Journal of Contemporary Asia, 2015

Vol. 45, No. 3, 371–393, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00472336.2014.978352

Optimism and Education: The New Ideology

of Development in Indonesia
PAUL K. GELLERT
Department of Sociology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA

ABSTRACT Based on ethnographic field research conducted in Jakarta, this article argues that
there is a new ideology of development in Indonesia that is cosmopolitan, nostalgic and individu-
alist. To understand the new ideology, a historical sociological perspective is taken to examine the
nationalist period of anti-colonial struggle, the state developmentalist period of Soeharto’s New
Order, and the neoliberal period since 1998. Two interrelated arguments are made. First, the
ideology of development in Indonesia has changed from earlier nationalist understandings of
Pancasila to a cosmopolitan neoliberal ideology based in a nostalgic nationalism. Second, a
modernist Islamic perspective on secularism and Islam both supports and is supported by this
ideological shift. These arguments are illuminated through two examples of the advance of cosmo-
politan neoliberal ideology: optimism and education. Optimism is focused on individual integrity to
redress Indonesia’s problems with corruption. Education is offered by optimists as the escalator to
development. Empirically, the Indonesia Mengajar programme of sending young university gradu-
ates to teach elementary school in remote parts of the country is examined for its neo-modernisa-
tionist assumptions. The article concludes that this dominant ideology abandons earlier solidaristic
forms of nationalism and holds little hope for addressing the vast structural inequalities in
Indonesia.

KEY WORDS: Ideology, Indonesia, elites, education, individualism, neo-modernisation, neoliberalism

One early evening in 2011, Anies Baswedan, Rector of Paramadina University, stood
smiling in front of a new cohort of graduate students on the 22nd floor of the Medco
Energy Building, located in the financial heart of Jakarta, in the Sudirman Central
Business District, intriguingly known by the Indonesian pronounced acronym for its
English name SCBD, that is, “ess-chay-bay-day.” Other buildings in the neighbour-
hood, theoretically within walking distance (although almost no one does walk), include
the World Bank and the Jakarta Stock Exchange as well as banks, luxury hotels and
malls. He was dressed, as usual, impeccably in a tie and jacket. As he began his
presentation in English, intended to inspire and welcome a new cohort of graduate
students in the master’s programmes, Pak Anies pointed out the window at the view of
shiny new glass office buildings in the Sudirman Central Business District and
observed: “we should be optimistic. This is a place where we feel optimistic about
Indonesia.”1 To cosmopolitans such as Baswedan, Indonesia has already arrived and
should be taken seriously by the world. There are multiple indicators that he and his

Correspondence Address: Department of Sociology, University of Tennessee, 911 McClung Tower, Knoxville,
Tennessee 37996, USA. Email: pgellert@utk.edu

© 2014 Journal of Contemporary Asia

372 P. K. Gellert

peers pointed to: growth, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, and the presence of
glass and concrete skyscrapers.
His optimism was working against the stream of public concern about various social
and economic crises plaguing the country – as he was well aware. He noted that “people,”
and especially Indonesians, are usually pessimistic and negative about Indonesia. It was
not clear who exactly was included in the term “people” and whether it was meant to
focus exclusively on intellectuals or more broadly on urban cosmopolitan elites. “If you
ask someone to name the top five problems facing Indonesia,” he continued, “you will
easily get an answer. But if you ask them to name the top five achievements of Indonesia,
it’s harder.” This observation was met with hearty and knowing laughter by the admin-
istrators, faculty and students.
During the course of an academic year at Paramadina University, I was to hear several
different versions of the same message from Baswedan.2 His perennial optimism, not to
mention his almost constant dress in Western attire of pressed white shirt and tie, was an
object of pride for the self-proclaimed “little giant” private university. The optimism was
infectious and served him and the other leaders well, both internally in trying to build
community and externally in trying to attract donations from Indonesian conglomerates,
and recently philanthropists, to support the growth of the university, its fellowships
programmes, and an inspirational educational programme called Indonesia Mengajar
(literally, Indonesia Teaches) that sends university graduates to remote regions of
Indonesia.
I begin with this vignette to set the scene for an analysis of the new ideology of
development in contemporary Indonesia, which is attempting to re-work national under-
standings of development. The contours of this simultaneously neo-modernisationist and
neoliberal ideology include three elements. First, this ideology is cosmopolitan in its
outlook. Following Roudometof (2005, 113), “Cosmpolitanism has been used as a new
moral and ethnic standpoint suitable for 21st-century global life; but it has also been
criticised as a manifestation of the mentality of the upper and middle classes.”3 Second, it
is nostalgic in its attempts to re-invigorate elements of the Pancasila vision that lost their
lustre due to the top-down approach of the New Order period. It is also, by implication,
nostalgic for the high growth and centralised command of the Soeharto regime, and this
nostalgia ironically includes the centralised control over official and culturally condoned
or justified corruption, with the attendant benefits of ensured predictability for investors.
Third, it is individualist in its calls for personal integrity and its (undue) praise for the
developmental potential of the so-called “escalator” of education to uplift all citizens and
thereby address all the shortcomings of twenty-first-century Indonesian society.
To understand the new ideology of development, this article takes a historical socio-
logical perspective on changes in ideology across three historical periods. The historical
periods examined are the nationalist period of anti-colonial struggle running from the
early twentieth century through independence and until Sukarno’s fall in 1966; the state
developmentalist period from the violent killings that ushered in 32 years of authoritarian
rule under Soeharto until 1998; and the neoliberal period from 1998 through to the
present, especially the two terms of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s presidency (2004–
14). In the realm of ideology, this periodisation is fluid as debates and contestation occur
in each period. However, the periods serve as useful historical markers for the ideological
perspectives of elites and dominant classes.
 The New Ideology of Development in Indonesia 373

Emphasising the most recent period, I put forth two inter-related central arguments in
this article. First, the ideology of development in Indonesia has changed to a cosmopolitan
neoliberalism based in a nostalgic nationalism. Second, and corollary to this argument, a
modernist Islamic perspective on secularism and Islam both supports and is supported by
this ideological shift. These arguments are illuminated through two examples of the
advance of cosmopolitan neoliberal ideology: optimism and education. For policy-making
elites in the capital, Jakarta, addressing corruption via optimism and social disparities via
education can be seen as addressing “the problems” of development in the twenty-first
century. However, from a critical perspective, they represent diversions from the vast
structural inequalities.
In the first example, the spread of an attitude of optimism – about the future and about
individual Indonesian life chances, to use Max Weber’s term – is examined. These
chances are assumed to vary as individuals attempt to fit into occupational niches, become
rich and become cosmopolitan. Furthermore, there is a culture of consumption that is
prevalent among the wealthy who can afford it but promoted to those who cannot. More
precisely, I argue that an ideological position on consumption is being used to dominate
Indonesian society. Optimism represents a forward-looking and pro-change attitude, but it
is an element of a reformist political and ideological project that shies away from more
radical change. What is required for optimism is a belief that the society basically
functions well and, with just minor tweaking, could be even better. In this example, I
hone in on modernist (Muslim) appeals to integrity to address Indonesia’s crisis.
In the second example, education is offered by optimists as the path by which society
can achieve development and, thereby, the proper level of optimism associated with
development. Education is a significant area of government spending in Indonesia,
following a 2002 constitutional amendment requiring at least 20% of the budget be
allocated to education (Suryadarma and Jones 2013; World Bank 2013). With a proper
education, elites assume that all citizens will find a place in twenty-first century Indonesia.
As such, they will join these elites in their optimism about the country’s future. In this
section of the article, the focus is on Indonesia Mengajar, an organisation similar to Teach
for America that encourages the best Indonesian university graduates to volunteer to teach
elementary school for a year in remote parts of the country. This organisation-cum-social
movement is built on a foundation of neoliberal ideology with considerable continuities
from the New Order period (Newberry 2010; Shiraishi 1996).
The argument is that twenty-first-century Indonesia is embracing a developmental
ideology that merges elements of old modernisation theory, such as universalism, ahis-
toricism, ethnocentrism and teleology (Peet and Hartwick 2009, 103–133), with a new
global sensibility of fitting into global market niches and discourses around development
that have proven, time and again, to be “delusional” (Carroll 2010). In this neoliberal
denial of class, there is a place and opportunity for everyone in the hierarchical society.
For some readers it may seem unusual to base an analysis of development and ideology
in Indonesia on research at a university. Yet Indonesian academics have an unusual
position in their society (Hadiz and Dhakidae 2005). On the one hand, Indonesian
academics rarely have time for peer-reviewed academic publishing yet are frequently
invited to participate in public fora, at universities and non-governmental organisations,
and on television and radio (Hadiz and Dhakidae 2005, xvii). On the other hand,
especially during the New Order, there was an “embedding of academia in bureaucracy”
in Indonesia as experts were recruited to advisory and ministry positions (Hadiz and
374 P. K. Gellert

Dhakidae 2005, 7). Moreover, Rector Baswedan has been touted as a potential candidate
for president. Given these multiple roles of academics, spending time in a Jakarta-based
university is, in fact, an enlightening base from which to analyse contemporary streams of
discourse that form the ideology of development.
The remainder of the article is organised as follows: in the first section, ideology and its
importance for understanding Indonesian development in the different historical periods is
briefly discussed. Then, this discussion is used as a springboard to examine three
historical periods in the evolution of the national ideology, called Pancasila. In the section
that follows, the article turns to an exposition of two aspects of the neoliberal cosmopo-
litan ideology. The first is the individual and moralistic way in which the country’s
troubles with corruption are addressed within modernist Muslim circles such that the
so-called excesses of consumption are countered by producing ethical individuals of
integrity. The second is the Indonesia Mengajar programme. Both examples illustrate
the individualised and neoliberal mode in which development is widely understood. The
conclusion briefly addresses the silences that this new ideology embodies with regard to
class, including the potential emergence of a transnational capitalist class, and inequality.

Pancasila Ideology and Development: Nationalism, Developmentalism and

Cosmopolitanism
What does it mean to refer to Indonesia’s national ideology? Ideology has a long and
controversial history in the social and political sciences, as many scholars have noted (see
Putnam 1971; Gerring 1997). An ideology can be defined as “a system of ideas arrived at
through education, socialization, and debate” (Oliver and Johnston 2000, 49). In this
definition, it is distinct from frames, which are malleable in rather utilitarian ways like
marketing approaches. Distinguishing ideologies and frames allows one to examine how
“the same frame [can be] tied to diametrically opposed ideologies” (Oliver and Johnston
2000, 39, original emphasis).
In Indonesia, we can see that the master frame of nationalism has been flexibly applied
to (and by) adherents of different religious and ideological positions, the latter including
communist, socialist, liberal, developmentalist and neoliberal ideologies. This article is
also influenced by Marxist approaches to ideology, which identify ideology firmly with a
particular class position and interest. Such approaches have eroded in favour of those that
highlight looser ties to a socially significant group or class. However, scholars across the
political spectrum agree that ideology bolsters structures of domination (Gerring 1997,
971). As Oliver and Johnston (2000, 51) conclude, “ideology theory has always grappled
with the relation between people’s material conditions or material experiences and their
ideologies. Theorists of ideology have suggested that class or other material interests
might underlie belief systems.” Considering the importance of such material interests to
ideologies, nationalism in its particular expression as state developmentalism and as
cosmopolitanism are also ideologies that have garnered adherents at different historical
periods.
Pancasila, which is often viewed as the Indonesian national ideology, was forged
before the nation gained independence and served as a foundation for the struggle against
the colonists. The five (panca) principles (sila) were originally formulated under
Sukarno’s leadership in the 1940s as a flexible frame – belief in one God; just and
civilised humanism; the unity of Indonesia; deliberative democracy; and social justice.
 The New Ideology of Development in Indonesia 375

The meaning of Pancasila development, however, has been highly contested. At its start,
many referred to it as a compromise between secularists and those advocating an Islamic
state (Azra 2008, 116). At the height of the New Order in the 1980s and 1990s, Pancasila
development became an ideological programme of the Soeharto government. For the
current generation of youth, Pancasila may feel more like something out of the past
because education, or indoctrination, in the tenets of Pancasila was no longer required
following Soeharto’s fall. However, in the last couple of years, amid public discussion of
corruption and other scandals, the older generations of political elites have re-invigorated
debate on Pancasila as the foundational philosophy, going back to its roots in 1945
independence and earlier, and re-introducing it into schools.

Independence Era Origins

Like other post-colonial states, Indonesia was born in nationalism, and in the 1950s
nationalism was “triumphant” (Schulte Nordholt 2011). Less than two decades before
independence was declared in 1945, the 1928 Congress of Indonesian Youth was very
important in establishing the principle of “one people, one nation, one language” among
Indonesian youth. The youth held what Anderson (1972, 18) regards as an “explicit
ideology of Indonesian nationalism,” but beneath that nationalist frame, they held to
various ideologies. During this period, Pancasila was also constructed as a flexible
frame within which political parties and religious groups could come together to build a
new Indonesia. The central debate among nationalists in the 1920s and 1930s was around
the role of Islam as a “natural tie” among 85% of the people versus a more “religiously
neutral” nationalism as the basis for the new nation (Kahin 2013, 192). In his famous
1925 essay “Nationalism, Islam, and Marxism” the future first President of Indonesia
Sukarno advocated a “harmonisation” of nationalism, religion (Islam) and communism (or
Nasakom). Islam and communism could also be found united in Tan Malaka’s views,
which combined opposition to colonialism and to capitalism (Hadiz 2011, 13–14).
Mohammad Natsir offered an anti-authoritarian vision of Islam and democracy; he
attempted to defend the role of Islam and opposed “the ‘ideologization’ of kebangsaan
[Indonesian for nation or nationalism] while embracing its anti-colonial characteristics”
(Kahin 2013, 195).
The disagreements were largely resolved via the so-called Jakarta Charter that removed
reference to the establishment of Syariah Islam (Islamic law) from the 1945 Constitution.
As Sukarno’s view triumphed politically, a unified understanding emerged of Indonesia
standing up to the powers of the West and attempting to forge its own path to develop-
ment against the strength of imperialist exploitation. It did so in part by joining the path of
non-alignment between the “choices” of East and West (Barker 2008). Importantly,
Sukarno also made populist appeals to the masses of peasants and workers and positioned
himself as a representative of the people and as penyambung lidah rakyat (the voice of the
people) (Siegel 1998).

New Order Developmentalism

Pancasila was profoundly transformed during the New Order. Emerging out of the
political battles of the 1960s and Sukarno’s attempts to unify a country in which religious
and ethnic differences were immense, Soeharto sought to change Pancasila from a
376 P. K. Gellert

flexible foundation into the sole ideology of national development. As many have noted
but which is nonetheless worth repeating, the New Order was forged in mass killings and
violence in 1965–66 (Roosa 2006; Wieringa 2011). In a change from earlier alliances
between social democratic and socialist parties and Islamic groups, the violent killings of
1965 were carried out not only by the army but in significant numbers by Muslims against
those thought to be affiliated with the Indonesian Communist Party. Before the violence
subsided, middle- and upper-class Indonesians formed a “broad elite coalition that arose in
initial support of the Soeharto regime” (Slater 2010, 141). Although the middle class of
students, professionals and business people may be “difficult to incorporate” into political
pacts, Slater (2010, 172) finds their “broadly shared interest in political stability” made
them reliable supporters of a regime that went on to rule for 32 years.
If Sukarno’s nationalism was anti-imperialist, Soeharto’s was anti-communist and pro-
West. Soeharto never invoked “the people” but instead positioned himself as the Father of
Development (Bapak Pembangunan) (Heryanto 1988). Indonesian development moved
from what Slater (2010) dubs “protection” to “provision” in that it was providing for the
needs of middle and upper classes through expanded social services, including cheap
education. Education, however, was reduced significantly to a required school curriculum
taught through rote memorisation and including lessons in Pancasila that were a kind of
indoctrination in correct thinking.
Famously, Indonesia’s economic growth averaged 6% through the period. The material
well-being of elites was secured and unified up until very shortly before Soeharto’s fall by
a system of bagi-bagi (sharing) in which oligarchic wealth was created by skimming it off
from projects and investments and spreading the wealth among those with power (Winters
2011, 143–144, 177). In pursuing material interests, Soeharto created a “sultanistic
oligarchy” that provided sufficient material wealth for elites to secure their political
support (Winters 2011). In the 1990s, as the oligarchy became more personalistic and
with Soeharto’s children demanding higher shares of project payouts, the cohesion of
elites diminished.
To undergird the broad change in developmental trajectory of the New Order, Soeharto
constructed a supporting ideology. Some observers have rejected the notion that Pancasila
was or is an ideology, but its specificity and its connection to particular material interests
in this period make it one. King (1982, 111) avers, “the Panca Sila should not be labelled
an ideology (even a rudimentary one) because of its original instrumental character (a
compromise establishing limits on parties), lack of logical consistency (one, supreme God
vs. democracy), and lack of any future orientation.” Ward (2010, e-page) adds, “Given the
non-specificity and vagueness of its principles, one can also see Pancasila as merely a
slogan or a talisman.” However, these attributes are not the defining ones of ideology.
Moreover, in Soeharto’s view,

[i]f Pancasila was no more than an umbrella or receptacle (wadah), the adherents of
those ideologies would ape the PKI [Indonesian Communist Party] and exploit their
position of shelter under the Pancasila umbrella, all the while keeping their own
separate ideological identities. As a result, the country would be riven by conflict.
The only solution was for Pancasila to be the sole ideology or basis for Indonesian
political and social organisations, replacing all other ideologies (Ward 2010, e-page).
 The New Ideology of Development in Indonesia 377

Soeharto’s ideology centred on the adoption of modernisation theory assumptions,

including its universalist and ahistorical perspective (for example, in memorising the
five silas) and its teleological destination of a high mass consumption society, ethnocen-
trically conceived along the lines of Western values. During the Cold War, modernisation
theory emerged in response to leftist inspired nationalisations around the world and
offered ideological cover for a more direct form of development by multinational corpora-
tions (Peet and Hartwick 2009, 131). Modernisation theory has an “implicitly a-political,
even anti-political, nature” (Hadiz and Dhakidae 2005, 13). Because it is more of an
ideology than a theory, academic “corrections” have proven insufficient to overturn it, but
as ideology, therefore, it continues to be useful to political leaders (see Peet and Hartwick,
2009, 140).
The leaders of the New Order denied the political aspect of Pancasila democracy by a
ritualised and formalistic electoral process in which “nothing, as it were, happens”
(Pemberton 1994, 4). In a staunchly anti-communist ally of the West like Indonesia,
with its diversity of ethnic and religious minorities and conflicts, the apolitical stance was
clearly different from Singapore’s. Nonetheless, briefly considering an unusual compar-
ison with this neighbouring small city-state is useful. Pragmatic emphasis on technocratic
ability was promoted by Lee Kwan Yew as “non-ideological” in a state that has the third
highest per capita income based on tremendous trade and finance. Indonesia has nowhere
near Singapore’s level of economic development, yet Soeharto took Lee’s idea further. In
Hadiz and Dhakidae’s (2005, 13) words, “the system itself [the bureaucracy] became the
metonym for modernity…The system became the state,” in a form of what Jayasuriya
(1998) terms “reactionary modernization.” Modernisation was meant to bring its citizens
out of their allegedly isolated and traditional lifestyles and beliefs. But, without recogni-
tion of the long histories of contact and negotiation over the meaning of modernity, this
perspective frequently froze Indonesians into a primitive moment in a mythical past –
“before development” (Rutherford 2003; Li 2007).
Furthermore, Indonesia’s ideology under the New Order can be analysed as an “anti-
ideological ideology” with surprising similarities to Singapore’s ideology of pragmatism.
As Tan (2012, 68) explains, “By doggedly describing itself as pragmatic, the Singapore
state is actually disguising its ideological work and political nature through an assertion of
the absence of ideology and politics.” Similarly, by repeatedly describing itself as a
Pancasila state, the New Order state disguised its ideological intentions, as well as its
birth in violence. The vague principles of Pancasila were codified in a variety of ways by
the New Order. After the so-called normalisation of university campuses following
student protests in 1978, for example, the Directive for the Internalisation and
Implementation of Pancasila (Pedoman Penghayatan dan Pengamalan Pancasila or P4)
curriculum was extended to the university level (Hadiz and Dhakidae 2005).
To be sure, New Order Pancasila differed from Singaporean pragmatism, especially
because Singapore’s pragmatism relied on its far greater national wealth. For example, the
policy to “peg the salaries of ministers and top civil servants salaries to the highest private
sector salaries” in the 1990s, is unfathomable in Indonesia (Tan 2012, 77). Instead,
Soeharto relied on loyalty from his officials, as well as occasionally the private sector,
while effectively condoning corruption in the government’s ministries. He made propa-
gandistic efforts to spread his word, including regular televised broadcasts with farmers in
rural villages on the state television station. During these broadcasts, Soeharto would offer
his message through staged question-and-answer sessions, rather than any real dialogue
378 P. K. Gellert

with the audience. The basic message of these sessions was one of offering guidance so
that the peasants, who were constructed as ignorant and tradition-bound, would adopt new
technologies and become “modern.” Pancasila development’s alleged positive impact on
equality was disingenuously lauded by the Indonesian Association of Economists who
“demonstrated how economic democracy, as practiced under Pancasila, was in accor-
dance with both the principles of the market and social egalitarian ideals…by resorting to
intellectual acrobatics” (Hadiz and Dhakidae 2005, 8).
During the waning years of the New Order, opposition to Soeharto and the social
dislocation, poverty and inequality resulting from his regime’s policies were growing,
especially in some Muslim circles. In response, a new organisation, the Association of
Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals (ICMI), became a tool of Soeharto to maintain his regime.
ICMI was intended to provide “a route to bureaucratic power for members of the new
Muslim middle class that had emerged during the process of modernisation and which had
developed new aspirations” (Hadiz 2011, 23). Although ICMI was intended to assuage these
opponents, there is a “less generous conclusion” regarding Soeharto’s attitudes – and elite
attitudes generally – towards Islam: “Soeharto’s religious policies were animated less by an
enduring commitment to Javanism or Pancasila tolerance than by cold calculations as to
what was required to defeat opponents and remain in power” (Hefner 2000, 129).
While many Muslims were not comfortable with the direction of the New Order and
maintained deep mistrust towards Soeharto, others began to embrace modernisation and
the opportunities it might provide for middle-class and professional Muslims. The con-
tributions of Muslim intellectuals like Nurcholis Madjid were vital to this move. As a
follower of modernisation theorist Robert Bellah, he invariably cited Bellah’s work in his
own, as part of an effort to build a Muslim Indonesian understanding of the inevitability
and compatibility between modernisation and Islam. In a particularly controversial inter-
vention, Madjid attempted to delineate a distinction between modernisation and
Westernisation, or between secularisation and secularism (Hefner 2000). In brief, his
view was that capitalist modernity’s usual partner – secularism – could be replaced by
Islamic beliefs and still thrive. In other words, there is and should be no contradiction
between capitalist secularism and Islamic beliefs. This liberalised notion of Islam has
proven more enticing in the post-New Order period.

Post-New Order Freedom, Cosmopolitan Consumption and Pancasila nostalgia

In the 15 years of electoral democracy since Soeharto’s 1998 resignation, there has been a
shift from Pancasila as state developmentalist ideology to a more cosmopolitan elite
ideology. This new national ideology is cosmopolitan with openness to wealth, overt
consumption and placeless ambitions (Leeuwen 2011). It includes a transnationalism that
has its roots in the openness to foreign investment and finance and also in the nationalism
of the New Order (Sidel 2012, 132). In reaction to three decades of authoritarian control,
many clambered to reject the imposition of the New Order version of Pancasila. In
education, Law 20 of 2003 was passed during the presidency of Sukarno’s daughter,
Megawati, and led to the replacement of Pancasila in school curricula by classes on
religion and citizenship. However, placeless cosmopolitanism has led to a nostalgia for
Pancasila, if not outright nostalgia for Soeharto.4
Hyper-consumption congeals middle-class and elite identity around an ideology of
bourgeois cosmopolitanism. Daily life in Jakarta and other urban centres is shaped by
 The New Ideology of Development in Indonesia 379

the time stuck in horrendous multi-hour commutes and traffic jams that affect all classes.
Two-thirds of GDP is from consumption. Being “lost in mall,” as Leeuwen (2011)
describes it, is the condition of the middle classes and elites, but it is also synonymous
with entering a utopian “placeless place” where there is “no poverty, only luxury”
(Schmidt 2012, 392). Mall-goers pepper their language with English and dress largely
in Western-style clothing, without any consciousness of earlier struggles against an
external enemy.5
In order for cosmopolitan ideology to take hold, a change in attitude needed to occur in
Indonesia, and it began in the New Order. Open and widespread hostility towards the rich,
who are no longer as predominantly Western and Chinese, has diminished, and there are
now more openly expressed desires to become rich (Heryanto 1999). Indeed, “the prestige
the new rich of Asia are now accorded in the upper reaches of society, both at home and
abroad” is impressive (Pinches 1999, 11). Increasingly, Indonesians have entered the
ranks of the world’s richest business people and are touted in global business magazines.6
A variety of television programmes prey on the desires of the poor and lower middle class
to move up the social hierarchy. Helmy Yahya’s “Uang Kaget” surprises poor people with
Rp 10 million and gives them 30 minutes to spend it while the camera rolls. Dubbed
versions of Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad, episodes explain why making money
is good and ethical and how formal education is less important than street smarts.
Beyond the voyeurism of television audiences watching the briefly met materialist
desires of select individuals, there does exist a wealthy class of highly educated
Indonesians. These business executives and skilled engineers are able to garner higher
salaries and bonuses by joining a global cadre of professionals. Indonesia has long been
known as a place where the “brain drain” does not occur. In the 1980s and early 1990s,
Indonesia was unusual among Asian labour-exporting countries for the almost complete
absence of permanent migration by persons with professional expertise or technical
qualifications (Narraya 1997, 12). Docquier and Rapoport (2012) find Indonesia has
one of the lowest rates of emigration of college graduates at 2.9%, which is 17th lowest
among all countries with populations over four million and far below China (3.8%) and
India (4.3%). There are several possible reasons for this contrast: qualified people are in
short supply at home and thus promoted; Indonesian qualifications are not yet as well
known globally; Indonesians are not as fluent in English; or, lastly, “the educated
Indonesians simply prefer the comforts of home, with a strong preference for their own
culture and environment and a sense of unease with the outside world” (Narraya
1997, 12).
However, this cultural unease may be changing. The first Indonesian to become chief
executive of a transnational oil services company has lived a rags-to-riches story and now
is remarkably cosmopolitan in his perspective. He shared his experience with master’s
degree students at Paramadina University in Jakarta in 2011, offering a de-nationalised
understanding of his career as he rose from oilfield worker in the Middle East and the
North Sea to executive and ultimately the number one position in the company’s
Indonesian office. He certainly impressed the students. Yet they were curious about his
nationalism and asked how his company might contribute to Indonesian development. His
reply was simply job creation by continuing to be a profitable global company. When
further pressed about whether he was now in his “dream job” and intended to finish his
career in Jakarta, his sharp reply was surprising: “No. If I’m still in this position in three
380 P. K. Gellert

years, I will have failed” (field notes, 2011). Jakarta, it seems, has become just another
stop on a transnational circuit of individual advance.
While 1950s nationalism aimed to further the anti-colonial revolution and was decid-
edly pro-people or pro-poor and New Order developmentalism was pro-growth, nation-
alism in the 2010s has evolved in a neoliberal direction (Schulte Nordholt 2011, 390).
This fits with a transformed ideology of developmentalism and modernisation as President
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (2011) defines it: “Our economic development must be pro
growth, pro job, pro poverty reduction and also pro environment. We have to achieve high
and sustainable growth without destroying our environment. That’s our ideology, that’s
our economic strategy” (emphasis added). Moreover, it is not at all solidaristic with the
lower strata of society, believing in World Bank-supported policies on cash hand-outs to
the poor and a broad Post-Washington Consensus view of development (Carroll 2010).
Dissatisfaction with disparities and the unevenness of economic development, as well
as political scandals and widespread corruption, however, have led to renewed public
debates about Pancasila. Politicians have spoken of the need to return to the roots or
philosophical basis (azas) of the nation. Pancasila education was re-introduced to schools
in 2012, amid public debate about pluralism and tolerance (The Jakarta Globe, October
17, 2012). Yudi Latif’s book Negara Paripurna (2011) recovers the lost history of
Pancasila as a philosophy that can unify the “state-nation.”7 In his book, Latif argues
that the new ideology of Indonesia incorporates simplifications, or reductions, of
Pancasila, and many of the public discussions rehearse tired versions of Pancasila as it
was during the New Order. In the wake of authoritarianism, Latif advocates an Indonesia
that respects deliberative democracy (musyawarah), including its original respect for
minority rights, and a European-style “Third Way” that would bring social welfare in
combination with the state overseeing the natural wealth of the country. In his careful
rendering of the continued relevance of Pancasila based on an understanding of its history
and rationality, Latif treads lightly on Sukarno’s socialist interpretation of the last sila
regarding the promotion of social justice. In Latif’s view, this sila is like an “epipheno-
menon in Indonesia.” It was only in 2012 that political elites such as Baswedan began to
invoke the fifth sila of social justice as the necessary condition for all others, as he did at
an evening book launch on June 12, 2012.
On justice, Indonesians appear hungry for alternatives. The clean and technocratically
capable image of new President Joko Widodo emerged from his time as mayor of the city of
Solo in Central Java, where his policy innovations led him to victory in 2012 as Governor of
Jakarta and then to the presidency in 2014. His opponent in the latter election, Prabowo
Soebianto, a former leader of the Special Forces, offered a mix of populist attention to rural
agriculturalists, firebrand nationalism and a risk of the militarisation of politics.

Cosmopolitanism and the Problems of Corruption and Education

While Indonesians may be searching for alternatives, some of those offered are indivi-
dualistic and conducive to the continuation of neoliberal cosmopolitan ideology.
Neoliberal cosmopolitanism is not so hegemonic as to exclude alternatives, and anti-
neoliberal groups have attempted to counter it. Keeping this in mind, this section
addresses the two most salient problems of contemporary Indonesia: corruption and
education. When he sought election to the presidency, Yudhoyono made both problems
central to his election campaigns and his agenda (van Klinken 2009). He appointed the
 The New Ideology of Development in Indonesia 381

first leader of the newly established Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) in 2009
and largely did not interfere with its authority, despite cases involving members of his
political party and ministers. He also followed the constitutional mandate, supported by
Law 20 of 2003 on the National Education System, to spend 20% of central and regional
budgets on education (Suryadarma and Jones 2013, 6). This goal was reached at the
national level in 2009, in significant part through spending at the upper levels of
education.
There is no doubt that Indonesia continues to face widespread corruption. Transparency
International (2013) rates Indonesia among the most corrupt countries in the world. In
addition, the World Bank continues to rate the “cost of doing business” as high in
Indonesia, due to corruption, as well as the supposed lack of “flexible” labour markets.
Indonesians, especially the educated elite, are bothered by corruption, too. A 2010
Kompas poll found that 39% rated corruption as the nation’s main challenge, and in a
more recent survey, university students rated corruption the country’s number one
problem.
Similarly, the lack of education is a serious issue. Soeharto’s government made primary
education a priority, supposedly achieving universal enrolment by 1983, yet those finish-
ing sixth grade reached just 66% in 1993 and 81% in 2007 (Suharti 2013). Fewer than
20% of elementary school teachers have a bachelor’s degree, the minimum qualification
set in 2005 (Suryahadi and Sambodho 2013, 144). The Yudhoyono government increased
spending, “channelling an additional 4.1 trillion Rupiah (US$380 million) to schools in
order to reduce the fees they usually charge to parents” (Meitzner 2009, 21). However,
Rosser and Joshi (2013, 182–183) demonstrate that fees have persisted due to insufficient
funding of schools, top-down and non-participatory school governance, and unwillingness
by state agencies to enforce the law against illegal fees. In this context of insufficient
response from government, it is striking that both corruption and education are addressed
in individualised ways.

Integrity versus Corruption?

Although KPK has garnered much attention for its arrests of corrupt officials, one of the
most common responses to corruption is an individualist call for integrity and moral
reform. In this way, the problems of Indonesia, particularly for modernist Muslims, are
deflected away from open recognition of political competition and money politics in the
deep institutional structures and politics of corruption and towards a politics of personal
integrity. This individualist stance was exemplified forcefully at a celebration in April
2011 in honour of the birthday of the late Muslim scholar Nurcholis Madjid at Paramadina
University, the university he founded. A series of seminars were held, beginning with
discussions of the many books of “Cak Nur,” as he is fondly called.
The week culminated in two evening seminars. The most intriguing was a session
entitled “Integritas Kepemimpinan Nasional: Syarat Pertama Mewujud Potensi Bangsa”
(The Integrity of National Leadership: First Condition to Realize the Potential of the
Nation). From beginning to end, the seminar was a celebration of the potential for Islam to
“be or follow modern[ity] too” (ikut modern juga), as one of the university rectors said in
his introductory remarks. In the closing presentation, Baswedan praised the work and
insights of Cak Nur in preparing Muslims to be healthy leaders in the practice of
democracy. In what he described as Madjid’s “secular inclusive” perspective, Baswedan
382 P. K. Gellert

raised again Madjid’s controversial contribution regarding the relationship between Islam,
secularisation and modernisation.
The distinction between secularisation and secularism was foundational to Nurcholis
Madjid’s perspective on the kind of modern individuals and civil society that could be
built in Indonesia (see Hefner 2000, 116–119). The name of the university that he
established, Paramadina, refers to the “civil society” (madina) he hoped to create, and it
was based firmly on the aspiration to create a “new (modern) Man” – whether or not the
students enrolled in 2011 realised it or not, according to one professor who spoke.
As part of his understanding of modernisation, Madjid was highly appreciative of the
role of individuals and leaders. His view was universalist, and considers integrity difficult
to measure. Nonetheless, as another speaker argued, his worldview, which was similar to
early philosophers, was that there was “not an economic or political crisis. Just a crisis of
integrity.” In a seminar focused on the future of Indonesian leadership, all speakers agreed
that the (potential) leaders of the country needed (more) integrity. As German-Indonesian
Jesuit priest Franz Magnes-Suseno noted in his presentation, “the problem is not with the
Indonesian people” but that Indonesia was “missing a leader who not only develops
Indonesia materially but also develops the Indonesian nation (kebangsaan).”
Related to promoting leaders of integrity, Paramadina University has pursued its niche
in higher education as a purveyor of an anti-corruption curriculum. Its curriculum uses a
large collection entitled Korupsi Mengorupsi Indonesia (Corruption Corrupts Indonesia)
(Wijayanto and Zachri 2009). The collection’s title that personifies corruption itself as an
agent that is corrupting Indonesia comes from Magnis-Suseno, who then focuses on
reform of individuals as the best way to address this agent. The biggest danger in
democratic Indonesia, he writes, is to “become pessimistic and hopeless” (Magnis-
Suseno 2009, 795). His recommendations to redress such pessimism include civil society
campaigns to expose corrupters and education to promote personal integrity.
However, the problems of “entrenched corruption” are not simply ones of individual
morality and educating citizens properly. They are, as Aspinall and van Klinken (2011,
21) argue, “intrinsically political,” adding, “In reality, if there are pockets in state institu-
tions where formal bureaucratic procedures and legal rules are scrupulously observed, it is
these pockets that are the aberrations, not the illegal practices that are so ubiquitous”
(Aspinall and van Klinken, 2011, 23). The structural position of Indonesia in the world
economy, moreover, means that economic opportunities are limited and worth competing
over.

Misplaced Optimism in the “Escalator” of Education

The individualist, neoliberal stance towards education is promoted by Baswedan in the
Indonesia Mengajar programme that he founded in 2009. The programme is modelled
loosely on a Sukarno-era programme, Pengerahan Tenaga Mahasiswa (PTM), that sent
university students to villages between 1951 and 1962. PTM, initiated by Koesnadi
Hardjasoemantri of Gadjah Mada University, began the year after Indonesia was recog-
nised by the United Nations, at a time when the spirit of nationalism met the utter lack of
schools. PTM also harkened back to the counter-colonial, indigenous Taman Siswa
education programme (Newberry 2010, 405–407). Ki Hadjar Dewantara (Suwardi
Surjaningrat) established the first Taman Siswa school in Yogyakarta in 1922 after his
return from Dutch exile for involvement with radical socialists and nationalists seeking
 The New Ideology of Development in Indonesia 383

independence from the Dutch (Ricklefs 2001, 216). Dewantara wanted to apply Western
education techniques, such as Montessori, to a curriculum based more on Eastern values
and rejecting Dutch or Western individualism (Abdullah 2009, 49). By 1932, Taman
Siswa’s indigenous mix of non-governmental (without Dutch subsidy) and non-Islamic
education had spread to 166 schools with 11,000 pupils (Ricklefs 2001, 222). In the 1935
National Congress of Education, he countered the more Western-oriented position of
Sjahrir and others on the question, “should existing social and cultural reality be cultivated
or should a new cultural orientation and social formation be introduced? The debate was
to continue and in many ways it is still continuing” (Abdullah 2009, 51). With indepen-
dence the nationalist rationale and dedication to Taman Siswa faded although Ki Hadjar
Dewantara became Minister of Education in the new government.
The idea of PTM was disturbingly converted during the New Order into a top-down
requirement for university students to participate in applied or “real world” study via the
Kuliah Kerja Nyata (KKN) programme in villages. Nonetheless, Baswedan’s ambition is
for his Indonesia Mengajar to follow a linear history from PTM and KKN and also to turn
into a social movement (Baswedan 2012a). His “formula is simple,” according to Slater
(2013), “get more qualified teachers into low socio-economic areas, ‘wait a few decades
and see society transform.’” The US-based Teach for America programme is quite similar,
and one might erroneously believe that it was the inspiration for Baswedan, whose PhD is
from the US and funded by Fulbright, to create the programme in Indonesia.8 The young
Indonesians who are recruited are highly educated and talented, and Baswedan expects
them to become “role models” in the remote locations where they are placed (The New
York Times, April 27, 2012).
However, the design, funding and implementation of the programme make that ambi-
tion highly doubtful. The immediate aim of Indonesia Mengajar, to supplement the
inadequate resources of the government with private, non-profit sector enthusiasm and
expertise, is quite laudable. As opposed to promoting individual integrity to address
corruption, Indonesia Mengajar does concretely address the lack of sufficient and quali-
fied teachers. It has garnered increasing numbers of applicants over several years. The
international and domestic media have paid attention to the programme (see, for example,
The New York Times, April 27, 2012). Baswedan was invited to speak about it at the
United States-Indonesia Society in March 2012 and the Australian Indonesia Update
Conference in September 2012 (Baswedan 2012a, 2012b).
More broadly, Indonesia Mengajar fits within Baswedan’s focus on education through
his leadership of Paramadina University. His emphasis on education as an “escalator” to
development, a much-used trope in his speeches and seminar introductions, could be
viewed as the appropriate stance of a university leader. It is worth noting, too, that touting
the importance of education to modern Muslims is a relatively recent change. It was not
until the 1960s that Indonesian Muslims from the pesantren began to enter universities.
The importance of this change was that “umat classical Islamic scholarship and modern
Western learning were brought together to a significant degree” (Barton 1997, 41). On the
developmentalist side, leaders of the neo-modernist movement in Islam such as Nurcholis
Madjid did not carry the baggage of an “inferiority complex” towards the West (Barton
1997, 44). In addition, unlike some radical Muslims, they do not turn to Saudi Arabia and
Wahhabism as a path for Indonesia to move towards religious purity. Several of the
students and faculty at Paramadina were critical of this turn to Wahabbism.
384 P. K. Gellert

Indonesia Mengajar intends to inspire through fulfilling the promise of the Indonesian
Revolution: “The Promises of the Independence struggle to enlighten the life of the nation
have not been fulfilled evenly in all corners of the Archipelago’s land and water. Some
have received the full payment of the promises while others have not yet” (Indonesia
Mengajar 2014c). The programme recruits fresh university graduates – the kind with
employment offers from prominent, sometimes global companies – because they have
“the creativity and strong initiative and are able to give inspiration (inspirasi) and serve as
a model for children of the nation (anak bangsa) in remote parts” (Indonesia Mengajar
2014a).
The programme is, no doubt, inspiring to an educated Jakarta audience. Moreover, the
response to the call for young Indonesian university graduates to become teachers for one
year is also impressive. In four batches, 19,518 graduates have applied for a mere 242
spots, an acceptance rate of 1.2%. As Baswedan wrote in his introduction to a book of
Indonesia Mengajar teacher reflections,

Yes, it may be that backwardness [ketertinggalan] is the people’s clothing in the

remote areas now, but the presence of Young Teachers encourages them to have
ambitions, to have dreams…to join in opening the door to a far better future…
Hopefully the stories the teachers have written can inspire and stimulate everyone to
see education as a Universal Struggle: to help each other, to support each other.
Beginning with being grateful for improvement (mensyukuri perkembangan), addres-
sing deficits, and followed by preparing to lend a hand in brightening the life of the
nation/people. Education is a constitutional duty of the state, but really education is a
moral duty of every educated person (Henny and Widyastuti 2011, xiv–xv).

One of the contradictory aspects of the establishment of this programme and its self-
definition as a grass-roots movement is its reliance on corporate largess to support the
“moral duty” of its teachers. The first and leading funder of the programme is the Indika
Group, composed of three corporations, Indika Energy (including Kideco, the country’s
third largest coal producer), Petrosea (energy services including coal transhipment) and
Tripatra (oil services). Indika’s M. Arsjad Rasjid notes in a preface to the book that his
company was there from the very beginning and helped give birth to the organisation
(Henny and Widyastuti 2011, xvi). The other main sponsors include two state-owned
banks (Bank Mandiri and Bank Negara Indonesia); privatised telecommunications com-
pany Indosat; and state-owned gas and energy company Perusahaan Gas Negara
(Indonesia Mengajar 2014b). These companies appear to provide funding for stipends,
which reportedly far outstrip those of the regular teachers’ salaries, as well as training and
transportation.
With this kind of financial support it is not surprising, perhaps, that inspiration comes
dressed in the assumptions of modernisation theory. Thus, while Indonesia Mengajar
claims it is reaching over 20,000 students in 136 villages, the substance of the education is
less clear. In contrast to the anti-colonial approach of Taman Siswa, at least four major
assumptions of modernisation theory are included in the programme. First, education by
the “best” will bring enlightenment to the poor and unenlightened “rest.” Second, those
parts of the country where the Promises of Independence remain unfulfilled are assumed
to be unenlightened, even backward areas, where education is needed to create new,
modern Indonesians. Third, the backwardness of these areas is related to their assumed
 The New Ideology of Development in Indonesia 385

isolation so that development has “not yet” reached these areas. Because historical and
contemporary relations of exploitation are not examined, a linear path of development is
presumed to lead the areas and their people up and out of traditional cultures into modern,
forward-thinking ones. Fourth, those who are already modern, as demonstrated by their
cosmopolitan patterns of consumption, will show the way. Or, as Baswedan puts it,
“Young Teachers will close the gap [mendekatkan jarak] between the students and the
centre of development [pusat kemajuan]” (Henny and Widyastuti 2011, xiv). The demon-
stration effect is expressed in a preference for entrance into urban jobs and education,
especially in Java, as well as market society, with which rural Indonesians are mistakenly
assumed to be unfamiliar, and, importantly, command of the global language of business
and government – English.
The prominence of English fits with the government’s efforts to “go international” via
the implementation of International Standard Schools (ISS). In 2003, the government’s
new Education System Law laid down a requirement that the government establish one
international standard school at each level in each district (Sakhiyya 2011, 347;
Sumitomo, Said and Mislan 2012, 24). By 2014, it was estimated that there would be
1,800 of these schools. These schools were given state support but also uniquely allowed
to charge higher fees, with the unsurprising result that only middle-class and higher
families could afford to send their children there (Sakhiyya 2011, 348).
Internationalisation is composed of “global,” Organisation for Economic Co-operation
and Development (OECD) standard curricula and the use of English as the language of
instruction, although more often it is what The Jakarta Post (January 27, 2013) inele-
gantly referred to as “Indoglish” or Indonesian English. Similarly, Paramadina University
is attempting to become “world-class” by teaching in English, although almost none of the
undergraduates and few graduate students are sufficiently fluent to achieve this
(Baswedan 2009).
As Sakhiyya (2011, 353) argues, the actual praxis of internationalisation, including the
role of OECD exporters of “international” standards, forces one to “re-think that inter-
nationalisation is likely not neutral and not inclusive.” The ISS policy has been con-
troversial and a judicial review by a teachers’ union and a group of non-governmental
organisations challenged its constitutionality. In January 2013, the Constitutional Court
ruled that Article 50 of the 2003 Education System Law was unconstitutional because
international standard schools discriminate against non-ISS students. The chief justice,
Mahfud MD added, “Bahasa Indonesia is the language that unites Indonesia. It is
necessary for younger generations to keep using it and preserve it” (The Jakarta Post,
January 8, 2013).
Such concerns are not part of the ideological assumptions found in a collection of
Indonesia Mengajar teacher reflections, initially written as blogs and then made into a
book (Henny and Widyastuti 2011). By mid-2012, the book was already in its fourth
printing and found prominently at Gramedia and other bookstores, demonstrating that
there is an audience for inspiration. Reading through the selections, one finds repeated
evidence of the assumptions of the neo-modernisationist ideology.9
The book is divided into four sections: Pupils of the Young Teachers, Nurturing
Optimism, Learning to be Humble, and Sincerity Spreads. There are inspirational stories
of difficult students learning new things and frustrated teachers gaining patience. Many of
the stories told give a message of hope – both for the children in elementary schools in
far-away districts and for the educated readers of the book in the universities and among
386 P. K. Gellert

the urban centres who shop at the Gramedia bookstores in the modern mega-malls. As one
of the rectors of Paramadina University explained to me when questioned in a 2012
seminar about the impact of the programme, “at least they can give inspiration.”
The inspiration that they provide, however, is biased towards becoming the global or
cosmopolitan citizens promoted by the ISS schools. The first modernisation assumption
mentioned above, bringing enlightenment, is foundational to Indonesia Mengajar. One
teacher quotes Baswedan’s mantra that “teaching is the responsibility of every educated
person” (118). Another, after the school reassigns him to be a physical education teacher,
observes that he could give up but, “I was placed here to enlighten, not to bring illness…I
truly feel this test is meant to increase my leadership” (175). Frequently, the teachers
assume that all the young elementary students in far-flung locations need to be changed.
They may have enthusiasm, but they need education to become modern. The implicit –
and sometimes explicit – assumption is that everyone has potential if only he or she will
open themselves up to become forward-looking, outward-looking and modern, and join
the world.
The assumption of isolation and lack of development or “backwardness” is evident in
an unusual entry about local shrimp farming in Paser, East Kalimantan. “What fascinates
me the most,” the young teacher writes, “is that the work is done co-operatively” (192).
However, what is most striking about his story is the modernisationist assumptions about
the villagers. He laments that if only the residents of Labuangkalo “understood about how
to process the shrimp, the economic gain for them – and their village – would be much
higher” (195). Specifically, he believes breaking out of exporting raw shrimp requires
education, not about social mobilisation in the face of unequal structures of global
production and trade but in the tools of management. They need some villagers to sit in
the offices and “think for themselves how to sell their product (memikirkan sendiri
penjualan produknya)” (195). The teacher concludes, “Until that moment comes, we
can only have fun at the tambak [shrimp pond] not the world” (195).
The most grating evidence of elitism amid the modernisation assumptions is the
prejudice in favour of migration to the city, the world of malls and the cosmopolitan
language of English. The tendency to hold up the global as the “gold standard” is
exemplified linguistically by a steady stream of gratuitous English by the young teachers.
Going to school makes the children happy and “that’s a very good thing. I’m glad” (66); a
week of teaching “was a great week for me” (237); and from them I learned, “not to sweat
the small stuff” (252); the result was “not bad” (284). Several of the chapter titles also use
English: “Rizki, My Genius Student,” and “Pintu Tambak and the World Economy,”
followed by “If it was a Vacation,” and “It’s About Choice, It’s about Choose [sic].” In
the chapters that use English more extensively than a word or phrase, the teachers seem
interested to convey their strongest feelings with English. For example, one is disap-
pointed in his clumsy disciplining of a pupil. He concludes, “My intention clearly wasn’t
to bring him down. I wanted to give this kid massive wake up call [sic]. This kid has big
potential” (64).
This potential is clearly defined in global cosmopolitan terms. This teacher’s dream is
that in 15 or 20 years, this pupil will contact him to say, “‘Teacher, I have finished my
doctorate!’ or, ‘Sir, I have received a scholarship to America.’” (67). Since America is
recognised to be beyond reach for most, Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, is held out as a
potentially equivalent substitute for students to aspire to if they are to become modern. In
fact, another teacher merges the aspiration of moving to the capital and becoming a
 The New Ideology of Development in Indonesia 387

twenty-first-century citizen, while adding some English for the educated elite readership
of the book: “Try to imagine when I said, ‘Come on, study so that you can become a
soccer player in Java. You all can do it, go to university in Java. You definitely can go to
Jakarta.’ I was stared at by 24 sets of eyes with the look of you-have-got-to-be-kidding-
me” (157).
In a touch of bitter irony, this teacher is distressed that her self-confidence is being
eroded by the “local reality” and by the lack of hope. Little is said about the economic
conditions of the students and their families. Of the many local realities one might
imagine in East Kalimantan after decades of extractive industries – logging, pulp planta-
tions, palm oil and coal mining – there is not a word.
In sum, Indonesia Mengajar may be inspirational, but it also suppresses analysis of the
causes of their everyday conditions and of relevant political and social action that might
lead to real changes in these conditions. By placing the burden of social change on the
shoulders of educated Indonesian individuals who might respond to the moral calling to
reform the system by transforming one pupil at a time, radical pedagogies and systemic
changes do not appear to be considered. One teacher who recognises some fundamental
problems, including low teacher salaries and welfare, unequal resources for schools, and
how reform gets stuck in the bureaucracy concludes mildly that the large gap between the
lofty ambitions of Indonesia’s educational system and its uneven achievements “are
difficult to implement evenly throughout Indonesia” (117). He writes of the need for the
“collective efforts of the Republic” to address this gap, by which he seems to mean
neoliberal private–public partnerships like Indonesia Mengajar because, “The government
will surely be overwhelmed if it has to do everything by itself, especially if we are all just
busy blaming the government for the situation” (118).
The message of Indonesia Mengajar is that one year of teaching will bring a lifetime of
inspiration – “A Year of Teaching, A Lifetime of Inspiration” (294). Left unclear in this
slogan is who will be inspired. Volunteer and aid programmes such as this more often
inspire and have lifelong effects on the participants, in this case the young men and
women who teach, than on the pupils they teach. I do not mean to be cynical and deny
that children in the provinces who are taught by new, young teachers are inspired; many
of them may be. But, the silences of the teacher reflections are revealing. Little is heard
about the perspective of the other teachers and heads of schools who receive the teachers.
The temporary one-year stay in these schools is not discussed. What happens to the school
when the new teacher finishes his or her time and disappears back to Jakarta? Most
importantly, there is no reflection on the systemic nature of the lack of education, quality
of teachers, quality and quantity of teaching materials, and the like. The teachers are
compensated far more than most teachers who may be absent because they need to seek
supplemental income. In brief, as critics of Teach for America have noted, the experiences
of the young teachers reflect the “audacious privilege of the elite” (Boyce 2012) who are
able to provide “paternalistic rationales” (Hartman 2012) for their short-term commitment
while doing little to undo the educational and material inequality that divides the teachers
from the pupils (see Heilig and Jez 2010).

Conclusion: The Limits of Cosmopolitan Ideology

The new ideology of development in Indonesia is cosmopolitan, nostalgic and individu-
alist. In an era of neoliberal ascendance, it is cosmopolitan in its identification of global,
388 P. K. Gellert

English-speaking, placeless professionals and consumers as the community to which

Indonesians can and should aspire to join. Simultaneously, having only partially over-
turned the practices and leaders of the New Order, this ideology is nostalgic for the top-
down stability of the authoritarian years and continues to serve to defend the interests of
New Order elites and their progeny. Furthermore, it is bolstered by a faith in individualism
– and an unspoken ill-ease with collectivities – to address the identified deficiencies of
Indonesia. To be sure, this cosmopolitan ideology is not the only ideology in contention in
Indonesia, but like neoliberalism it is powerful.
This article has explored this new ideology through two examples. First, reliance on
personal integrity to address systemic corruption, without any acknowledgement of the
deep cultural and historical reasons for corruption’s persistence, is bolstered by an
interpretation of what it means to be a modern Muslim that tolerates or even encourages
individual material success and attendant consumption practices. To be a modern Muslim,
in this view, is not to be a stoic but rather to embrace cosmopolitan consumption while
retaining a steadfast stance in favour of ethical behaviour. Just as Rudnyckyj (2010) finds
efficient behaviour is promoted via spiritual management techniques in a steel factory,
consumption is found to be rational. Second, and more extensively, the article has
analysed how the morality of individual responsibility is extended to the field of education
through the Indonesia Mengajar programme. Teachers who have an ethical calling to
serve the nation are sent to remote locations to inspire young learners about the global
possibilities of being an Indonesian in this time while also adding a line of service to their
resumé.
The contradictory nostalgia of the Indonesia Mengajar programme and, arguably, also
for national citizens with integrity is both for the independence era struggle for nationhood
and for the New Order state authoritarian implementation of apolitical technocratic
development. Baswedan often invokes the brilliant decision of Soekarno and
Indonesia’s other founding fathers in 1927 to unite around one language and one nation
to construct a new “imagined community,” as Anderson (1991) named it. By implication,
the cosmopolitan community can unite around the new lingua franca, English, to build a
global Indonesia. Such implications, however, are symptomatic of the broader fossilisa-
tion of Indonesia’s nationalist and charismatic President Sukarno. “Praising the Teachings
of Bung Karno to the skies while quietly betraying their most central components
represents a dishonesty and a hypocrisy that is very ominous for the future,” according
to Anderson (2002, 19). Ironically, the social history of Indonesia has been transformed
into icons for national holidays and parades by those, like Baswedan, who were raised and
educated during the New Order (and after).
The neoliberal cosmopolitan version of nationalist ideology is not based on anti-
colonial struggle but a neo-modernisationist identification of lack of development in the
remote areas of the country and, implicitly, by the lower social classes who need
improvement. While Indonesia Mengajar may be modelled on a Sukarno-era programme
to send teachers and establish high schools where there were none, it is equally modelled
on the top-down authoritarian developmentalism of the New Order. Underdeveloped areas
and peoples need to be “developed” by giving them what they lack rather than building a
movement based on why they lack and an identity based on solidarity in a struggle for
social justice. The lack of recognition of Indonesia Mengajar’s own ideological position
explains why the programme’s website can describe a presumed continuity from
 The New Ideology of Development in Indonesia 389

nationalist PTM to the state developmentalist KKN for sending university graduates out to
villages just like Soeharto himself went back to villages to provide guidance.
The inspiration and guidance offered in the post-Soeharto period has the cosmopolitan
twist of not only creating more productive farmers by adopting new agricultural technol-
ogies but of creating productive English-speaking members of the global professional
class. This invitation, however, is not matched by a realistic assessment of how few
Indonesians are or can become part of that class. The new ideology of development in
Indonesia is a real threat to socially equitable and environmentally sustainable develop-
ment. As Munro (2013, 28) recently found in Papua, “The inflated possibilities of
education may be considered a form of violence.” This violence, its associated racialised
discourse and the attendant disappointment when hopes are unrealised shapes the experi-
ence of all non-elite Indonesians.
Like most dominant ideologies, the new ideology of development promotes itself as a
way or vision for the nation as a whole when, in reality, it is a vision of life for a
privileged and transnationalised segment of the population. The contradictions of real,
material development threaten to overwhelm the modernist project that underlies the two
projects of creating optimism and optimistically improving education. Indonesia is a
society dominated by peripheral economic activities from low-wage labour-intensive
manufacturing to a resurgence of resource-based exports that account for about half of
commodity exports and over 12% of gross national product. Growth is significant but
largely based on consumption (Cornwell and Anas 2013; Gellert 2010). Additionally,
Indonesia’s polity is a very young democratic system with success in direct presidential
elections but considerable problems of corruption, money politics and even threats to the
unity of the nation-state in Papua.
As a result, nationalism itself has become an empty, ersatz version of earlier national-
ism in Indonesia, abandoning the solidaristic forms of nationalism that were the basis for
the nation-state in the formative period. Corruption cannot be addressed merely through
increasing the supply of Indonesians with integritas and education is not a panacea
capable of solving all of society’s ills by “improve[ing] the poor” (Marsh 2011, 110). In
this regard, the broad elite nostalgia for Pancasila education seems unlikely to inspire
youth, and the individualist strategy of Indonesia Mengajar, emblematic of neoliberal
ideology, has far less capacity to build a movement of youth. In fact, history shows that it
is difficult to build a social justice movement from the top down. If one tries, then the
result may look like the view out of the top of one of Jakarta’s skyscrapers – shiny and
hopeful yet vague and empty.

Acknowledgement
The author gratefully acknowledges comments from the reviewers and Kevin Hewison, which pushed the article
towards its current more forceful version. Funding for the research was provided by a fellowship from the J.
William Fulbright Foundation/International Institute of Education. Earlier versions of this article were presented
and useful comments and questions were raised at the colloquium series of the Department of Sociology at
University of Tennessee in February 2012, at the annual meeting of the Association of Asian Studies (AAS) in
Toronto in March 2012 and at Paramadina University in June 2012. The author gratefully acknowledges
colleagues and graduate students in the Department of Sociology at the University of Tennessee, and fellow
panellists at the AAS, Cari Coe, J. Thomas Lindblad and Andy Kipnis. Finally, he is especially grateful to his
hosts and colleagues at Universitas Paramadina, Anies Baswedan, Wijayanto, Totok Soefiyanto, Aan Rukana and
others. They may disagree with the content and arguments in this article, but they were gracious and supportive
during my time at the “little giant” university. All remaining errors are mine.
390 P. K. Gellert

Notes
1
Most of his address was conducted in English, adding to the international atmosphere and the message of
promoting a global, cosmopolitan outlook among all of those present. In other words, it was not for the
author’s benefit as the Western visitor. Pak is short for Bapak which literally means father and is used as
Mister in Indonesian. For consistency in English, I refer to him as Baswedan for the remainder of the article.
Where Indonesian language texts, speeches and interviews are translated, those translations are by the author.
2
The author was placed at Paramadina University on a Fulbright fellowship for the 2010–11 academic year and
is grateful to the Fulbright commission for the support. What shined throughout this research experience was
the optimism of Paramadina’s leader, Anies Baswedan. During a visit to Jakarta in 2013, I attempted to contact
Baswedan for an interview, discussion and debate of the views expressed in this article, but I received no
reply. During that period as a visiting professor at Paramadina University, ethnographic research was
conducted at the university, including attendance at multiple events at both the undergraduate and graduate
campus, auditing a class at the graduate school on meeting business leaders, joining a university-wide campus
retreat off-site for faculty and staff, holding individual and small group meetings with about 10 rectors and
professors, and in general, accepting many last-minute invitations to seminars and shared meals. I view this
work as an “accidental ethnography” given that my prior research interests were in political economy of
natural resources. One of the only other usages of the phrase that I have subsequently found is in a blog by
Robert LaFleur wherein he describes William Egar Geil, who travelled to five sacred mountains in China 90
years before LaFleur, as an “accidental ethnographer.”
3
Roudometof also observes that, among its many dimensions, cosmopolitanism includes both people’s attitudes
and also a particular moral and ethical standpoint. These descriptive and normative dimensions are merged in
the notion of cosmopolitanism used here. At the same time, I adhere to a class-based notion of the term
because it captures the elite, largely urban, placeless and universalist vision that is examined in this article.
Although “excluded others” may in some senses become cosmopolitan as well and recognising that variants of
cosmopolitanism are internally produced in particular locales (Beck 2002, 33), the cosmopolitan vision of
Jakarta elites is based on the political philosophy ideal. This ideal of a cosmopolitan “referred to ‘the person
whose allegiance is to the worldwide community of human beings.’…[T]he term seemed to offer a clear-cut
contrast to nationalism” (Robbins 1998, 2). For a recent survey of the large literature on cosmopolitanism, see
Beck and Levy (2013).
4
In the summer of 2013, t-shirts were widely sold with pictures of Soeharto and the question, in Javanese
language: “How are you doing? My time was better [more comfortable], right? (Piye kabare? Penak jamanku
tho?).
5
One note on the Western dress; many women do wear Muslim veils. Possible exceptions to the lack of
awareness of colonial history include small, radical groups such as Hizbut Tahriri Indonesia (HTI). HTI, for
example, protested the visit of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Jakarta in September 2012 with a
march on the US Embassy and a display of signs declaring that her visit brought colonialism to Indonesia
(Hillary Datang Penjajahan Datang). See, for example, Reuters (September 3, 2012). Sukarno and other
nationalists of the period of anti-Dutch struggle also mixed European and indigenous language and modes of
dress as they navigated the ground of what is modern and what is Indonesian (Mrazek 2002).
6
There are 17 Indonesians that Forbes lists on its website among the world’s billionaires as of March 2012.
Two Hartono brothers (cigarettes, banking) are in the top 200. Following them: Martua Sitorus (palm oil) is
number 377, Sukanto Tanoto (diversified) is number 418, Peter Sondakh (media) is number 464, Ahmad
Hamami (heavy equipment) is number 578, Sri Prakosh Lohia (polyester) and Chairul Tanjung (diversified)
are tied at number 634, Kiki Barki (coal) is number 764, Murdaya Poo (diversified) is number 854, Edwin
Soeryadjaya (coal), son of William Soeryadjaya who was a leading businessman during the New Order, is
number 913; Tahir (diversified) and Hari Tanoesoedibjo tied at number 960; Garibaldi Thohir (coal) number
1015; Theodore Rachmat (coal) number 1075; and Djoko Susanto (retail) number 1153.
7
In an interview, Latif who is also a former rector of Paramadina University, emphasised that Indonesia is not
an Anderson-like “imagined community” but instead unified by the state, and thus he prefers the moniker
“state-nation” to “nation-state.”
8
In informal conversation at the launching of Utomo’s book on education, December 20, 2010, Baswedan
rejected the idea that Teach for America was the sole model. However, in his 2012 presentation, Baswedan
(2012a) shows Teach for America, founded in 1990, along with 10 similar programmes around the world.
9
All page numbers that follow in parentheses are from this book. All translations are by the author. English in
the original is indicated by italics.
 The New Ideology of Development in Indonesia 391

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