verging_on_random

Chalk up another win for the baby Jesus

March 13, 2007 on 4:35 pm | In Uncategorized |

Slowly, without dramatics, East Timor degenerates into ‘failed statehood’ – the expression we use for people and places that can’t cut it in today’s hi-tech, über-wealthy, information-rich global community. The UN has become a kind of permanent East Timorese mentor and back-up administrator as the old freedom warriors, Gusmao, Alkatiri, Ramos Horta and the rest, when they’re not squabbling over who fills which office, gaze around them and wonder WTF to do next. Perhaps they could begin with the country’s web site, which still names Alkatiri as prime minister. The Australian consultant probably quit when he didn’t get paid.

There are no jobs for many East Timorese and little prospect that the place will develop a cohesive sense of purpose any time soon. After the first flush of excitement that accompanied ‘independence’ the old animosities have returned, with political instability the order of the day.

Street violence has evolved into something more dangerous and the dreaded ‘civil war’ phrase is creeping into discussions of what the future holds. Australians are being conditioned to accept that our troops and police will be required to serve in East Timor more or less forever.

East Timor, in other words, is our very own micro-Iraq.

But it doesn’t matter brothers and sisters, the material problems that afflict East Timor are very sad but let’s not lose sight of our objectives here, the main thing is that 700,000 souls have been saved from the dreaded heathen hordes of the Prophet; they’ve been saved for the one true god by saintly bishop Belo and his holy Roman church. Praise the lord, hallelujah!

…

I remember teaching a basic course in industrial relations back in the time before Indonesia agreed to the East Timor plebiscite. One week the topic was the role of trade unions in Australia and a couple of tutors were feverishly keen that we use an exercise they’d designed in all our classes (this was a course with about 1,000 students). When I looked at the exercise it was all about a ‘Free East Timor’ campaign that a few unionists were running.

I ventured a suggestion that this was hardly typical of the routine activities that occupy trade unions day-in-day-out and copped a savaging for not taking the opportunity to strike an ideological blow for freedom. Shortly afterwards, by accident, I discovered that these two tutors were both leading lay members of the local Roman Catholic diocese. Thus was I introduced to the blurring of church and state that has been such a feature of East Timorese history and Australia’s involvement in it.

The only arguments in favour of recognising East Timor as a separate nation state are religious. It is based on a theocratic foundation just as much as any Muslim nation. On any economic or geographic or ethnic logic, Timor is either one country or a collection of small communities. There is no basis for drawing an arbitrary line between east and west except for one thing: the Portuguese got to the eastern bit first and brought the Roman Catholic missionaries with them.

When the Portuguese finally acknowledged the stupidity of holding on to a colony halfway across the world, it was the church that vigorously promoted the idea of independence from Indonesia. After the act of incorporation into Indonesia it was the church that fanned the flames of independence, getting into an unholy alliance with the far left Fretilin movement (who in other circumstances might have been labelled terrorists) while they madly baptised people into the one true faith.

Well they’ve got what they wished for. It doesn’t seem to have done them much good. Church attendances in East Timor are declining once again and sooner or later they’ll either be held accountable for the unsolvable mess they’ve done so much to create or they’ll be rendered irrelevant.

But in the mean time, other meddlesome god-botherers continue to cause problems in Indonesia. From Australian and American bases they smile bland missionary or assistance worker smiles while they encourage the locals to reject Muslim rule and embrace the one true god. In Aceh and other provinces and most of all in West Papua, the activities of these zealots present a serious threat to our relationship with Indonesia – a relationship which is the single most important factor in preserving Australia’s long-term national security.

It’s time people stopped uncritically accepting the fable that East Timor represents some kind of diplomatic and moral triumph for Australia. On the contrary, it represents a gormless capitulation to the power of the church in defiance of common sense, and the outcome is an intractable problem that is likely to get worse over time.

Fortunately the current government seem to have awakened to the danger – better late than never – and after their mishandling of the Papuan ‘refugee’ matter last year they’ve made it very clear there will be no repeat. Hopefully a future Labor government will be equally determined in its attitude. Christian activists who stir up separatist sentiments in the name of saving souls for the lord deserve neither sympathy nor support.

If the Indonesians want to lock a few of them up for breaching internal security laws, I’ll be the first to applaud.