Born to rule. It was the phrase which came to mind as I took in the finely tailored suit, the manicured hands and the regal pose of the Sultan of Jogjakarta and Governor of the 'special district' of Jogjakarta early this week.
Sultan Hamengku Buwono X, the last of Java's kings, whose title means 'the universe in the lap of the king', was in Canberra at the invitation of Prime Minister John Howard, whom he met, and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Wherever he went, there was no doubting who was royalty, and who were of the common herd. All the more because there have been loud stage whispers for some time that he could be a future President of Indonesia.
Even the normally unflappable Arts Minister Senator Richard Alston was stumbling over his honorifics on Tuesday as he welcomed the Sultan to the National Gallery for the unveiling of a $ 6.5 million purchase of rare Indonesian textiles. The night before at the Indonesian Embassy's launch of Balai Budaya, the revamped cultural centre, cameras clicked, adoring would-be subjects beamed, and all the while Sri Sultan Hamengku Buwono X smiled in the inscrutable manner known as tersenyum raja. You could easily credit the story reported in Asiaweek before the last Indonesian elections that the Sultan, though an uninspiring orator, was holding crowds spellbound while the brilliant former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid, was boring them rigid. When I confirmed a breakfast interview with him, I rushed to find out how one should address a sultan. George Quinn at the ANU tipped me off that since we were to use Bahasa Indonesia, which is, unlike, Javanese, quite democratic, I need only address him as Bapak Sultan Mr Sultan.
The Sultan's present visit is not his first to Australia, though officially this one may be at the highest level. His daughters all went to university in Queensland, and he is familiar with Brisbane, Adelaide and Melbourne. This time, he said, he and his wife would get to know Canberra and Tasmania instead.
Aged just 56, he is evidently a man of the 21st century, and feudal though the Sultan's traditional role may be, he is also a politician with a bent for economic reform. The Sultan was a vice-presidential candidate for the former ruling Golkar party in the last elections, but maintains good relations with President Megawati Sukarnoputri, also a Javanese, though a commoner. He was named by Abdurrahman Wahid as the man he would most like to have succeed him. He continues to be regarded as the dark horse of Indonesian politics, and one who had, in May 1998, joined thousands of ordinary Indonesians on the streets of Jogja in protest against the Suharto regime.
Flanked at the Hyatt by two affable note-taking officials from the Embassy as we were, our breakfast interview was more like an audience. Even so, with as many prefatory courtesies as I could manage, I asked about the announcement on June 13 that he was about to be formally questioned in a graft case involving Rp54 billion (A$ 11 million) of funds of Bank Indonesia liquidation support (BLBI) being transferred to shore up his now defunct Bank Mataram Dhanarta.
He saw the question coming and was ready, praising all the modern principles of transparency and repeating what he had said to the Indonesian press, 'I've done nothing illegal . . . there's no problem.' Besides which, he'd been to the Attorney General to discuss the matter. In a country where leaders are revered, it's worth remembering that the Dutch were afraid to lift a hand against a revolutionary sultan in 1948 because of the millions who regarded him as the near-divine guardian of the people. It would be the same now.
The conversation was saturated with references to 'cultural ethics', and the need for neighbourly dialogue between Indonesia and Australia. Yet it would be too easy to dismiss all this as tokenistic, for he is no ordinary politician.
Behind the words is a regal vision. The Sultan had been to the ANU for discussions. He was aware of links between Sydney University and the Christian University in nearby Salatiga, as well as Monash's links with his own alma mater, the University of Gajah Mada in Jogja. He will visit the University of Tasmania too.
He made no bones about the fact when DFAT invited him, he thought it would be a good opportunity to make contacts and look into possibilities for commerce with Jogjakarta. Culture, though intrinsic to his life, could yield results in the economic sphere. Later at the National Gallery he would link traditional batik and ikat art to the potential for export within the contemporary fashion industry.
It would be plain frivolous to question the Sultan's cultural credentials. The latest in a dynasty founded in 1755, he is patron of the Sono-Bedoyo Museum in Jogja and author of several philosophical books. He may be a law graduate, but, like his late father, he is also a playwright. The present Sultan's thematic bent, he told me, is more philosophical than that of his father, who preferred historical dance dramas based on the actions of characters from the wooden wayang golek puppets. A recent play concerns the conflict between Buddhist and Hindu thought, a peculiarly Javanese preoccupation for a devout Muslim.
He looks beyond the high culture of the kraton dances to what he called 'universal dance', art which speaks across borders and classes. The proof? At the big arts festivals in Australia these days, Indonesia is always represented, in visual arts, puppetry or dance.
As to politics, the Sultan was enigmatic, as you'd expect from the leader of a special self governing territory answerable directly to Jakarta. The district population of Jogja is three million and the area just 3186 sq km, but it is without doubt the intellectual and cultural heart of Java, so his words count and he selects them carefully. The Indonesian leadership, he said, was going through 'a process towards adulthood'. In his view increasing education and social sophistication would reverse a process of disintegration. But first and it's a big first conflicts between the post-independence generation and traditionalists must be sorted out. Second, the way information technology is internationalising the outlook of young people must be recognised. Third, there is the necessity of balancing centralism and provincial identity. Religion was not the main problem, he said. He absolutely rejects the view that conflicts in Maluku are based on religion. There, he says the causes are social, as in Kalimantan a veiled reference to the tensions unleashed by transmigration issues.
The Sultan, who went on TV in February this year to call for calm during street riots in Jogja between members of Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle and Vice-President Hamzah Haz's Muslim United Development Party, said the level of hostility had been exaggerated. Though the multi-ethnic make-up of the city these days has thrown up challenges, fears of continuing unrest in highly-educated Jogja never eventuated.
A favourite word of the Sultan is mengengineeringkan, to engineer socially, so that traditional society becomes more 'rational'. It has resonances when you consider that former presidents Sukarno and Habibie were real engineers. The word betrays a profound belief that human nature can be toned down, rationalised and civilised. It was a tantalising if disturbing vision to discover in such a powerful leader.