazing experiment.

Hana Satriyo (06:00):

That's an amazing experiment of a nation building and good governance become the buzzword at the beginning of pharmacy because everybody said that democracy has to deliver because otherwise people will doubt democracy. And this is something that we do not want. People need to know that democracy can deliver. But then how democracy deliver? It's of course very complicated because then you go down to the nitty gritty of governance, how the budget is being delivered, how public services can be improved. So we start putting in place key institution to secure, to strengthen democracy. So we put in place this anti-corruption committee. We also have the constitutional court. We make sure the independency of the judiciary. But throughout all of this process, one of the consistent actor in all that is the strength of the civil society in backing up all of this effort. So decentralization end up to be quite a good move that Indonesia took 25 years ago and decided to decentralize, and now we start seeing the fruit of that experiment.

John Rieger (07:25):

There is some perception of democratic backsliding in Indonesia today, but you've remarked previously that Indonesia is still the most democratic country in Southeast Asia. How do you measure that?

Hana Satriyo (07:38):

If you're looking at Indonesia and with the direct election that we have, it's amazingly able to do direct election for all of its 500 plus mayors direct election for all of its 30 plus governor. And also we have local parliament all the way down from the national province and district level. So we are talking about the appointment of over 30,000 people as local parliamentarian across the country.

John Rieger (08:13):

That's a lot of moving parts.

Hana Satriyo (08:15):

Yes, so I think from there we can see that Indonesian accept election result, accept changes of government and follow the constitution. I think democratic backsliding conversations that we hear globally, the quality of democracy I think is what's in question. So when we look at democracy, what we're thinking about? We're thinking about how people's able to voice their opinion and also how their concerns can be channeled. Can they participate? Do they have a place on the table? But also how much critic that you can put openly without being accused of criticizing the government too much. Because in a healthy democracy, the room for dialogue should be there. But the issues with the democratic backsliding is that the room is getting smaller, tighter. And why is this the case? I think in Indonesia, the conversation is always that it's not a static society. It's not a static political system.

(09:32):

You have contestations and in each of this conversation and contestation, the winning party or those who have more power would like to secure it and tighten that room. I think one of the most important backbone of Indonesia's democracy that makes me still feel very optimistic that Indonesia is still the most democratic country in Southeast Asia, is its civil society. I think Indonesia has robust civil society, very active. And it's not just in Jakarta in the capital city, but across the country. In civil society organization spatially grew during this reformacy. And we do have civil society that's focusing a lot of on the governance issues, the budget, the anti-corruption, but also climate and environment and trying to put government and other party accountable to these changes. So I think Indonesia has a long history of society based organizations that are independent and have their room to convey their ideas and position towards the government, whether they're in line or not so in line with the government. And this modality allows the Indonesian's democracy, despite the backsliding, still have hope.

Tracie Yang (11:08):

So as you look forward to next year's elections, is there anything interesting to learn from recent elections elsewhere in Southeast Asia? The Philippines in particular seems like it has some lessons or perhaps some warnings.

Hana Satriyo (11:27):

Yes. I think we also need to be aware and not naive that when we started this democratic process, 25 years ago, there's no social media, there's no AI. There's different way of communicating and conversing across the country and deciding where the path that we as a nations want to go. At the moment and especially when you look at the election across the regions and elsewhere in the world, we see the role of social media influencing how people see candidates, how people see election messages, campaign messages, and we know...

(12:14):

And a lot of people all the way down again to a village level understand that some of them are true and some of them not. In the development world or more sort of conversations, we call it the miss and disinformation. And we're expecting that there will be more of that miss and disinformations as Indonesians entering the campaign period. I think the government especially very aware of that. I think they have started to put measures in place. But something that we can also do together as a country or as a partner to Indonesia, is looking at how we can empower this community and the society to detect miss and disinformation and spatially to be aware, making sure that the elections are not tainted by this-

John Rieger (13:07):

Hana, as an archipelago, Indonesia is particularly vulnerable to sea level rise, along with the other effects of climate change. It's also a significant player in clean energy. The New York Times recently called Indonesia, the Saudi Arabia of nickel, which is used in batteries. Of course, clean energy and climate change are front and center at the Asia Foundation. How is Indonesia navigating all this?

Hana Satriyo (13:30):

Yeah, I think this is an issue that, not just Indonesia, but everybody in the world would just need to put their heads together and see how we can do just energy transition.

John Rieger (13:43):

Justice. You're talking about energy justice?

Hana Satriyo (13:45):

Yes. Just Energy Transitions because it's not easy to do energy transitions where you are a developing country, where a lot of your factories are still set up for coal, but then at the same time you're aware that this is the way to go, this is the path, the future. Eventually we all need to go and move to this new clean energy. And if you want energy that produced from renewable sources, you need batteries. So this is where the issues of nickel comes in. So I think the Indonesia now really see this as an opportunity for us not only exporting nickel, but we want the battery industry. But then nickel is also a mining activity, and we know that mining activity is what we call a land use change from forest or from plantations to mining and it produce carbon. So this is something that Indonesian government very aware of. I think the Indonesian environment organizations is very much aware of. And this is the conversations, and I think everybody should have a space on the table to look at this Just Energy Transition.

John Rieger (15:06):

Even as Indonesia holds one of the keys to Just Energy Transition in its hand, the leadership must be looking rather nervously at rising sea levels.

Hana Satriyo (15:18):

Yes, we have changes happen in the coastal lines across Indonesia. Erosion especially happens and the toll it takes on our ports, especially in the smaller island happens. It's not yet as intense danger as in the Pacific, but it's an issue.

Tracie Yang (15:41):

Jakarta, I've read is also at risk of, is flooding and they're going to have to move the nation's capital to a different area, a huge endeavor.

Hana Satriyo (15:54):

Yes. Indonesia and Indonesian parliament have decided that we will move our parliament. So the new capital is currently being built in East Kalimantan, and one of the reason of moving the capital is the situations of Jakarta. It sink at the rate of two to three centimeters a year, which is really, really fast. And seawater have started polluting the groundwater all the way to the central Jakarta. So moving the capital to East Kalimantan is one thing, but the rest of Jakarta and who's not government employee will still going to be in Jakarta, and we need to still find the solutions what to do.

John Rieger (16:43):

So Hana, before we close the interview, let me ask you this. Are you starting your new job as our country representative in Indonesia with a feeling of optimism?

Hana Satriyo (16:53):

Well, I'm a very optimistic person, John. Growing up in Indonesia, that's how we survive. Not just survive, but that's how we thrive. Every time we see a problem, I kind of always think there must be a solution. This could be a challenge to find a new way of doing things or it just like digging the forgotten way of solving a problem. So I'm very optimistic when I became the country rep that there's a lot of opportunities that I can explore that actually will be something really important in the future.

Tracie Yang (17:33):

The Asia Foundation's, Hana Satriyo, thank you for joining us.

Hana Satriyo (17:37):

Thank you for having me, Tracie and John.

Tracie Yang (17:40):

That's our show for this week. If you enjoyed the conversation, why not subscribe to our podcast, which you can do on our website, asiafoundation.org or wherever fine podcasts are sold.

John Rieger (17:50):

And we'll see you again soon with more topics from the world of international development, including some thoughts on Nomadism in Mongolia and the arrival of baseball in Bhutan. Until then, I'm John Rieger.

Tracie Yang (18:02):

And I'm Tracie Young.

John Rieger (18:04):

Thanks for listening.