ABSTRACT
At present, between two and eight million of a total population of about 255 million Indonesians are living temporarily or permanently outside their home country as migrant workers, expatriates, international students, spouses or refugees. The wide divergence in the estimated number arises because some international datasets relating to migrants only include Indonesian-born people living abroad and exclude subsequent generations and other overseas Indonesians not born in Indonesia (Muhidin and Utomo 2015: 95). Most overseas Indonesians live in Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bangladesh, Singapore, the Netherlands, the USA, Kuwait and Australia. While the Indonesian government has paid little attention to overseas Indonesians in the past, it is now doing so, partly because of dramatic cases of the abuse of female labour migrants by their employers (Palmer 2016). As well as taking greater responsibility for citizens in need of support overseas, the Indonesian government has, since 2010, begun to acknowledge the economic potential of its global diaspora, which could become a valuable national resource in terms of remittances, foreign direct investment and socio-economic developments initiated by returning Indonesians. The Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has established an Indonesian Diaspora Desk, at ambassadorial level, and diaspora congresses are held annually with the support of political leaders (Muhidin and Utomo 2015). While the economic potential is sought after, and cultural activities might get support as ‘soft power’ agents, the political activities of distant diasporans wanting to interfere in Indonesian politics are not appreciated at all. Yet, among the many Indonesians overseas, there is a small number who – from a safe distance and with little to lose – aspire to be political spokespersons in international fora on behalf of their co-ethnics back home. Disengaged from the often-complex real politics on the ground, they establish a kind of moral superiority for themselves and, in making their political demands and forwarding their political visions, show little will to compromise and little pragmatism or sensitivity.
