Page 56 - Conflict, Terrorism, and the Media In Asia

Indonesia: perning in the Gyre 45
borders and on theories about globalisation which attempt to understand the
‘increasing interconnections between nations and media’ (Sen and Hill 2000: 13).
It was a feature common to many of the states in Southeast Asia: transparent
national borders became increasingly permeable in the 1980s, as governments
sought to be part of the global economy, keen on securing its spoils despite the
political and policy contradictions (Atkins 1999: 1). The development of the
information superhighway further compounded the effect, sending a cultural
wrecking crew to lay its path into the hearts of these new economies, just as it
marked an upping of the ante in the competition to be a winner in this global
economy (Langdale 1997: 117).
Indonesia was not alone among the nations of the Association of South East Asian
Nations (ASEAN) to perceive an increase in insecurity over their lack of autonomy.
Elites preoccupied with trying to counter these external pressures, however, created
certain security dilemmas, particularly when regime legitimacy was linked to national
security and prosperity. The pursuit of economic development creates further insta-
bility: cross border information flows must be weighed against information control,
global advertising and consumerism against national financial needs, foreign ideas
and values against traditional mores and beliefs. The porosity of the state increases,
further diminishing its autonomy, as it becomes a part of the global economy.
Security is an overriding concern for Southeast Asia’s elites and a key
consideration when explaining their behaviour. These are relatively new states,
many of which only became independent in the 1950s and 1960s. State building
is still an ongoing process and internal security is an obsession, and there is a
blurring of the lines between state and regime security, and a ‘predisposition to
conceive of national security as regime security’ (Samudaranija and Paribata
1987: 12). A colonial inheritance of ‘discontinuities and distortions’ (Job 1992: 69)
has often resulted in low regime legitimacy as well as deep fissures in the social
fabric of the new states, causing ‘domestic insecurity’ (Ayoob 1995: 190). These
fissures can be ethnic, religious, or economic, and they often coincide, further
weakening national foundations. In Indonesia they include various separatist
movements in Aceh and West Papua, as well as Muslim–Christian inter-communal
violence in regions like the Molukus, Ambon and Sulawesi.
These new states are also vulnerable to external pressures due to their relatively
weak position on the global stage. Interference from institutions like the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (both dominated by the
major industrial powers), as well as from the advanced industrialised states and
multinational corporations, adds to the destabilising effects of the ideas and values
bound up in the process of modernisation (Ayoob 1995: 37).
Just as global economic development is uneven, so different groups within the
state prove more able and more prepared to embrace the changes this develop-
ment entails. The social transformation results in challenges for the regime, from
the emergence of new interest groups, internal migration, and a younger, more
demanding, literate, educated and increasingly urban population. Many also feel
dislocated and disenfranchised by the changes around them: uncomfortable and
unsuccessful in the new and the modern, they turn back to traditional value
systems, causing further conflict (Samudaranija and Paribata 1987: 6–9).