Is invisibility the price of success for Indonesia?


To celebrate Indonesia’s 72nd birthday, I post a talk I gave at TED Global a couple of years ago, musing about why the country was so invisible internationally. To prove my point, I started with a video, filmed among the TED Global crowd — well-heeled internationalists all — asking them to find Indonesia on the globe. At the time, 2014, I posited that the reason so many respondents couldn’t point straight to the world’s fourth most populous country is that it kept itself out of the global headlines by holding elections that weren’t mired in conflict, and by managing to keep the peace between the nation’s many ethnic, religious and interest groups.

I wonder if I would give the same talk now. Judge for yourself.

In any event, selamat ulang tahun Republik Indonesia