Indonesia and Malaysia, No brotherly love

Discord across the Malacca strait

From The Economist print edition, Oct 11th 2007 | BANGKOK

INDONESIANS were gobsmacked to hear the Malaysian tourism board's new advertisements, which feature the old song “Rasa Sayang”. Hey, they cried, that's our tune! The song's title means “Feeling of Love”. But unloving Indonesians cursed their neighbours for “stealing” part of their cultural heritage, just as they are also accused of filching Indonesian art forms such as batik fabric making and wayang shadow-puppetry. Furious politicians in Jakarta demanded that their government sue for breach of copyright, or something.

The chances of any such legal move seem slim: no one knows who wrote the song, or when, or where. Malaysian ministers argue that it has been sung in both countries for ages and so belongs to both. A retired Western diplomat recalls being taught to sing it on his first visit to Malaysia, as an aid volunteer, back in 1970.

The “stolen” tune has provided the background music to a rising discord, mainly over how Malaysia treats the millions of Indonesians working there, legally and illegally. In June Indonesian newspapers published a photograph of an Indonesian maid clinging to a rope made of bed-sheets to descend from an apartment block in Kuala Lumpur and escape her “abusive” employers. The Indonesian embassy there said there were 1,200 cases of abuse of Indonesian maids last year.

In August anti-Malaysian protests spread across Indonesia after plain-clothes police beat up the Indonesian referee of the Asian Karate Championship, being held in Malaysia's capital. This week Indonesia lodged a formal complaint after two of its citizens—one a diplomat's wife—were allegedly mistreated by Rela, a thuggish volunteer force that the Malaysian government uses to track down illegal immigrants. There were calls in Jakarta's parliament for a boycott of Malaysian goods.

Malaysia's prime minister, Abdullah Badawi, and Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, have tried to calm things. In February Mr Yudhoyono gave Mr Badawi a medal and called him “a true friend in good and bad times”. But relations are brittle. Nobody is expecting a return to the early 1960s, when Indonesia pursued konfrontasi, armed confrontation, with the newly formed Malaysia. But it is only two years since both countries sent warships to assert competing claims to an oil-rich patch of sea off Borneo.

Accidents of colonial history—Indonesia was the Dutch-run bit of the East Indies, Malaysia the British bit—help explain the rows over territory and culture. Each country cultivates its own version of a common language, Malay, which ought to unite them but often divides. This week Malaysia's government announced a review of its need for foreign workers and talked of finding them elsewhere. But proximity and cultural and linguistic links make Indonesians the best solution to Malaysia's labour shortage, and Malaysia the best solution to Indonesia's job shortage. It is a pity they cannot stop scrapping and accept this. But, as Shakespeare noted, the near in blood, the nearer bloody.