Indonesia Part I - Setting the Stage

Stanford GSB, in its wisdom, insists that all students must complete at least one structured, global experience before completing the MBA.  At first I was a bit skeptical of the logic behind this requirement.  It seemed like insisting that all students, regardless of past experience were in need of a trip of this nature was wrongheaded and would lead to a misuse of some students time and resources.  However, as the pre-trip meetings gathered steam, I began to change my mind on the topic and upon reflection, I'm glad for the policy.  I'm certainly still digesting the lessons that I learned over my time in Indonesia (the subsequent blog posts will do something to address this) but I wanted to get started with laying the background before I jumped into my thoughts from the trip.

First, the trip.  Stanford offers 15 or so trip options for the first year students.  The trips must be to a country that you haven't spent serious time in before and are usually about 1.5 weeks in length.  The nice part is that second year students plan the entire trip covering country selection, travel logistics, and meetings.  All we need to do is rank the trips we find most appealing and cross our fingers that we get it.  Typically, you'll be matched with either your first or second preference and grouped with 17 of your soon-to-be-best-friends.  At that point, only a few meetings and some paperwork stand between you and a country you know nothing about.  In my case, Indonesia.

Okay, time to move away from logistics to start talking Indonesia.  The first thing to understand about the country is its scale.  As I learned in literally every meeting, Indonesia is made up of 17,000 individual islands stretching over 3,000 miles (greater than the width of the continental US.  Indonesia is home to 240m people making it the fourth most populous country in the world (just after the US).  Stretching the word scale a bit, Indonesia also houses incredible demographic diversity.  The archipelago supports over 300 ethnic groups speaking 700 languages / dialects.  Can you imagine trying to make generalizations to cover a country like this?  I hope so since I'll be making some later on...

Next, we should turn our attention to Indonesia's recent past.  Well, recent-ish.  In 1600, the Dutch laid their claim to Indonesia via the Dutch East India Company.  They didn't control much beyond the coastal regions until the 1900s but at that point the end was already bearing down on them.  In WWII, Japan invaded Indonesia and expelled the Dutch.  Then, when Japan surrendered, the founding father of Indonesia, Sukarno (not Suharto) declared Indonesia independent.  The Netherlands tried to get Indonesia back after but colonialism was so passé at that point.

Sukarno ruled Indonesia as an authoritarian until an attempted coup d'etat weakened him politically (despite a violent purge of Communists) and General Suharto assumed control in 1968.  Suharto made a number of reforms to Indonesia's economy but ruled with an iron fist and allowed tremendous corruption.  Finally, in 1998, he resigned amidst the instability of the Asian Financial Crisis.  Transparency International estimates that Suharto embezzled $15-25 BILLION over his 30 year reign.  

Sukarno

Suharto

Since the financial crisis, Indonesia has been steadily regaining lost ground.  Since 2007, its GDP has grown at over 6% a year.  Given the Global Financial Crisis, this is an incredible statistic.  Corruption still plagues the country but it is currently rated investment grade so... not too terrible at least.

Okay, that is a basic grounding in Indonesia that in no way does it justice but that should suffice for our purposes.  In my next posts, I'll dig into some of the reflections from my trip.