'Look Over Here!': Indonesian Responses to the Arab Spring

Indonesian Responses to the Arab Spring GregFealy An Egyptian scholar visiting the State Islamic University in Jakarta in mid-2011 gave a talk to students on ‘The Lessons of the Arab Spring’. At the end of the talk, a student stood and inquired if the scholar was also going to be asking about the lessons of Indonesia’s reformasi process, in which another despised autocrat had been overthrown and a democratic system successfully implanted. The scholar shifted uncomfortably and replied that he knew little about events in Indonesia but doubted that, given the many differences between the two countries, much benefit could derive from a comparative study. This anecdote neatly captures the disconnect between Arabs in the Middle East and Indonesians regarding the relative significance of their respective political upheavals and reform processes that have swept across their countries in recent years. When the Arab Spring began to gain momentum from early...