Author’s Note: This article was first published in the Jakarta Post in June 2015 and is republished here by the author for wider dissemination
In August this year, as in the last, the third Congress of the Indonesian Diaspora will be held in Jakarta, summoning flocks of overseas Indonesians, or the Indonesian diaspora, to return to the country dear to their hearts. Numbering over 8 million people in over 90 different countries, the diaspora comprises Indonesian citizens, former Indonesian citizens, and their descendants. Embodying the Indonesian microcosm abroad, the diaspora is no less diverse and dynamic than their country of origin. They proudly hail from Sabang to Merauke, representing all ethnicities and faiths, and occupying both menial and professional positions alike. They are united by love for the motherland and a resolve to contribute to her progress.
In the pre-independence era, young and valiant members of the Indonesian diaspora in the Netherlands championed independence all over Europe, before some, most prominently Muhammad Hatta, returned home to finish the job. Admittedly, not every diaspora member can be Bung Hatta, our first vice president, or former vice president and third president BJ Habibie. But other diaspora members before, since, and after them are by no means less significant, on account of their natural disposition to contribute to their motherland in ways big or small.
This proclivity is one of the recurrent impressions every time I interact with my fellow diaspora members, from students to scholars, from maids to managers, from employees to employers. They humbly reveal how they have sustained a family of five back home, built the first library in their illiterate-stricken village, set up a clinic in a remote area, sent their relatives and non-relatives to university, taught at a university during the summer, tutored young IT entrepreneurs, or opened up a chain of traditional restaurants employing 50 Indonesians in the process. The diaspora is making a tangible contribution to its homeland and to the everyday life of their fellow Indonesians. Simply put, the Indonesian diaspora—8 million of them—matter.
Global trends are moving steadily toward recognizing members of the diaspora as potential partners in development, rather than as a lost population. It has become increasingly improvident to ignore the ever-growing diaspora’s contribution and value not only in terms of remittances (US$400 billion worldwide) but also in terms of trade and investment flows, skill and technological transfers, as well as soft diplomacy. Governments are now, more than ever, proactively seeking meaningful ways to engage their diasporas in areas of mutual interest—as reflected in 77 diaspora-related ministries and offices in at least 56 countries in the past decade.
Governments also employ viable strategies to engage their diasporas meaningfully, including offering some form of flexible citizenship laws, including dual citizenship. More than 60 countries have implemented full or partial dual citizenship and appear to be reaping the benefits of their strategy. Quantitative studies by David Leblang of the University of Virginia demonstrate that “dual citizenship generates larger remittances at the macro and micro levels.” Countries that offer dual citizenship receive approximately 78 percent more remittances from their diasporas compared with those that do not offer similar laws.
It is, therefore, quite possible that if Indonesia decided to offer dual citizenship and Vietnam did not, Indonesia could augment its remittances, from $8 billion to over $10 billion, making it the second-largest recipient of remittances in Southeast Asia and ninth in the world. Leblang also concludes that dual citizenship “increases the likelihood of return migration.” Some 3 million of the Indonesian diaspora are highly skilled workers who no longer hold Indonesian citizenship, after naturalization in foreign countries. They are often written off as a population lost and a “brain drain,” a migration of highly skilled workers from developing to developed countries.
A dual citizenship law would encourage workers to return home to apply their in-demand skills, thus helping reverse the brain drain. Rather than losing the diaspora completely, perhaps it is better to regain some talent through dual citizenship. That is conceivably the logic behind the recommendation for dual citizenship submitted by the high-level committee on the Indian Diaspora to the Indian government. As a country that had suffered from a brain drain since the 1960s, South Korea implemented, among other things, dual citizenship in 2010 to help further reverse the process. So far, more and more highly skilled members of the South Korean diaspora are reported to have returned home.
The often cited argument against dual citizenship, inter alia, revolves around the notion of patriotism. Having a second citizenship or switching one’s citizenship, for any reason, is considered antithetical to patriotism. It is then surmised that anyone who maintains exclusively his citizenship is by default patriotic or more patriotic than those who add or change their citizenship. Thus, former Indonesian citizens and their immediate progeny, despite their affective and material ties to Indonesia and their contributions, would be written off as unpatriotic.
A serious question needs to be raised, whether some reprobate Indonesians who commit deleterious and odious crimes against the state and their own people, such as corruption and peddling drugs to youth, can really be perceived as more patriotic than, say, Dr. Tik Tan, a former Indonesian citizen, who has conducted countless free reconstructive surgeries for the needy in Sumatra. Perhaps there is another way to delineate the notion of patriotism closer to its etymological construction but still forward-looking. Here, patriotism may be defined as actively serving your fatherland (patria) and countryman (patriota), irrespective of your legal status, be it an Indonesian citizen, former citizens, or their descendants.
President John F. Kennedy’s aphorism, “ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country,” seems to bolster the notion that being patriotic quintessentially boils down to actively serving and contributing to one’s country. Hence, one may contend that some Indonesian diaspora members, who may have changed their citizenship wittingly or unwittingly, yet continue to serve and contribute meaningfully to their country of origin, are no less patriotic than their law-abiding counterparts who do the same.
While there is much to gain from implementing dual citizenship in Indonesia, I do not wish to advocate dual citizenship simply for diaspora remittances, investments, or “brain gain.” I strongly believe in the greater Indonesian community that surpasses traditional territorial boundaries, in the recognition of such a vibrant community as the extended nation, and in the viable mechanism that enables such a colorful community to connect and contribute to its rich, resplendent roots.
Hope to see all you germane stakeholders at the upcoming congress.
