Inside Indonesia’s Big Bang brings a Canadian eye to international development

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π‘©π’π’π’Œ π’“π’†π’—π’Šπ’†π’˜ 𝒔𝒑𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒐𝒓𝒆𝒅 π’ƒπ’š π‘Ύπ’“π’Šπ’•π’† π‘΅π’π’˜! π’˜π’Šπ’•π’‰ 𝑱𝒐𝒏 π‘»π’‚π’•π’•π’“π’Šπ’†.

Inside Indonesia’s Big Bang, by Mark Gilbert, Phd.

For many years I taught writing classes to civil servants. I always looked forward to those classes, as the students came ready to learn and eager to get better at that aspect of their job. In our conversations between lessons, I was struck by how they were in many ways the opposite of the politicians I dealt with as a journalist. The civil servants are there for the long-haul, not a term, and tend to end up in departments whose work they care greatly about.Β 

The same is true for Mark Gilbert. His insightful new book, Inside Indonesia’s Big Bang, is not about his main career as a Canadian expert on local government, nor his years as an academic. Instead, he tells the fascinating story of his twenty-year experience as a sort of diplomat sent from Canada to Indonesia as that country underwent significant reform from the 1990s onward.

If you remember the arrival of Access Nova Scotia in the 1990s, you will appreciate how big an improvement that made to countless people by offering a one-stop shop, rather than forcing you to go from place to place to get your paperwork sorted. Indonesians were interested in making a similar change, as well as rethinking their governmental structure from a highly centralized system, to one where many things were handled locally, as in Canada’s triple layers of municipal, provincial, and federal governments.

But the heart of this book is Mark’s human experience in Indonesia, and with Indonesians visiting Canada. Mark has a sharp eye for people and paints vivid pictures of his travels in Indonesia. He has a long and funny run of β€œdistinguishing himself” after he learns that for Javanese in particular, adults are expected to always show high self-control, balance and grace, and never get loud or angry in public.Β 

“My Western upbringing encouraged a degree of aggressiveness and confrontation and standing up for your rights to settle disputes when you felt wronged. I think Agung and other Javanese and Sundanese Indonesian colleagues felt ‘distinguished’ from me on a couple of future missions when I expressed my frustration in a very non-Javanese way,” he writes with humour.

He learns to present himself in a humbler, more harmonious, Indonesian fashion.Β 

He also shows us Nova Scotia through the eyes of his Indonesian colleagues, who visit several times on learning missions. One Canadian scene particularly stuck with me. He was introducing his Indonesian colleagues to the joy of Tim Hortons, but did it Canadian-style, which is to say everyone ordered their own coffee. He at first did not understand why this went over so poorly, but later learned that Indonesian manners required him to buy everyone’s drink and share them out. Otherwise, it felt more like inviting someone to your home for dinner and then asking your guest what’s for supper.Β 

I know this book very well, as OC Publishing hired me to edit it last year. The book would be a great case study for university courses, or a fun and informative read for anyone considering life abroad.Β 

Mark was CEO of a Crown corporation for more than a decade, spent two years working with local government in South Africa, and served as national director of the Institute of Public Administration of Canada for six years. Mark is a humble, hard-working, curious person, and you will enjoy your time with him.

In a world where no two nations seem capable of cooperating anymore, Mark shows us that quiet, steady work on improving things from the ground up can make a more harmonious world, with fewer people β€œdistinguishing” themselves.Β 

I’ll be there for the launch. It’s in room 301 at the Halifax Central Library at 2 p.m. on Sunday Jan. 25.