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Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies
ISSN: 0007-4918 (Print) 1472-7234 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cbie20
Book Reviews
To cite this article: (2002) Book Reviews, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 38:3, 403-410, DOI: 10.1080/00074910215536
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BOOK
REVIEWS
The papers in this volume were pre
-sented at a conference at the Australian National University in February 1999, within months of the tragedy that befell the Chinese Indonesians on 13–15 May
1998. The list of authors reminds us how many Indonesian specialiststhere are in Australia and how closely Indonesian scholars, officials and journalists have worked with them. That is why it was possible to bring those who know the Chinese Indonesian question well so quickly together to share their thoughts on that tragedy. And remarkably, for all the sadness and regret that underlay each of the papers, the authors have writ
-ten them with cool reasoning. There is barely suppressed passion and anger here and there, but the genuine desire to understand and explain is largely in control.
The editors have done well to knit the 20 papers into a cohesive discussion of the major issues behind the riots, the burning, the looting and the rapes. This is followed by a 37-page chronology of
events, a 28-page appendix summarising
the main anti-Chinese actions of the New
Order government, and a second appen
-dix of 28 pages giving the executive sum
-mary of the final report of the Joint Fact-finding Team on the Riots. In this
way, we have been provided with the fullest account available so far of what happened.
The many perspectivesoffered in this volume reflect the different expertise of
Michael R. Godley and Grayson J. Lloyd (eds) (2001), Perspectives ontheChinese Indonesians, Crawford House Publishing, Adelaide, pp. xxiii + 388.A$49.95.
the authors. They range from those who point to the policies of the Soeharto gov
-ernment as the ultimate cause of the tragedy to those who stress the broader economic origins of racial tensions. Oth
-ers seek explanations in the history of competition and conflict rooted in the NetherlandsEast Indies. Yet others look for a variety of cultural and social fac
-tors that seem to make continuous sus
-picion and resentment between the
pribumi (indigenous Indonesians) and their Chinese fellow citizens, or between some Muslim groups and other religious communities, almost inevitable. In all the efforts to explain, the various authors grapple with the larger issue of whether this tragedy was part of something dark and frightening that has gradually be
-come the norm, or whether it is an ex
-treme manifestation of the painful process of building a united and demo
-cratic nation. Three papers compare In
-donesia directly with Malaysia and Fiji, but in fact all the papers implicitly con
-trast what happened in Indonesia in May 1998 with what is more normal elsewhere. And there is a general agree
-ment that the tragedy marked a great setback for the country.
As a record of the first responses of those who study Indonesia closely, this is a valuable collection. The authors cannot be faulted for being unable to agree on what can be done to prevent such tragedies from happening again. The families of the victims may not be
BookReviews 404
totally satisfied by the rationalityin the arguments offered, but they will have to admit that the essays represent heart
-searching attempts to get at some of the truth available so soon after the event. Future scholars will do better. When they embark on a more thorough exami
-nation of all the relevant documents per
-taining to the riots, they will be able to place these events in a larger and much more complex frame. The most obvious would include the Asian financial crisis that accelerated the fall of the Soeharto regime, and the immense threat those two entwined events came to pose to the integrity of Indonesia as a unitary state. It would also encompass the explosive drive among young Indonesians to
-wards participatory democracy. It may also become clearer by then how much most Chinese Indonesians had tried to assimilate and contribute to the national economy. Not least, future studies would have to weigh the contributions of the new middle and professional classes, notably the embattled roles
played by journalists, scholars and stu
-dents in an increasingly militarised re
-gime. But if they wish to understand where the anti-Chinese riots stand in
that larger picture, they will need to be
-gin with this book.
Ambassador Wiryono Sastro
-handoyo’s introduction sets out to cor
-rect one misperception and makes a moving appeal. He decries the alarm
-ing notion that the Chinese Indonesians control 75% of the country’s wealth, and quotes figures to suggest that their control is closer to 10%. Although this is not confirmed, it is certainly politi
-cally helpful to the Chinese Indonesian image. He ends with what I believe most educated pribumiwant to see, af
-firming that ‘We, the people of Indo
-nesia …’, the opening words of the Proclamation of Independence on 17 August 1945, was meant to include all Chinese Indonesians.
Wang Gungwu
NationalUniversityofSingapore
Mohamad Ikhsan, Chris Manning and Hadi Soesastro (eds) (2002), 80 Tahun MohamadSadli:EkonomiIndonesiadiEraPolitikBaru [Mohamad Sadli’s 80 Years: The Indonesian Economy in the New Political Era], Penerbit Buku Kompas, Jakarta, pp. xxi + 423.
This volume was produced as a fest
-schrift to celebrate the 80th birthday of Mohamad Sadli, a founding member of the ‘Berkeley Mafia’, the group of eco
-nomic ‘technocrats’ who ran the Indo
-nesian economy so successfully during much of the New Order regime. Sadli held a series of important ministerial posts and, since his resignation as Min
-ister for Mines in 1978, has remained an active, perceptive and tireless commen
-tator on the economy and society at large.
This long and active involvement is reflected in the eclectic works of the 40 or so contributors(foreigners and Indo
-nesians, roughly evenly split between those writing in Indonesian and those writing in English). Some have pro
-duced bespoke purpose-built pieces for
this volume, while others have drawn on their regular specialisations. The first group—those directed specifically at
Sadli and his contribution—universally
record, with admiration and warm af
-fection, the benefits they have received
from knowing Sadli. His facility with the pen—the ability to master an issue and
then write about it in an accessible way—is a common theme. These ar
-ticles capture not just the wide-ranging
and often iconoclastic contributions that Sadli made to policy and commentary over such a long period, but the impish charm and wit that has made him so universally liked. The contributions in
-clude delightfully light-hearted reminis
-cences about Sadli, and some amusing photos. The one regret here is that we are none the wiser about the reasons that took him out of the immediate circle of the policy making ‘technocrats’, to the more distant commentator’s role.
The other contributionsrange across the full spectrum of the economy and the issues facing Indonesia: macro
-economic questions; microeconomic is
-sues and decentralisation (three separate contributionson this vital topic); social, poverty and income distribution issues; political economy and globalisation. Just about all of the Big Issues are covered here: the problems of the budget, where tax revenues are still low by interna
-tional standards and interest payments on government debt are large; regional -knowledgeable viewpoints; a wide
-ranging piece by the former Bank Indo -easier, with ‘implementation in the hands of a vastly weaker and less fo
-cussed government’ (Bresnan). The po
-litical scientists among the contributors are more enthusiastic about the pros -McCawley referring to ‘the remarkable man who was the second President of the Republic of Indonesia’, while for Bresnan ‘the principal cause of the depth of their country’s suffering was an au
-tocratic and corrupt President’.
We know that Sadli can talk and write; we learn that he can listen as well—one of the charming anecdotes
recorded here concerns the criticism that, in all his writing over 30 years, he had never addressed the issue of gen
-der. Faced by this lightly put but pointed accusation,he responded that there was a division of labour in the family, with his wife looking after these issues. But within a month he had, himself, ad
-dressed the topic in one of his columns. The diversity of the contributions and their wide range reflects the eclectic in
-terests of Sadli himself. This volume brings together current thinking on the range of the issues Indonesia is facing,
BookReviews 406
Daniel Fitzpatrick (2002), LandClaimsinEastTimor,Asia Pacific Press, Canberra, pp. 246. A$40.00.
The appearance of Daniel Fitzpatrick’s book in mid 2002 is timely, accompany
-ing the independence of the tiny coun
-try from the UN Transitional Authority for East Timor (UNTAET). This well
-researched volume systematically ex
-plores the main land issues, providing comprehensivebackground and focus
-ing on the many conflicting claims and on routes to resolving them.
The first chapter vividly recalls for those of us near the events described the traumas and tragedies of the Indonesian occupation and its aftermath. It notes some horrifying incidents, including the displacement from their land of three
-quarters of the Timorese peoples, the fi
-nal widespread destruction of buildings and other infrastructures by the depart
-vate land administration, resulting in legal uncertainty, lack of public hous
-ing and deterrence to private investors. Then in subsequent chapters the book turns to topics pertinent to understand
-ing and solving the difficult and com
-plex land problems of East Timor. It addresses the traditional relations of people to land, showing how various societal and governmental arrange
-ments have regulated land use. It scrutinises key questions surrounding land claims based on Indonesian titles, looking in depth at these titles and their administration. It reviews claims to land based on Portuguese-era titles, describ
-ing the nature of the latter and their sta
-tus under Indonesian rule. It goes on to discuss claims based on traditional
rights, finally presenting options for re -only traditionalarrangements stemming from the past but also the remnants of systems established by colonial occupi
-ers. The difficulties are to reconcile these different approaches in light of compet
-ing claims and accompanying political demands. Fitzpatrick valiantly attempts to indicate ways out of these problems, interestinglyreferring to how other coun
-tries in similar circumstances have tried to solve their own land use dilemmas.
The author refreshingly argues that traditional rights to land should be broadly recognised in East Timor. This is a key recommendation,and bases the resolution of land claims on the most widely accepted and inherently flexible land use system. He also subscribes
Portuguese and Indonesian plantations in East Timor ‘may receive formal rights under a program of tenure re
-form’, where these rights ‘arise either from traditional connections to the land, or possibly from occupation for … 12 or more years’ (p. 149). But in other cases where titles issued by former authorities may reasonably be recognised, he argues in favour of that.
Fitzpatrick is manifestly conscious of the high costs of revamping land use systems and of complications arising from attendant political considerations. This is under circumstances where pro
-gressive reform is likely to be more fea
-sible than wholesale alteration. In the case of customary tenure he cautions against a ‘minimalist’ and non
-interventionist approach to adjustment, suggesting, on the reform principle, that there should be a ‘three-tier sys
-tem of conflict resolution’. That would entail resort to ‘traditional processes, then mediation and, failing that, judi
-cial determination’ (p. 176), perhaps modelled on the land court system of Papua New Guinea.
As well as pursuing its main themes, the book records many associated aspects of great interest. It describes, for example, the concern of Fretilin, the leading party of the revolution and independence,with ‘land justice for traditional and/or dis
-possessed groups’ and with implement
-ing land reform (p. 16). This concern and the underlying political pressures from it seem likely to influence future land policies critically. The book also recounts the ‘corrupt’ securing of titles by Indo
-nesian ‘cronies’ and military interests, in
-cluding the now retired generals Benny Moerdani and Dading Kalbuadi, who operated through a trading company, PT
Depok Hernandes International. This company ‘quickly took over all small
-holder and SAPT [a Portuguese public company] coffee plantations in Ermera’ following the Indonesian invasion in 1975, and ‘was also given an exclusive licence over all buying, selling and trans
-porting of coffee in East Timor’. These and numerous other inclusions add valuable flavour, and serve to enhance understanding of the volume’s central questions.
The book is especially valuable in com
-prehensively documenting current East Timorese land problems and accompa
-nying political events and pressures. It valiantly tackles the hard task of indicat
-ing solutions to these problems, doing this partly in sections dealing with spe
-cific types of claim, and partly in a dis
-appointingly brief closing chapter. Such resolution is indeed a big problem in the future development of East Timor, and more extended discussions of it will be welcome. That is especially so for those in East Timor undertaking the weighty tasks of formulating land policies and resolving land claims. But Fitzpatrickhas made an excellent beginning, and it is hoped he will follow this up with further analyses.
Colin Barlow
WolfsonCollege,Oxford
This book ‘attempts to contribute to an understanding of the competitiveness of regions in Indonesia from both a con
-ceptual and a measurement perspec
-tive’. The approach it takes is to rank all provinces on each of a very large number of variables (nearly 200 in all) that are presumed to be indicative of Piter Abdullah, Armida S. Alisjahbana, Nury Effendi and Boediono (2002), Daya SaingDaerah:KonsepdanPengukurannyadiIndonesia[The Competitiveness of Re
-gions: Concepts and Measurement in Indonesia], Pusat Pendidikan dan Studi Kebanksentralan,Bank Indonesia [Centre for Central Banking Studies and Train
-ing, Bank Indonesia], BPFE-Yogyakarta, pp. x + 354.
BookReviews 408
their relative competitiveness. These variables are of two kinds: first, pub -each province’s rankings in relation to each of these variables.
The book has some usefulness as a compendium of economic data arranged by province, even though the presenta
-tion is by no means ‘user friendly’. Un
-fortunately, however, a very large proportion of the variables presented appear to have little if anything to do with competitiveness. Consider a small selection of the indicators that collec
-tively are assumed to enable the reader to conclude that province X is ‘more competitive’ than province Y: the Gini coefficient (an indicator of income in
-equality); life expectancy; the share of urban area in total land area of the prov
-ince (a high value of which presumably does little for the competitiveness of agricultural pursuits); the reliance on rivers to transport goods (a high rank
-ing here seems to be taken as a positive contributor to ‘competitiveness’!); the ratio of the length of railway lines to total land area; the average wage in manufacturing (a high value of which presumably does little for the competi
-tiveness of labour-intensive manufactur
-ing); and so on. There is little attempt to justify the inclusion of these diverse in
-dicators, so we have no way of know
-ing how the authors rationalise their often perplexing choices.
A province’s ‘competitiveness’, in the sense of the ease or difficulty of doing business there, needs to be carefully dis
-tinguished from the ease or difficulty of
producing particular goods and services within each province. For example, the observation that Irian Jaya has about 7,000 times as much productive forest as DKI Jakarta (the Jakarta Capital Re
-gion) certainly suggests that the former will enjoy a competitive advantage in producing logs, but it tells us nothing focuses clearly (though not exclusively) on aspects of doing business that are under their control—such as whether it
is easy to obtain a licence to establish a new business or to carry on normal busi
-ness activity without excessive bureau
-cratic interference, or whether public sector infrastructure is adequate. Some of the survey data do relate to these kinds of issues, but there is often hardly any difference in the survey results across provinces except, perhaps, for a small number of outliers in each case. A weakness of the study is that there is no statistical testing to determine whether the rankings based on such variables are correlated or randomly distributed.
A final comment: it is difficult to un
-derstand why Indonesia’s central bank would allocate its resources to a re -understanding what went wrong, and how to avoid a repetition.
Ross H. McLeod
ANU
This report discusses the System of In
-tegrated Environmental and Economic Accounting (SEEA), and uses it to esti
-mate ‘Green GDP’ for Japan, Indonesia and China. The SEEA inserts an envi
-ronmental account into the traditional System of National Accounts (SNA) used to calculate Gross Domestic Prod
-uct (GDP). Thus Green GDP, also known as Eco Domestic Product, is a correction to GDP that takes account of the cost of natural resource depletion and environ
-mental degradation.
The first part of the report contrasts the SEEA with the National Accounting Matrix including Environmental Ac
-counts (NAMEA), which is an extension of a social accounting matrix (SAM) that includes flow accounts relating to natu
-ral resources. The report argues that the main difference between the NAMEA and the SEEA is that the flow accounts for natural resources in the former are presented only in physical units, whereas in the SEEA they are expressed different accounting systems, developed for different purposes. The NAMEA was devised to observe and account in de
-tail for flows of natural resources, thus providing a more complete social ac
-counting matrix, while the SEEA was developed purely to bring environmen
-tal aspects into the measure of GDP. It should also be noted that there is a class of the NAMEA, the Social and Environ
-mental Accounting Matrix (SEAM), that does in fact present pollution flow mea
-sures in monetary units (Resosudarmo and Thorbecke 1996, 1998). and the degradation of non-produced
non-economic assets, such as air and
water. The presentation would have benefitedfrom the provision of a list of abbreviations for variables, a brief ex
-planation of the meaning of each tech
-nical term, and a list of equations showing the relationships between vari
-ables. Someone unfamiliar with the SNA would have had to wait until the third part of the report to understand the meanings of the variables mentioned here.
Takahiro Akita and Yoichi Nakamura (eds) (2000), GreenGDPEstimatesinChina, Indonesia,andJapan:AnApplicationoftheUNEnvironmental andEconomicAccount
-ingSystem, United Nations University (UNU/IAS), Tokyo, pp. 109. US$10.00; ¥500.
BookReviews 410
mand), COD (chemical oxygen de
-mand) and pollutants such as nitrate and phosphorus for Japan, and levels of BOD and COD for Indonesia. No water quality indicators are considered for China. The second case is the de
-struction of the ecosystem in forests and other land types. The third is the deple
-tion of subsoil resources such as oil, gas and coal.
While at this stage lack of data makes it impractical to build an accounting sys
-tem that covers all pollution problems and all cases of natural resource deple
-tion, there is still a need to justify the inclusion or exclusion of particular pol
-lutants or cases of natural resource depletion in the accounts, but this has not been done here. For air pollution, for example, the SEEA for Indonesia cov
-ers only SOXand NOX, yet studies have shown that PM10 (Particulate Matter with a diameter of 10 micrometres or less) creates greater health problems
than either of these, and data on PM10 are available for Indonesia. In relation to water pollution, it is not clear whether the SEEA for China and Indonesia cov
-ers both ground and surface water pol
-lution: if only the latter is covered, does this mean that data on ground water pollution are not available, or that the problem is trivial in those countries? Another important omission is the case of marine resource depletion, which is very important for Indonesia, at least.
Despite these criticisms, the report can be recommended to those who work on SNA, and the authors are to be con
-gratulated for their contribution to the literature. Readers can learn much about the kinds of data that are available, and how the environmental cost of economic activity can be estimated when relevant information is very limited.
Budy P. Resosudarmo
ANU
References
Resosudarmo,B.P.,andE.Thorbecke(1996),
‘TheImpactofEnvironmentalPolicieson
HouseholdIncomesforDifferentSocio
-Economic Classes: The CaseofAirPol
-lutantsinIndonesia’,EcologicalEconomics
17:83–94.
Resosudarmo,B.P.,andE.Thorbecke(1998),
‘Reducing the NumberofPesticide Re
-latedIllnesses:TheImpactonHouseholds
inIndonesia’, BulletinofIndonesian Eco
-nomicStudies34(2):143–57.
