An article from The Jakarta Post about relationship between Malaysia and Indonesia.
The article is biased in some sense, but lots of the things mentioned are fact. Their influx of illegal immigrants have caused some social issues for us, but on the other hand Malaysians in general are not treating our foreign labours with dignity.
To make it worse not only the workers that were discriminated recently, but visitors and students were harassed as well.
The author in the end suggested that Indonesian will have to resolve to military might to win Malaysia’s respect… it sounds radical but mind that Malaysia is upgrading our military force as well with the recent purchase of the submarine and fighter jets.
It would be stupid though, if these 2 countries get into war for these matters.
I copied the whole article below; their article link tends to be invalid after a few days…
Indonesian military might will win Malaysia’s respect
Diaz Hendropriyono, Washington, DC.
Despite sharing commonalities, the relationship between Indonesia and Malaysia has turned sour in recent years. A few years ago, the two claimed ownership of the oil-rich Ambalat sea block, situated near Sipadan and Ligitan islands off the coast of Borneo. Tension grew stronger when Malaysian naval vessel KD Rencong rammed into Indonesian vessel Tedung Naga while patrolling in the area.
The continued mistreatment of Indonesian domestic workers by their Malaysian employers poses another problem. These workers, who represent most of the 240,000 domestic workers in Malaysia, are often considered second-class humans. Not only do most earn less than 25 US cents per hour (500 Ringgit per month), if anything at all, many have also been physically, sexually and psychologically assaulted by their employers.
Because of abuse, lack of freedom and other dissatisfactions, thousands of Indonesian maids have run away from their workplace. In June, trying to escape her violent employer, a worker tried to escape from a 15th floor apartment with a rope made of towels and bedsheets. In August, another maid made a similar attempt before being rescued from a seventeenth floor ledge, while a bruised body of an Indonesian servant was found dead at her employer’s home in Kuala Lumpur.
The relationship between the two countries was further exacerbated when Malaysia decided to install harsher punishments for illegal immigrants in Malaysia five years ago, including longer jail time, heavier fines and caning. Such a practice was deemed “inhumane” and hurt Indonesia’s dignity, especially following the forced return of some 400,000 Indonesian workers.
More recently, there have been other cases that have worsened bilateral ties. An Indonesian referee visiting Malaysia for the Asian Karate Championship was confronted by four plainclothes Malaysian police officers over a minor misunderstanding, and was handcuffed, arrested and beaten.
A sophisticated phone-tapping device worth Rp 3 billion and destined for the Malaysian Embassy’s defense attache was confiscated at Soekarno-Hatta airport, where it was brought into the country by a Malaysian national. During an operation to weed out illegal immigrants, the wife of the Indonesian Embassy’s cultural attache in Malaysia was detained by a volunteer security force known as RELA, which treated her like an undocumented guest.
The robbing of seven Indonesian students on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur and the raid on the house of the chairman of the Indonesian Students Association in Malaysia by RELA members put these Indonesians in a state of fear and further strained bilateral relations.
Indonesia also accuses Malaysia of stealing the folk song Rasa Sayange, believed to have originated from the eastern islands of Maluku. Malaysia is also accused of having claimed ownership of other traditional Indonesian heritage, including batik and wayang shadow puppets.
Indonesia has made several attempts to respond to these various problems. For example, Indonesia believed that the Ambalat dispute must be resolved through negotiation.
Responding to the Malaysian government’s failure to act against errant employers, Indonesia’s House of Representatives has considered reporting the cases to the UN Human Rights Commission. The House has also asked the government to request clarification from the Malaysian government about the discovery of the phone-tapping device.
After the RELA incidents and the beating of the Indonesian karate referee, Indonesia demanded an apology from Malaysia. And many Indonesians now see the need to copyright all Indonesian folk songs, especially those with anonymous writers, to avoid further claim by Malaysia.
Unfortunately, however, these efforts are short lived. An article in The Jakarta Post by Rizal Sukma on Sept. 3 noted that “many Indonesians feel there has been a growing tendency in Malaysia to look down on Indonesia … [and] feel that Malaysia has become arrogant …. We are often hurt by the way our neighbor looks at us and perceives us”.
If this were true, as long as Malaysia still looks down on Indonesia, the aforementioned policies could not guarantee that any similar future problems would not emerge.
It is no doubt that these solutions are wise and necessary, and it is not my intention to argue against these courses of action. Yet, a long-term alternative must be found and employed to supplement, rather than replace, these ad hoc strategies. Such a solution rests in the power of Indonesia’s military.
Writing in the 18th century during the U.S. constitutional ratification debate, American founding fathers John Jay in Federalist No. 4 and Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 8 (essays supporting the Constitution over the Articles of Confederation), argued that a country’s healthy defense represses, discourages and thus prevents war rather than invites it.
Following this reasoning, it is vital to rebuild Indonesia’s defense system, improve the military’s professionalism and push other internal reforms. Indonesia is currently on the right track in its attempt to modernize its military. For example, it recently signed a US$1 billion arms deal with Russia to buy submarines, tanks and military helicopters.
Despite a legal problem which has stalled the administrative process since 2002, Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono recently stated that Indonesia will continue with the procurement of Mi-17 choppers.
In an effort to increase the military’s professionalism, the House passed Law No. 34/2004 mandating that the government take over all the military’s enterprises within five years. Next, the military’s Rp 33 trillion current budget must be increased to its ideal level, around Rp 100 trillion. The bigger allocation would enable the military to increase the welfare of personnel and to provide better training. Finally, to contribute further to the military’s professionalism, the government of Indonesia should resolve the conflict between the military and the police, which according to the RIDEP Institute has seen at least 10 violent incidents this year alone.
Having a strong defense would change Malaysia’s foreign policy toward its “big brother”. It would remind the Malaysian government to be more committed to stopping the abuse of Indonesian workers. It would remind Malaysia not to encroach on Indonesia’s territory. Most importantly, Indonesia’s stronger defense would make the government of Malaysia and its citizens be more careful in their action toward Indonesia.
The writer is a PhD student at the Center for Public Administration and Policy, Virginia Tech University. He can be reached at dhendrop@vt.edu.
what indonesian chinese had done to deserve to be slaugthered and raped…all they did was making money…is there a law in this world that forbide individual to make money with penalty to be kill or rape? this shows how civilise the indons are.
malaysia is more civilise than indonesia. we need little or no help from western countries regarding monetary aid, while, the indons begs for help and then bites the hand that feeds them. pathetic!.
dont give in to any demand.
The massacre has to be one of the darkest page on recent history… but let us not forget that we had our own May 13 as well.
It takes immense effort for Malaysians to remain peace for all these years despite the indifference… that’s why I am normally not against policy like NEP (I am not happy with the implentation though) which could help bridging the economy gap and keep peace.
Still… it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t give more respect to our neighbours though. Some of the Malaysians have been treating foreign labours like shit. I personally have friends that treated their Indonesian maid like rubbish; I have talked to them before, but their ‘I am superior’ mentality really stunned me.
I personally has bad experience travelling to London last time - being questioned at the airport for almost half an hour for no good reason… and I can understand the discrimination at foreign countries. Besides, my experience was not even comparable to what some Indonesians have to face in Malaysia.
I have no mercy for illegal immigrants… they are intruders in some sense. I do hope that those that come to work in Malaysia from proper channel should be treated with more respect.
Malaysia is trying to boost our global image over the past decade, and we are again boosting how good we are with the spaceman and the UNESCO appointment… but it’s a pity that we doesn’t have a good relationship with our neighbours. Indonesia and Singapore are in love-hate relationship with us… and we are not really close to Thailand and Philippines ain’t so?
the may 13 incident is just peanut compare to indonesia’s genocide towards chinese. not only mobs running amok happily killing and raping several years before, remember communist era? hundreds of thousand if not millions had been insanely killed and female had been “trigger happy” raped because of diffences either idealogically or ethnically, preposterous animals.
“I personally have friends that treated their Indonesian maid like rubbish”
suits them well for their ancestor did in the past…who cares.
I dont know why malaysia is so obsessed with singapore and indonesia, maybe we dont have choices. North is Thailand, buddhist monach is unreplaceable, further east is philippine which is christian rule. These two countries has superior influences towards thier citizens, unlike malaysia. We are divided into ethnicity mainly due to the sense of superiority, which indonesia malays are trying to demonstrate…malay superiority, knowingly malaysia is not 90% malay. Malaysian malay is coping well with other minorities…they got pissed…so they want tension. They lost before during sukarno time, they wont succeed this time.
oii…indons…awak mau duit…kita beri…awak mau kerja…kita beri, anda mahu suami/isteri yang ok…kita beri juga…apa yang mahu lagi. Tak ada indonesia, malaysia boleh “import” lain bangsa…example bangla…tambah 100 ringgit satu orang satu bulan saja…jangan fikir anda banyak penting.
Betulbetulcakap…saya amat suka indons, betul!, tapi jangan main soal national.
Tak payahlah mari malaysia sedangkan kita tak suka kamu (yang diperkatakan), kita ada pilihan punya..
To Diaz Hendropriyono,
otak engkaulah yang tak berfungsi.
macammana boleh anda “threathen” malaysia dari soal yang tak berkaitan, dengan cakapan seberikutan atau “hina dari malaysia” yang tak masuk otak dengan realiti?. Tengok sendiri lah dulu.
indo, bukan cakap apa,…globalasi sekini telah memenuhi segala yang terkuruni, jangan ingat macam dulu, dunia bukan engkau punya. kalau nak main “konfrontasi” seperti yang dahulu…fikir dengan otak baik yang sempurna.
Pissed!
…did i write bm correctly?
[...] Malaysia-Indonesia Relationship by Yein Jee [...]
untuk ffad…siapapun nama kampret mu itu….
kalau cakap tolong fikir baik baik,,,mungkin ko punya otak tapi otak ko tu dah kena brain damage,,,,
baiknya ko pergi k dokter….
asal ko tau konfrontasi terjadi karena negara ko tu telah membuat perjanjian dengan london sebelum election selesai….KO TAU TAK BODOH!!!!!!
jangan asal ko cakap….
aku tak baca pun article diatas ni…
bukan ko saja yang bisa marah..orang indonesia LEBIH marah lagi atas penghinaan yang ko kalian lakukan terhadap indonesia,…
ko lupa???
siapa yang mendatangkan guru untuk membantu MENCERDASKAN MALAYSIA..????
siapa?????????????????
matamu?? hah??
babi ko!!!!
satu lagi..
jangan panggil kami INDON
karna aku rasa kau sangat rendah,,,
aku merasa kasihan dekat ko..
karena kalian hanya bisa berlindung dibawah lindungan negara kalian..
yang membangun malaysia itu: CHINESE AND INDIAN.
well jgnla korang dok gaduh2. perang antara malaysia-indonesia amat mustahil. negara serumpun keluarga pun ada yg berkait di kedua-dua negara macam maner nak perang.
satu nasihat kat menteri2 indo. jgn la cuba mengeruhkan keadan dgn mengapi-apikan kononnya kekuatan military indonesia bole buat malaysia lebih hormat…
kalu pun malaysia hormat bukan kerana kekuatan militer indo tapi atas semangat kejiranan. dr segi kekuatan militer, walaupun jumlah askar indo lebih besar tapi malaysia mempunyai sistem yang jauh lebih canggih dari indo. dalam dunia moden skrang kecanggihan lebih memungkinkan kemenangan dari jumlah askar rame.
Akan tetapi kalu malaysia-indonesia bersatu hati kedua2 negara ni bisa jadi kuasa yg kuat dia asia tenggara. kemodenan and kecanggihan malaysia di campur saiz kekuatan militer indo yang besar…= memang kuat.
jadi jgn gaduh2 indo-msia saling perlu-memerlukan. abang dan adik gaduh mcm maner pun tetp abg adik jugak…ada paham semua!
Malaysia should work closely with all our neighbours, not just Indonesia, but Singapore, Thailand and Philippines etc. It’s the era of globalisation… most of the countries in South East Asia don’t have the power to keep up the pace against the west.
Singapore and Brunei might be rich, but they lack the market (population), while Indonesia despite with more than 200 million people, are seriously lacking in economic development. If all SEA countries could work closely to help each other, we would be a respectable force in the world… but sadly, all of these countries are very much on their own at the moment.
Indonesia better spend the money to improve its economy and its people rather than being obsessed on military might just for the sake of gaining respect from its neighbours. Indonesia is a large country with bountiful of resource. If you take a look at history, the mighty nations build their economy first before meddling with the idea of intimidating its neighbours.