In this context, Indonesia has had extremely strong diplomatic relations with Arab countries in the Middle East. As a result, Indonesian foreign policy in the last years of the revolution disparaged Islam, although social groups continued to operate in Egypt and the Hejaz. On this basis, it is not surprising that Arab countries in the Middle East were some of the first targets of Indonesia's diplomatic efforts.
The societal groups that pioneered the Indonesian cause in the Middle East were student groups. Despite not being the largest, the group in Cairo was the most active in promoting Indonesian independence in the early years of the revolution.
Indonesia and the Arab League
Later that year, at the meeting of the Arab League in October 1946, the Secretary General raised the possibility of offering the Arab League as a mediator in the conflict between the Indonesians and the Dutch. This motion appears not to have been advanced.57 Further action came the following month, when the Council of the Arab League, by unanimous vote of all seven states, agreed to a resolution: “The Council recommends to the members of the Arab League that they recognize Indonesia as an independent sovereign state.”58 This made the Arab League the first international body to recognize Indonesia's independence.59. The story of the Arab League's pro-active stance in support of Indonesia centers on the Islamic ideals of the League's first secretary-general, 'Abd al-Raḥmān 'Azzām, commonly referred to as Azzam Pasha.
59 The role of the Arab League was not recognized until much later by Indonesian diplomats, such as the country's chief negotiator with the Dutch, Mohamad Roem. Roem stopped in Cairo in 1968 to read about the organization's support for Indonesia's independence in the collection of the Arab League. He identified this as the target of "the underlying evil in the world" and the cause of suffering for the majority of the world's population.62 Azzam even released a pamphlet in the name of the Arab League, in which he used Islamic principles to defy imperialism. to condemn.
When the Arab League voted to recognize Indonesian sovereignty, Azzam Pasha was quoted in the New York Times as pointing to shared histories of suffering under colonialism, but also "strong religious and cultural ties to the Indonesian people."65. Azzam Pasha's actions in support of Islamic solidarity and pan-Islamic ideas were not universally welcomed in or outside the Arab League. Despite these reservations about Azzam Pasha, his support was very effective in pushing the Indonesian question onto the agenda of the Arab League, with important diplomatic consequences.
This action against Indonesia set a precedent for the Arab League to work as a bloc in diplomatic affairs in the United Nations, and Azzam Pasha identified cooperation on the Indonesia issue as one of the building blocks for the later creation of the Asia-Africa block .68 It also paved the way for direct Indonesian.
An Arab League Delegation to Indonesia, and State-to-State Relations
While in Yogyakarta, the diplomat said, “It is the Islamic Brotherhood that has mobilized support for the struggle of the Indonesian people. The full speeches of Abdul Munim and Sukarno were reprinted in the official propaganda of the Republic of Indonesia in English: Voice of Free Indonesia, no. The girl was given the middle name Farida in honor of the Egyptian Queen Farida, wife of King Farouk II, as a sign of gratitude that the Egyptian government sent the first foreign diplomat to the revolutionary capital.77.
Apparently the Egyptian diplomat had agreed to allow members of the Indonesian delegation to join him on the flight to Singapore, but was surprised when twenty-four people (still not the entire delegation) were on board – well over the declared capacity of the aircraft. While participation in the Asian Relations Conference was an important moment for Indonesia, the conference did not focus on Indonesia's independence; The tenor of the meeting was general anti-colonialism and the promotion of pan-Asian solidarity. Importantly, however, Indonesia was only able to send a delegation because of the support of the Arab League envoy to get the diplomats past the Dutch blockade – once again making Islamic connections critical to the development of Indonesian diplomacy.
In the aftermath of the conference, relations with the Arab states once again took center stage, as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs H. said. A full account of the conference on Asian Relations can be found in Asian Relations, namely Report of the Proceedings and Documentation of the First Asian Relations Conference. , New Delhi, March–April 1947 (New Delhi, India: Asian Relations Organization, 1948). In the Middle East, Salim secured the de jure recognition of the Republic of Indonesia by several Arab governments, starting with Egypt.
Changes in the geopolitics of the Middle East turned the Arab League and its members away from Indonesia, while other countries and international bodies took up the Indonesian cause instead.
Support on the International Stage and the Decline of Arab/
Contributing to this was the fact that the Arab countries had already de jure recognized the independence of the Indonesian state, making this a disagreement among the existing members of the United Nations and thus preventing the Dutch from blocking proposals to discuss the Indonesian question. There is a well-documented case of Algeria, where appeals to the United States, Britain, Spain, Egypt and others were as important as fighting on the ground.93 The Indonesian experience, however, differed in several ways. Indonesia participated in this effort before clear blocs emerged in the UN; indeed, some actors cited the Indonesian issue of the 1940s as an important foundation for the subsequent emergence of the Asia-Africa bloc.
93 Matthew James Connelly, The Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria's Struggle for Independence and the Origins of the Post-Cold War Era (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). By 1947, it was already clear in the speeches of Arab delegates to the Asian Relations Conference that this was the primary international interest of most of their countrymen at the time.101 In many ways this theme also played on themes of Islamic solidarity. and efforts to seek solutions. 101 Asian Relations, being a Report of the Proceedings and Documentation of the First Asian Relations Conference, New Delhi, March-April, 1947, p.
However, at the end of the Revolution, the Indonesian government looked to the Arab countries as an important bloc to support their independence. As the Round Table Conference met in the Netherlands to determine the terms for the transfer of sovereignty, the Indonesian government appointed a special Hajj delegation in September 1949. Before this delegation left the republican capital of Yogyakarta, one of its participants is said to have was instructed by Indonesian President Sukarno, “If the negotiations in Den Haag fail, the [hajj] mission cannot return home to Indonesia; should stay longer in Arab and North African countries, with the task of explaining to their leaders and governments in those countries about the struggle of the Republic of Indonesia, so that they can help the Indonesian nation in its physical struggle and diplomatic. 108 The delegation went to Hijaz for a month, participating in the Hajj and giving a gift to the King of Saudi Arabia, after two months in Cairo, where they also received Vice President Hatta on his return trip from the successful Round Table Conference negotiations Round.109 The vision of this delegation continuing the work to contact Arab governments and leaders, as had been done by independent students at the beginning of the Revolution, provides an interesting bookend to Indonesian diplomatic activities. in the Arab world.
The actions of the Indonesians, however, no longer provoked major reactions in Cairo or Mecca, both because such reactions were no longer necessary, and because the Arab world was so wrapped up in its region in 1949.
Concluding Remarks
Although studies have already pointed to the increasing strength of Islam in society and the growing place of Islam in government since the fall of Suharto,111 they have not connected the turn to Islam with a decline in central state power. Bondan, Molly, Spanning a Revolution: The Story of Mohamad Bondan and the Indonesian Nationalist Movement, Jakarta: Pustaka Sinar Harapan, 1992. ed.), The Arab League: British Documentary Sources London: Archive Editions and the Foreign Office of Great Britain, 1995. Connelly, Matthew, Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria's Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-Cold War Era, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Crowl, Samuel E, "Indonesia's Diplomatic Revolution: Lining Up for Non Alignment in Connecting Histories: Decolonization and the Cold War in Southeast Asia Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press and the Woodrow Wilson Center, 2009. Dipoyudo, Kirdi, "Foreigners of Indonesia's Middle East and Africa Policy', The Indonesian Quarterly, Vol. Egyptian Society of International Law, Egypt and the United Nations, New York: Manhattan Publishing Company for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1957.
Michael, “New Networks and New Knowledge: Migrations, Communications, and the Refiguration of the Muslim Community in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries,” in New Cambridge History of Islam, vol. Gouda, Frances and Thijs Brocades Zaalberg, American Views on the Dutch East Indies/Indonesia: American Foreign Policy and Indonesian Nationalism Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2002. McMahon, Robert J., Colonialism and Cold War: The United States and the Struggle for Indonesian independence, 1945-1949, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981.
Reinhardt, Jon M., Foreign Policy and National Integration: The Case of Indonesia, New Haven, CT: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, 1971.
