Indonesia - Why Egypt cannot look to Indonesia as a model

The Egyptian Tourist Board's promotional jingle last year.

Egypt, Where it All Begins - unwittingly exposes the problem the Arab nation faces in its transition to democracy: After all the early euphoria, during which Indonesia was cast as the ideal model, reality has finally set in.

Indeed, for all of the Indonesian Foreign Ministry's commendable efforts to provide advice and assistance, Indonesians and Egyptians have come to realise that apart from elections and other technical areas, the task ahead is markedly different, because so much has to be built from the ground up.

"The whole notion of tropical South- east Asia providing a 'model' for anything that happens in a semi-arid North African country close to Saudi Arabia, Israel and the region's attendant geopolitical problems is absurd," argues an American journalist who has been based in both Jakarta and Cairo.

Renewed street riots in Cairo, sparked by Coptic Christians responding to a series of church attacks said to have been carried out by radical Muslims, reveal the depth of Egypt's power vacuum and underlined the military's failure to be even- handed and to deliver a clear timetable on the eventual shift to civilian rule.

Religious intolerance is also affecting the quality of Indonesia's transition, as is the way corruption and its attendant collusion are now perceived to be acting as a real brake on democratic development.

If Indonesia is the West's much-cherished example of how Islam and democracy can cohabit, it is probably time to acknowledge that the process was conducted more through trade-offs and pragmatic concessions than anything else, and that a lot of work still has to be done.

Indonesia's ex-president Suharto has often been called a dictator. But, for all of its many faults, his New Order regime cannot be compared to the brand of authoritarianism imposed by ousted Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad or even Egypt's former president Hosni Mubarak.

When the writing was on the wall, Mr Suharto reluctantly folded his tent - if that is an appropriate metaphor - and walked away. Mubarak, initially, and Gaddafi and Mr Assad in spades, refused, or are still refusing, to see the writing on the wall.

Perhaps it is history or the nature of society. Indonesians are clearly more forgiving than the Arabs, whose leaders have often come to a sticky end, and are therefore more likely to cling on.

As strong as the thirst for justice may be, the Mubarak trial is proving to be a distraction Egypt can do without. Indonesian activists were no less demanding but, for better or for worse, the elite closed ranks to prevent a proper airing of Mr Suharto's crimes in which it was wholly complicit.

As narrow-based as it was, Mubarak did at least allow a semblance of civil society during his 29-year rule.

That and the new phenomena of social networking were key to the revolt that swept him from power and gave birth to the so- called 'Arab Spring'.

"Every nation is different," says Jakarta-based governance consultant Kevin Evans, who helped formulate some of Indonesia's early political reforms and has played an advisory role in post-Mubarak Egypt. "You can't make direct translations because it doesn't work like that."

Retired general Agus Wijoyo, a member of the Foreign Ministry's Peace and Development Institute, which has been working with the Egyptians on democracy issues, agrees. "When you get into the substance of it all," he notes, "there are very many differences."

For a start, Egypt's prospects for high economic growth are much lower than Indonesia's were in 1998.

Indonesia has better capital formation, thanks to its rich natural resource base, and a percentage of arable land to farming population vastly superior to that of Egypt.

In many ways, it is Indonesia's diversity that has also been important in the balancing of different interests and ideologies, even if weak leadership is now putting that at risk. Egypt has a tiny middle class, the Muslim Brotherhood, the officer corps and the rich elite - and that's about it.

As muted as it was, Indonesia's political discourse has always been comparatively vibrant, and did not just start with the fall of Mr Suharto. As a result, the country was in much better shape than Egypt when his regime was finally brought to its knees.

There are other factors. Unlike Egypt, Indonesia retained its 1945 Constitution and left its political institutions largely intact, including the ruling Golkar Party. All this was enhanced by the voluntary withdrawal of a suitably chastened military from political life.

The Egyptian Army, by comparison, has never had the same "dual function" role formerly enjoyed by the Indonesian officer corps during the Suharto years, but it remains a potent part of the power equation because there is no other coherent institution in place.

All the same, just as the Indonesian generals proved to be emperors without clothes when it came to influencing political events in the post-Suharto period, so too have their Egyptian counterparts been powerless to prevent Mubarak and other senior officials from facing trial.

"In Egypt there is a disconnect," Mr Wijoyo points out. "Who sets the agenda, who sets the objectives and the timelines? They are missing that concrete existence of democratic forces. It is very scattered, and even those who led the revolt feel they are being sidelined."

John McBeth

The Straits Times

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