38 Asia The EconomistOctober 26th 2019
I
t vies withSydney Opera House as the
most famous symbol of Australia. Yet
to the original inhabitants of the sur-
rounding area it is not just beautiful, but
sacred, the scene of holy rituals. Signs
erected by the Anangu people at the base
of Uluru declare, “Under our traditional
law, climbing is not permitted.” Yet
climbing Ayers Rock, as most other
Australians knew the vast red monolith
until recently, has long been a favoured
pastime of tourists. Some litter, defecate
or strip while they scramble up. Fully 37
people have died trying to reach the
summit in sweltering heat. The Anangu
have had enough: they own the site and
from October 26th will ban visitors from
ascending. It is “not a theme park like
Disneyland”, reasoned Sammy Wilson,
one of its traditional owners, when the
change was announced.
Some Australians complain they are
being robbed of a birthright. Pauline
Hanson, leader of the populist One Na-
tion party, has likened the ban to a shut-
down of Bondi, Sydney’s most famousbeach. She recently made a pilgrimage to
climb the rock, but quickly became stuck
and was forced to slide back down on her
backside. She later admitted she could
“see the sense in banning” the climb “due
to safety reasons”. Those who view Uluru
as a spiritual place smiled. “You’ve got to
ask why it was that she couldn’t get up
there,” says Tom Calma, the co-chair of
Reconciliation Australia, a charity.
Other, more sure-footed Australians
have been flocking to Uluru in record
numbers to climb it while they can. Some
assert that the rock is a national icon
which belongs to everyone. One cam-
paigner appealed to the Human Rights
Commission, an official body that in-
vestigates racism and other abuses,
arguing that the rule discriminated
against “millions” of Australians. It
dismissed the complaint.
To some Aboriginals, the rush to
climb says something about the difficul-
ties their people face. It is “emblematic”
of the “wilful disregard of the wishes of
traditional owners”, argues Mick Gooda,
a former member of the Human Rights
Commission. It is “baffling”, “disre-
spectful” and “poses a question about
what the people making this climb think
about Aboriginal culture,” says Linda
Burney, the shadow minister for indige-
nous Australians. “We’d be up in arms” if
tourists started scaling a cathedral, notes
Andrew Peters, an indigenous academic
at Swinburne University.
But some are inclined to see the
change as an occasion for hope. The
Anangu resolved to ban the ascent only
after the share of tourists choosing to
make it despite the discouraging signs
had fallen below 20%, from over 75% in
the 1990s. Years of educating visitors
about Aboriginal culture are bearing
fruit, Mr Calma argues. “Whitefella
government has been acting in a way that
breaches our laws,” Mr Wilson says. It is a
sign of change, Mr Calma says, that one
such breach is coming to an end.The seeing-red centre
Aboriginal rightsSYDNEY
Australians bridle at a ban on climbing their country’s most famous rockThe queue to offendF
or six yearsthey have been bitter ri-
vals. Joko Widodo, a former business-
man and mayor popularly known as Jo-
kowi, first defeated Prabowo Subianto, a
former general, in a fiercely contested
presidential election in 2014. Six months
ago, in April, the incumbent Jokowi redou-
bled the humiliation, besting Mr Prabowo
in a re-match election. Just as in 2014, the
vanquished general refused to concede de-
feat, claiming Jokowi had cheated. His en-
raged supporters rioted in Jakarta in May.
Nine people died. But over the ensuing
months Mr Prabowo and Jokowi publicly
reconciled with each other, in several care-
fully orchestrated meetings involving sel-
fies. On October 23rd it became clear why
Mr Prabowo, at least, was smiling. Jokowi,
who had been sworn in for his second term
days before, appointed his former foe min-
ister of defence in his new cabinet.
The reasons for Jokowi’s Cheshire-cat
grins were less obvious. Mr Prabowo’s ap-
pointment is “part of a long tradition in In-
donesian politics and society to integrate
rather than marginalise one’s opponents,”
says Stephen Sherlock of the University of
New South Wales in Australia. When Jo-
kowi’s predecessors assembled their “rain-
bow cabinets”, they included representa-
tives from as many different political
parties as they could manage. Any qualms
political opponents may have about puta-
tive ideological differences are firmly
quashed by the potential for patronage or
self-enrichment a seat in the cabinet af-
fords. Presidents, meanwhile, hope that by
welcoming their erstwhile foes into the
fold they will secure the loyalty of their par-
ties in the legislature. “Jokowi is aiming to
neutralise Mr Prabowo’s party, Gerindra,
and prevent it from being a centre of oppo-
sition in the parliament and possibly on
the streets,” says Mr Sherlock. Another
member of Gerindra has been made minis-
ter of fisheries and marine affairs.
Will Jokowi’s keep-your-friends-close-
and-your-enemies-closer strategy work?
Aaron Connelly, a research fellow at the In-
ternational Institute for Strategic Studies
in Singapore, is not convinced: “A moun-
tain cannot have two tigers.” Jokowi doubt-
less hopes that Mr Prabowo will be reluc-
tant to criticise a government of which he
is a member, and will come to seem of no
greater stature than the other cabinet min-
isters. Mr Connelly doubts he will take
fright: “Mr Prabowo is a singular figure inIndonesian politics.” Anyway, ministers
often publicly contradict the president.
Even so, some politicians have ex-
pressed concern about the health of the op-
position without Gerindra. The only big
party left outside the government will be
an Islamist outfit, the Prosperous Justice
Party, with less than a tenth of the seats in
parliament. When Mr Prabowo had first
announced that he was in talks with Jo-kowi, Johnny Plate, secretary-general of
NasDem, a party allied with Jokowi, an-
nounced his intention to switch sides for
the sake of democracy: “If there’s no one
criticising the government’s decisions,
what will become of this country?” The
next day, in an “unexpected turn of events”,
according to the Jakarta Post, four cabinet
posts were given to four NasDem politi-
cians, among them Mr Plate. 7Why Jokowi has given his arch-rival a
seat in the cabinetIndonesian politicsGoverning
unopposed