If Indonesia were to collapse and split up into new independent states, what might they be ? Because of Islam
1. Islamic Republic of Aceh, capital city: Banda Aceh
2. Batak Confederacy, with six nation-states: Karo, Toba, Pakpak, Simalungun, Angkola, Nias. Capital city: Medan
3. Republic of Minangkabau, capital city: Padang
4. The rest of Sumatera forms Malaka Republic, capital city: Pekanbaru/Palembang
5. Pasundan Republic, capital city: Bandung
6. Mataram Kingdom, capital city: Yogyakarta
7. Republic of Madura, capital city: Sumenep
8. Bali Republic, capital city: Denpasar
9. Banjar Sultanate, capital city: Balikpapan
10. Tanjungpura Republic, capital city: Pontianak
11. Dayak Federation, capital city: Samarinda
11. Bugis Republic, capital city: Makassar
12. Toraja Republic, capital city: Rantepao
13. Minahasa Republic, capital city: Manado City
14. Sulawesi Republic, capital city: Polewali Mandar
15. Nusa Tenggara Federation, capital city: Kupang
16. Maluku Republic, capital city: Ambon City
17. Free Papua Republic, capital city: Manokwari or Jayapura
At last Australia appears to be turning the corner of doting supporter of and accomplice in the illegal Indonesian state to one which realizes the break up of its neighbour is inevitable, within 20 years.
Unlike the Australian defence white papers of the past, the previous one being just ten short years ago, 2008's "Defending Australia in the Asia Pacific Century: Force 2030" makes four critical points regarding Indonesia. First, it no longer sees Indonesia as a military threat. Second, it openly debates the break up of Indonesia. Third, it predicts an increased Australian military role in "stabilisation", humanitarian and peace-keeping operations, like those in East Timor and the Solomon Islands. Forth, it discusses the potential for Indonesia to fragment either as a result of developing democratic transformation or from anarchy, revolution, Islamic militancy.
Clear then, Australia does not believe Indonesia, or what would be left of it, could be a major threat to western "civilization" one way or another. If Indonesia remains intact, which is unlikely given increasing discontent amongst its impoverished population forced to watch the world of plenty, it will continue to be a poor third world nation whose bloody military are stretched to their limits with the role of containing self-determination ambitions. If Indonesian Islamic Extremists come to power as is possible given the introduction of Sharia Law (AKA Anti-Pornography Law) and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's alignment with the radical Islamic Prosperous Justice Party (Partai Keadilan Sejahtera), then clearly Australia believes this would be the final straw for many Indonesians who would likely take to the streets in a popular uprising. If Indonesian democracy matures, then international legal rights such as self-determination will likely see all but Java and Southern Sumatra remain of the RI.
It is not announced in the political sense as Australia still tows the Jakarta line, officially supporting a "Unified Indonesia", though quite how unified the Papuans and others feel is another matter. It is simply part of the facts of strategic planning, which is a far more credible crystal ball then the rhetoric of any politician or federal officer. It is a fact a Unified Indonesia has three main beneficiaries; Jakarta, the USA and "Great" Britain. Australia would stand to clean up in a break-up of the RI, not least because of its strategic position, its expertise and fortunately, its willingness to put right previous wrongs, vis-a-vis peacekeepers in East Timor. OK, on that subject, East Timor is no paradise right now but why? Look closely and you will see the hand of Jakarta; another reason for wanting to see the back of Java as a substantial political centre.
I say "Bring it on, let's give it as many little legal pushes here and there as we can!". Let us boycott anything and everything Indonesian for starters. Wake up and smell the Java; who do you think you are financially supporting when you buy questionnably made or sourced Indonesian products? Whose pockets are you lining when you go on holiday to Bali; the Balinese slaves on minimum wage? If you claim to love the Balinese, help give them their island back. Hopefully then one day all the Australian and other "bule" foreign idiots who have sunk their life savings into properties they can never own (under Indonesian law) or even stay in their villas legally for any amount of time, hopefully Bali will gain independence from its historical adversary, vile Jakarta, and do what is right for the western money trees who are currently being ripped off.
Come on, think about it; making the world a better place, giving the regions of Indonesia their legal rights, telling Uncle Sam and its patsy British lapdog to go and stick it where to sun does not shine all in one foul stroke! Don't "Buy Buy Indonesia" say "Bye Bye, Good Ridance Indonesia"!
Posted by Bali Bollocks - don't sell out
Will Indonesia break up?
Written by Anne Booth
Edition 59: Jul-Sep 1999
Published:Sep 11, 2007
Indonesians in the resource-rich outer regions no longer accept the heavy hand of Jakarta.
Anne Booth
On 17 August 1998, the leading news magazine Forum Keadilan devoted its National Day edition to a discussion of national unity. According to a poll it conducted, over 90 per cent of respondents were worried about the danger of the country falling apart, over 80 per cent thought the emergence of political parties based on ethnicity and religion would increase the dangers of disintegration, and over 85 per cent thought the control of the economy by minorities increased these dangers.
The fact that a widely read magazine could openly conduct a poll about such a sensitive issue, and publish the results, indicated the extent to which press freedom had blossomed in the three months since Suharto's resignation. But the results of the poll could hardly have been gratifying to the new government of President Habibie. They were a clear indication of the extent of concern among middle class Indonesians about the fragility of their country.
In addition the poll reflected a widespread conviction that the regions must be given greater political and financial autonomy. In effect, the message of the poll seemed to be that the resource-rich regions would have to be permitted to keep a much higher proportion of the profits from resource exploitation. At the same time the electorate would have to have the power to vote in, and vote out, key provincial and local officials such as governors, regents, and mayors.
In the latter part of 1998 and early 1999 there were many manifestations of regional unrest. Some were violent and tragic, such as the events in Ambon and West Kalimantan. Some, such as student demonstrations in Caltex facilities in Riau, obviously intended to make a political point to both the national and the international media. The Habibie government's apparent promise, made at the end of January, of self-determination for the troubled province of East Timor, immediately provoked predictions of a domino effect in other parts of the archipelago, from Aceh to Irian Jaya.
By the end of April, press reports suggested there was a strong military backlash against any promise of ultimate independence for Timor, based in large part on the conviction that, once the Pandora's Box had been opened, several other provinces would want to escape as well. Increasingly, newspaper pundits in various parts of the world began to talk about 'another Yugoslavia' in Southeast Asia. To many, the world's fourth most populous country appeared to be unravelling in much the same way as the former USSR in the early 1990s.
To a number of observers of the Indonesian scene (myself included) it had seemed obvious for some years that the highly centralised system of government which Suharto and his key advisers had put in place in the 1970s was, by the 1990s, both politically unacceptable and, from an economic viewpoint, inefficient and inequitable. (My own views were expressed in a lecture I gave at SOAS in 1992: 'Can Indonesia survive as a unitary state?', Indonesia Circle no.58, June 1992.)
Oil
In the early 1970s, the establishment of firm central government control over revenues from natural resources (mainly of course oil) had seemed essential if the government was to provide infrastructure and improve the quality of life for populations in all parts of the country. After all, much of the oil was in fact located in two rather small and isolated provinces, both of which seemed to lack any strong sense of regional identity. Given the development needs in other parts of the country, it would have been very difficult to make a case in the 1970s for handing over a significant part of the oil revenues to either Riau or East Kalimantan.
When huge gas reserves were located in Aceh, a province which did have a long tradition of rebellion against outside control, some observers predicted that there could be trouble, although I cannot recall anyone in the 1970s forecasting the tragic events of the latter part of the 1980s and early 1990s in that province.
But as rapid economic growth and industrialisation transformed both the urban and the rural landscape in Indonesia, and especially in Java, over the 1980s and early 1990s, the whole nature of the 'regional problem' in Indonesia changed. In the 1970s the central government could claim to be playing the role of a benevolent Robin Hood, robbing the rich few to pay for improved living standards for the poor millions, especially but not exclusively in Java. But by the mid-1990s, it was clear that the incidence of poverty in Java was in fact lower than in a number of provinces outside Java, including some such as Irian Jaya with abundant mineral wealth.
Even in those provinces such as East Kalimantan and Aceh where poverty was lower than the national average, there was growing resentment at the differences in living standards between the local populations and those of neighbouring Malaysia. Per capita GDP in East Kalimantan in 1993 was about the same as in the neighbouring Malaysian state of Sarawak, and higher than in Sabah, but poverty incidence was much higher in East Kalimantan. Given the porous nature of the land borders and the widespread movement of labour from Indonesian Kalimantan into East Malaysia by the early 1990s, it was inevitable that local populations would make comparisons between their own living standards and those in adjacent regions of the neighbouring country.
In addition, by the early 1990s, the combination of rapid economic growth and over two decades of administrative centralisation had produced a situation where government ministries in Jakarta were handling huge budgets for both routine administration and development projects in all parts of the far-flung archipelago. Given the absence of effective audit procedures, and the demonstration effect of growing nepotism in the first family, there was inevitably a sharp increase in the magnitude of official corruption throughout the central government apparatus. Even those government ministries and agencies which had been considered 'clean' in the 1970s became increasingly blatant in the way they creamed off funds for the personal use of senior staff, including lavish housing and cars, foreign travel and foreign education for their children. Regional and local government officials often followed suit.
That there is now, with greater freedom in both the print and the electronic media, an explosion of public outrage against such manifestations of bureaucratic abuse is hardly surprising. The Habibie government has not been slow to sense the public mood. On April 23, the parliament (the same body which slavishly approved the centralist policies of President Suharto) passed a new law on inter-governmental fiscal relations which allows for a considerable amount of revenue-sharing between centre and province, especially for revenues from oil, gas, other mining, forestry and fisheries. The issues are complex and it is, as yet, far from clear how the law will operate in practice (see John McBeth in Far Eastern Economic Review, May 13, 1999). It is also possible that the new parliament, to be elected in June, will press for even more sweeping changes.
Breakup?
There seems to be little doubt that what James Mackie once termed the 'powerful centralising and integrating forces' of the New Order era have been halted and indeed thrown into reverse. But how far will the reverse process proceed, and will it inevitably lead to the breakup of Indonesia?
On this question, I can only give a personal view, based on my own observations over nearly three decades of study. It does seem to me that, after more than fifty years of independence from Dutch colonialism, most inhabitants of this vast archipelago do wish to be part of some entity called Indonesia. Understandable demands for greater autonomy from a corrupt and predatory central government apparatus should not be confused with a desire for outright independence. Indeed it was the repeated failure of both Suharto and the armed forces to comprehend this distinction which led to so many human rights abuses in places like Aceh and Irian Jaya.
While the East Timor problem may only be resolved ultimately by independence, it ought still to be possible for other regions to remain within the Indonesian state, but with different conditions of membership from those which were laid down in the Suharto era. New conditions of membership in effect mean constitutional change. Accommodating growing demands for such change while at the same time trying to restore confidence in both the economic and the administrative system will severely test the skills of whatever government assumes control in Indonesia in the post-Suharto era.
But one thing is clear: Suharto's New Order has gone, and with it the highly centralised political and economic system which he fashioned. There will be a very powerful group of losers from the changes now in progress in the central bureaucracy (both civilian and military), and especially in its upper echelons.
The logic of the decentralisation measures introduced in April will be that provincial and local governments will assume more direct responsibility for sectors such as health, education, family planning, women's affairs and environmental protection. Much economic and social planning will have to be done in the regions rather than at the centre. Many officials will thus have to move to the regions or find alternative employment.
To the extent that they will be forced to leave central departments, they will also be cut off from the extensive patronage networks which developed at the centre; indeed these networks will themselves wither as they are deprived of resources. Senior bureaucrats were among the most privileged people in Suharto's New Order and they can hardly be happy about the inevitable attenuation of their power which a genuine process of decentralisation will entail. What, if anything, they can do about the situation remains to be seen.
Professor Anne Booth teaches at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. She has written numerous books and articles on the Indonesian economy.
Breaking up Indonesia
For my timline I'm planning on having Indonesia's independence movement splinter and result in several different states coming to be based on ethnic and religious lines.
The problem is, Indonesia has approximately 6,000,000,000 ethnic groups so I'm not sure how the breakdown would go. This map is a first draft; please criticize it, so I can get it right. Each color is one nation.
Some notes:
-I'm not sure where West Papuawould end up; would it go it alone or merge with New Guinea, which I have here.- It seems like the Javanese would be able to dominate the Balinese and Madurese on Java but I think the Sundanese are too numerous to be absorbed into a Javanese state.
-Not sure what to do with Borneo, is there more than one group of Malays there? The ethnic map I found was fairly vague.
-The islands out east are all probably horribly wrong, can one of the Indonesians here help me out?
Also worth discussing is how the region's politics would play out.
It strikes me that Java will not have the internal migration exit valve and so there will be plenty more people than OTL - immigration strikes me as likely, but to where? The US, Netherlands, and Australia are the likely targets, but they might immigrate to neighboring islands as well - causing ethnic tensions.
Depending on how the borders end up, there could be several regional flashpoints as well - you don't see much naval warfare done by 3rd world nations but here it would be a necessity - it gives me some interesting story ideas.
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