Drew Ambrose [DA]:So what do you make of the ironical state of the Bush visit yesterday in Bogor?
WW: Well, it seems George Bush got best part of the deal by having a podium to show the world that he is still in control, that he’s accepted by the country with the world’s largest Moslem population, that he’s capable of accepting demonstrators with grace. In other words, he is trying to recover from the humiliation that he got in the November 7 elections and that is ok, because I am one who is happy by the way the US electorate put some sense into American politics. Bush is not the same person who was prancing around the world for some many years.
DA: What about the fact that the US congress put a lot of money in educational programs?
WW: To put that in perspective, the aid package that they brought for education and other things in total is only around 200 million dollars, while the amount of aid that they give to countries like Jordan and Pakistan are in the billions of dollars. Indonesia let them get away too cheaply.
DA: Do you think this is just a payoff, regarding the 6 hours and all the things that Indonesia did in Bogor ?
WW: I don’t think you can quite blame George Bush for the things in Bogor, because as state visits go that is par for the course. It is the substance of the meeting which is very fuzzy. Who asked for it, who benefits from it. Indonesia doesn’t benefit much from it because we are being visited and praised by a person who has a very low rating even in his own country. There are few people in the US who support him than oppose him. In Indonesia, before September 11 the US actually enjoyed 61 % approval from the Indonesian public. Now it has plummeted to 15% and it’s all because of Iraq. Bush has nowhere to go.
Coming here, everything is just very convenient for him. I don’t think the Indonesian reaction is unusual. I don’t think it is unusual for a US president to command such attention, especially in a time of world terror.
DA: Is there anything positive that you can take away from Bush’s visit?
WW: At least now conservative media like Fox News are forced to say that Indonesia is a good and democratic country, because they want to show that Bush is welcomed by a legitimate country. So Indonesia got some legitimation. Bush can’t complain about Indonesia because other country are less friendly to him, except for countries like Singapore who obviously do not have much to say in the area of world politics.
We should be happy with the way that everything went peacefully. There were a lot of passionate demonstrations but they were all organized, there were a lot of people grumbling but there was no physical violence. It was a chance to show the world that Indonesia is a decent place, not a terrorist nation. It was a chance to show that we have a President who receives more respect than the US President.
DA: Do you think there is much they could discuss in topics like bird flu, education, terrorism for 6 hours?
WW: We should not be so naïve as to think that anything was discussed away from the TV cameras. It was purely a PR event, photo opportunities. Whatever transpired behind closed doors was just pretend. Everything had been discussed prior to the visit prior to that in the normal course of day-to-day bilateral relations. Bush came here to boost his rating and he did, ever so slightly.
