•    HOME   
•    NEWS   
•    BUSINESS   
•    INTERNATIONAL   
•    TECH   
•    SPORTS   
•    LIFE & TIMES   
•    OPINION   
•    MY JAKARTA   
•    BLOGS   

The Indonesian love balladeer, Diana Nasution, captured the essence of Indonesia-Malaysia relations with her song, “Benci Tapi Rindu” — “I hate you but I miss you.”

Our bilateral relations have always been complex, as befits two nations that are so deeply intertwined. Two recent images appear to encapsulate our perceptions of one another: grainy pictures of Malaysian warships and Manohara, the young model embroiled in a drama that has attracted the near obsessive interest of tens of millions on both sides of the Malacca Strait.

And with the territorial dispute over Ambalat flaring up once again, I am reminded of a recent trip I made to East Kalimantan. Interestingly enough, the belligerent language in the media is very much at odds with the warmth of the welcome I experienced on the ground.

Sadly, the dispute over Ambalat only serves to deepen the wedge between the Malaysian and the Indonesian parts of Borneo, both of which could benefit enormously from enhanced ties. Indeed, the similarities between the two are so striking that the near total lack of high-level and sustained interaction — there are no flights between Kota Kinabalu and Balikpapan, for example — only weakens both sides.

Borneo’s cities are on the edge. They hug the water, whether it’s the sea or the broad, sluggish, chocolate-colored rivers, turning their backs on the vast interior, the source of the prosperity, as if fearful of the emptiness, and indeed, the desecration that has been wrought in the pursuit of profit.

Having spent many years living in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah’s sleepy state capital, I’m all too familiar with that sense of living on the periphery, of feeling isolated and apart . And while East Kalimantan’s twin urban centers of Balikpapan and Samarinda are more raucous and traffic-choked than Kota Kinabalu, the sense of isolation remains just as profound.

However, I have to admit that nothing quite prepared me for Balikpapan’s rambunctious intensity. Gazing out of my window from the newly-minted Novotel, I couldn’t help but think of the Javanese saying, “Mangan ora mangan asal mumpul,” or “Whether or not we eat is immaterial as long as we’re together.” It was as if the many hundreds of thousands of Javanese and Madurese immigrants in the province had imported their conception of time and space, rejecting the immensity of the landscape they now called home.

Every square centimeter of land was inhabited and utilized. There were shopping malls, 20-story apartment blocks, fast-food outlets and shop-house developments sprouting like mushrooms.

Indeed, as Imdaad Hamid, the city’s thoughtful and softly-spoken mayor explains: “We need to develop a critical mass of activities within the town to retain the wealth. Otherwise our people will spend their money in Jakarta and Surabaya.” As it is, there are 14 daily flights to Jakarta and another 10 to Surabaya.

East Kalimantan has been a veritable El Dorado for Indonesians — especially the Jakarta elite — with a towering GDP of some $20.2 billion. In this respect, the province is little different from the resource-rich, and, some might say equally plundered, Sabah.

With a population of just over three million, East Kalimantan produces copious amounts of oil and gas as well 93 million metric tons of “black gold,” or coal, making up some 68.5 percent of the nation’s total. Indeed, if you stand alongside the bustling Mahakam River in Samarinda, with the vast and resplendent mosque to your back — said to be the largest mosque in Southeast Asia — you should be able to see the heavily loaded barges transporting the coal downriver.

With every encounter in the province, I was struck by the enormous level of interest in Sabah and even Sarawak. Businessmen and traders talked about the cheaper Malaysian household goods, tinned Carnation milk, biscuits and chocolates, just as government leaders discussed the schools and universities, Kota Kinabalu’s gleaming airport and the many hotels dedicated to ecotourism. For brief moments then, that sense of isolation seemed to drop away.

Unfortunately, I’ve never met a Sabahan who speaks of Indonesia with the same degree of interest or fascination and this is a great shame. While stronger ties — be it trade, cultural or people-to-people — won’t necessarily resolve the Ambalat issue, a major opportunity is being missed here and bilateral tensions are no help to people on either side of the border on this vast island.


Karim Raslan is a columnist who divides his time between Malaysia and Indonesia.