The View from Jakarta

...But in the 15th century predominance passed across the straits...

...Communist pressures in Indonesia contribute to and strengthen Sukarno's stand, yet should the Communists disappear from Indonesia tomorrow, a greater Malaysia would not be viewed with much less disfavor...

...Under this program the performance of Malaysia's economy, when measured by such economic indicators as rates of investment, income, production and export, seems healthy and promising...

...Sukarno's greater aggressiveness is partly a matter of his more flamboyant style...

...But the fear was distorted, the hope misplaced...

...As the Dutch and British followed and ousted the Portuguese, local feuds were gradually absorbed by the more massive and far-flung confrontation of these European empire-builders...

...With the extension of boundaries, the problem is particularly pressing and even less likely to be solved...

...Malacca fell to them in 1511 and its sultan fled east on the peninsula to establish the kingdom of Johore, which subsequently devoted itself largely to competing with Acheh for hegemony over the smaller principalities of Sumatra, Borneo and the peninsula...

...There are also, from the vantage point of Jakarta, some sound economic grounds for the confrontation...

...From 1294 to the end of the 15th century, the Javanese empire of Majapahit held sway over much of the Indonesian archipelago and beyond...

...Nor is the trade boycott, which is probably more immediately injurious to Indonesia than to Malaysia, merely a species of irrational nationalism...

...In the 13th century Kertanegara, famed as Java's first empire-builder, is reputed to have sent a successful expedition to conquer Sumatra and much of the coast of Malaya...

...If he cannot profit substantively from an international encounter, he must at least dominate it symbolically...

...More important in long-range economic terms, though, are the different approaches to economic development adopted by Malaysia and Indonesia...

...But Malaysian planning includes provisions for in_increased assistance that will, it is anticipated, encourage and enable ethnic Malaysians to assume a stronger economic role than they have at present...

...He has carefully cultivated Indonesia's self-image as the dominant state in this region...

...The tendency is to view countries emerging from colonial control as having lived in political limbo until the first European administrators imposed order upon them...

...American officials and their advisors supported Sukarno's campaign for Irian in the first place out of fear and hope fear of the potential role of Moscow or Peking, and hope that with the attainment of this objective Sukarno would subside into a "reasonable" concern with Indonesia's economic situation...

...According to Indonesian tradition, frequently invoked by Sukarno and particularly propagated by the late Muhammed Yamin, Indonesian historian, Cabinet member and ideologist of "Guided Democracy," the Empire of Majapahit controlled the larger part of the Malayan peninsula as well as Borneo...

...Yet "modem" colonialism in Southeast Asia was actually a brief, if traumatic, interregnum...

...And just as the prospect of their princess' marriage to a Spaniard rekindled Dutch memories of relations with Spain in the 16th century, and de Gaulle sometimes gives the impression that the Hundred Years' War still rages, ancient Asian enmities are reflected in contemporary conflicts...

...And since native managerial and technical talent is similarly scarce, important sectors of production have suffered...

...Particularly after the psychological slights of colonialism, the peoples of this area derive much of their sense of importance from the external recognition accorded their leaders...

...Malacca became the indisputable center of trade running from India to the Moluccas...

...And the less a leader supplies in other dimensions, the more value this vicarious satisfaction assumes as a political asset in the eyes of his followers...

...For, after all, anti-colonialism is a more palatable and morally defensible ground for opposition to an Asian neighbor than old enmity and new power rivalry...

...Much has been made of the personal antagonism between Indonesia's President and Malaysia's Prime Minister as a critical factor in the confrontation between the two countries...

...In this context, the anti-Malaysia campaign is not solely a device to avoid confronting Indonesia 's economic problems...

...But one must probe somewhat deeper to appreciate the extent to which these leaders (and the press in each country) have come to despise each other...

...Because economic warfare could be waged with concealed weapons and without publicity, its battles were not easily visible to the public eye...

...Sukarno has long seen himself, and encouraged his people to see him, as the international spokesman for Southeast Asia...

...Like de Gaulle, he has the advantage of being the last survivor of a heroic period...

...The threat to their predominance, Indonesians feel, has arisen not from "natural competitive circumstances" but through the "intervention" of the British, presumably backed by much of the West...

...When the revolutionary government suffered a military defeat, its leaders had little difficulty in gaining political asylum in Malaya and Singapore from where some continued to direct opposition efforts...

...For over seven centuries the rulers of the peninsula now called Malaya ANN R. WILLNER, who has spent six years in the Far East, mostly in Indonesia, is a political scientist at Princeton's Center for International Studies...

...Those familiar with Indonesian and Malayan traditions of dance and duel are aware of the gestures and rituals of psychological intimidation of the opponent...

...If we are to develop an effective policy for coping with Indonesia's current stance_rather than merely reacting to anti-American provocations_we might begin by attempting to understand the situation as it looks from the perspective of Jakarta...

...and those of the archipelago now called Indonesia have confronted each other across the straits of Malacca and the South China Sea in one or another form of rivalry, war, subjugation or commercial competition...

...Having been converted to Islam, it was also responsible for the spread of this religion to Sumatra, Java and other parts of the archipelago and surrounding peninsula...

...but basically his is a defensive hostility, born from resentment and bred out of fear...

...One suspects that Sukarno and Abdul Rahman understand each other's symbolic communications...

...Then Tun Perak, a Malaccan ruler noted for his military prowess, brought several Sumatran principalities under his control...

...Other successful charismatic leaders and modern fathers of their nations have died or disappeared from the political scene: U Nu of Burma has been forcibly retired from public life...

...Such explanations merely skim the surface of the conflict...

...In Indonesian eyes, Abdul Rahman and Malaysia represent an "intrusion" which has not even been legitimized by a revolutionary struggle and the complete cutting of the colonial umbilical cord...

...For it will be a long time before Indonesian economic efforts alone can narrow the gap between the two nations' rates of growth, and Indonesia is taking whatever actions it can to inhibit Malaysia's further advantage promised by her greater resources...

...But it is not his personal vanity or incipient megalomania alone that goads him on to belligerency: Had he laced with passivity the prospect of being overshadowed from the North, he might also have to face the possibility of a challenge to his domestic political survival...

...As seen from Jakarta, Malaya itself offers a potential political threat to Indonesia's fragile national unity...

...Since private capital is scarce, public control is predominant in this nominally "mixed" economy...

...However much Sukarno and his countrymen may decry Malaysia's method as little more than the concealed colonialism Indonesia discarded, the visible economic benefits it produces so close to home make Indonesia's interim losses all the more painful...

...Washington has undoubtedly assisted him in maintaining the aura of his international importance...

...Both countries are major suppliers of rubber and tin...

...The apparent peace that prevailed in the latter stages of the colonial interregnum reflected not so much an absence of conflict as an almost exclusive intensification of its economic element...

...If an important representative of a major power could plead with him, Sukarno could hardly do less than graciously comply temporarily...

...The somewhat unexpected rise of Tunku Abdul Rahman and Malaysia thus threatens both his personal prestige and the national prestige of Indonesia...

...While Indonesia's output and exports of these products have shown signs of stagnation and decline, Malaya's record has been impressive...

...Some observers have noted that Sukarno's overt attacks on Abdul Rahman as a "tool" of British colonialism preceded the expression of Malaysian animosity toward Sukarno and exceed it in emotional intensity...

...Yet generally these territories are old nations with new boundaries, where past history and myths that pass for history_are being revived to reaffirm old identities...

...Sukarno's successful experience in pursuit of Irian (or West New Guinea) seemed to prove to him that persistence is a most potent political weapon...

...Certainly, the differences between Sukarno and Tunku Abdul Rah man in personality, style of leadership, approach to problems and ideological orientation are sufficient to have generated mutual incompatibility and distaste...

...Thus Sukarno maintains that his opposition to an extra peninsular Malaysia is not unwarranted expansionism but rather a preventive defense posture...

...Added to this is the fact that Indonesian authorities have never managed to stop the smuggling of large supplies of rubber and copra to Singapore and Malayan ports...

...To the commercial advantages inherent in the geographical location of these ports was added the incentive of investments in the interior particularly in plantation and modern industrial production...

...The Indonesian Communist party may be pushing the same line for its own objectives, but it is hardly likely that Sukarno and his colleagues have suddenly developed a genuine fear of the British...

...Magsaysay's meteoric career was tragically cut short and subsequent Filipino leaders have lacked his dynamism...

...This means a continuation, at least in the near future, of the dominant positions held by foreign private investors and non-Malaysian domestic groups, such as the economically powerful Chinese business community...

...In their cultural traditions, religious affiliations, economic orientation and international political sympathies, many Sumatran groups tend to be closer to Malayans than to their Javanese countrymen...

...Sukarno is certainly vulnerable to the accusations of vainglory that have recently been hurled at him...

...In any country, including ours, the size of the shadow a leader casts beyond his own borders can affect his native political popularity...

...Robert Kennedy's flight to Tokyo to ask Sukarno to cease and desist in Malaysia was a dramatic display to the Indonesian people and to the world at large of the attention their leader could command...

...In addition, there was an advantage in having commercial profits undiluted by the costs of military ventures, which a public at home might no longer be willing to support...

...Watching Western, and especially American, responses to Nasser and other Afro-Asian leaders, he could hardly expect that he alone would be treated as beyond the bounds of tolerance...

...Diem is gone, nor did he count much outside Vietnam...

...In Southeast Asian tradition, moreover, leadership is a gift of the gods and deference is one of its visible manifestations...

...The 1958 revolt against the Javanese-dominated Indonesian government began in Central Sumatra, an area whose pre-colonial ties with Malaya had been far closer than those with Java...

...By the 16th century, a new challenge from the archipelago arose in the form of Acheh, in the north of Sumatra, whose sultans were rapidly extending their sway southward...

...Sukarno cannot afford to lose his renown as a force to be reckoned with, least of all in his own backyard...

...For perhaps a thousand years, what is today Palembang was the seat of the Sumatran seapower of Shrivijaya, known to scholars as far as China and India as a center of Buddhist learning as well as a center of trade...

...If Sumatran disaffection is still a possibility_and it may well be_a Malaysia that is not only culturally allied but now territorially nearer than before could exert a powerful and dangerous pull...

...Indonesia, on the other hand, is engaged in a risky long-range transformation of its economic power structure whose short-range costs are proving to be very high...

...Sarit is dead and no substitute of his stature has yet emerged in Thailand...

...Still, it is doubtful that Indonesian "invasions" of Malaysian territory by handfuls of men are intended as a prelude to a massive military move...

...Throughout the later colonial period, the cities of Batavia (now Jakarta) in western Java and Singapore at the foot of the Malayan peninsula symbolized the silent struggle for economic supremacy waged between the Dutch and the British...

...The danger is that British and American unfamiliarity with Southeast Asia's past and present ways might help turn this shadow battle into the real thing, and ultimately precipitate Sukarno's enticement into, or surrender to, a straitjacket made in Peking...

...The restoration of political leadership to native rulers has resulted in the activation of other, more bellicose elements of this traditional rivalry...

...Malaysia has maintained intact the colonial economic structure as a base upon which to build...

...At least in part, therefore, the current dispute between Malaysia and Indonesia is the outgrowth of a historical confrontation whose political, military, territorial and economic aspects have been interlinked for centuries...

...Initially threatened by Thailand on the west and China on the east, the Prince and his successors managed to play off these rival influences against each other and insure Malacca's independence...

...Significantly, the spectre of the British presence is only being raised as the British withdraw in Malaysia's favor...

...An economist would characterize the recent course of Indonesia's economy as deterioration rather than development...

...The Nagarakertagame, the most famous pre-colonial Javanese literary work extant, lists many principalities in those areas whose rulers sent tribute to their Majapahit rulers...

...Sumatran legend, however, has it that Malacca's development dates from the time it came to be ruled by a Sumatran prince who fled there from Java with his bride, a Majapahit princess...

...Both campaigns are defense strategies-albeit circuitous ones...

...Thus to Sukarno, the Indonesian-Malaysian confrontation is not a new phenomenon...

...The notion persists, too, that the so-called "new nations" are engaged in a "search for identity...

...Political attitudes have a way of surviving, if only in the subconscious, long after the circumstances that created them have disappeared...

...Majapahit and Shrivijaya seem to have faded into relative obscurity as Malacca on the Malayan coast became heir to their seapower and commercial supremacy...

...But if Washington harbored any expectations that the Kennedy mission would bear permanent fruit, it is because Washington has refused to face up to the implications of its own appeasement of Sukarno...

...The contrasts also make it more difficult for Indonesian leaders to convince their people of the necessity for continued material deprivation...

...This is the sense in which official Indonesia has now raised the cry of colonialism against the British...

...Spices were supplanted by tin, rubber, copra and petroleum, and local inhabitants were uprooted from more traditional pursuits to produce these for their rival commercial and political overlords...

...Nevertheless, the British returned in the 19th century to take over Malaya and the confrontation continued, if on somewhat less dramatic dimensions...

...Meanwhile, the first Europeans, the Portuguese, had appeared on the scene to trade, convert and conquer...

...His withdrawal from the United Nations is partly the product of his outrage at frustrated expectations...

...If only by default, Sukarno came to dominate the stage of Southeast Asia...

...THINKING ALOUD The View from Jakarta By Ann R. Willner Most explanations of Indonesia's aggressive posture toward Malaysia have tended to stress internal and external Communist pressures on Southeast Asia's most populous country and President Sukarno's fondness for foreign scapegoats...

...In the 17th century, the Dutch won the struggle for control of the sea routes and the rich spice trade...

...The tensions inside Indonesia which produced the regional insurrection had long been latent and have not yet disappeared...

...The competitive production pattern of the colonial period continues...

...Ownership and management of major segments of production and distribution are being transferred from foreign and local Chinese hands to Indonesians...

...They contribute little more to understanding its origins than does the tendency to label Sukarno irrational or paranoid...