Timor-Leste is a small country with big problems. This book does a thorough job of presenting its catalogue of woes. Mostly written before the most recent 2006 crisis, the book is dated in some parts, but maintains its relevance as the half-island nation's challenges remain long-term challenges. They will be bequeathed by those who brought the country to independence to its next generation of leaders.
The collection of essays shows Timor struggles with its sense of self as a nation and building the state. It needs to secure its borders, pay its own way, feed its people and teach its children. Along the way it must deal with its complex legacy of occupation, struggle, language and international intervention. Its 19 diverse chapters could be regarded as laying out a problem-solving agenda. But it lacks the feel for what might be Timorese solutions for these challenges. There are difficult choices to be made, compromises to be negotiated, and these are always political, messy, and defy the rational and ordered world of foreign academic analysis, conferences and academic publications. For example, the first page of the first chapter on political developments berates the Timorese for making a poor decision (at the suggestion of the UN) in choosing the US dollar as the official currency. In choosing this example, the author was unaware of the urgency of the decision when the UN mission was faced an expanding local payroll. It had to quickly find some sustainable currency supply with which to pay its Timorese staff. The quickest and cheapest alternative unburdened by political baggage was the US dollar. Those in the room knew there were few good choices and, perhaps, in the end no choice at all. Permission was denied to use the rupiah, the escudo was impractical to supply, and the Australian dollar unacceptable.
Mostly written by foreigners, it serves its purpose as a general reader on this new country. It falls short by not grappling will the complex, local, and political nature of solving many of the challenges its lists. There are thoughtful and highly educated Timorese, whose scholarship deserves wider distribution, including those whose academic work has been complemented with direct experience in running the country. They are not in this book. As a result, it lacks the telling insights from those who are now running the country or did so for its early years either under UN administration or the first post-independence government.
As a compilation of the work of many authors, the analysis is this collection is somewhat inconsistent. It is often better at asking pertinent questions than answering them. In an engaging chapter on history teaching, one of the editors, Michael Leach, quotes a youth activist who notes that ‘East Timor has still not written its own history.’ Reading this quote reminded me that the two major attempts to do this, either through the landmark Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (CAVR) or the Commission for Truth and Friendship (CTF) are not analysed in any depth by this volume. The CAVR is given one chapter, though it appears the deadline for manuscripts for this collection occurred before the final report Chega! The book pre-dates the CTF and its final report Per Memoriam Ad Spem. Both deserve more rigorous secondary analysis than they have received.
The book does have insights throughout such as in Sara Niner's chapter profiling Xanana Gusmao, resistance hero and, now, prime minister. It opens a window that allows us to better understand how the government in Timor-Leste is being run these days. In struggling with the concept and questions of rule of law, its leaders have not shed the more free flowing leadership style that worked during the guerrilla campaign and on the diplomatic front.
[Gusmao's] unilateral leadership style has created tensions within the constraints of the new democracy. He is intolerant of government policy with which he does not agree. All this has caused friction and instability (p. 122).
Another example is a detailed chapter on the delimitation of maritime boundaries. It shows the wider relevance of Timor-Leste as a place where precedents can be set. For example, the way a border dispute with Indonesia over insignificant Batek Island is resolved can impact distant negotiations with Malaysia over the much more lucrative Ambalat reef. How Indonesia and Timor-Leste resolve their dispute over the inconsequential rocky Palau Batek could impact the much more lucrative claims over the so-called Ambalat offshore area that is disputed with Malaysia (p. 77).
While broad in its scope it could only start to claim to be the most comprehensive because of the lack of competition. Timor-Leste deserves good scholarship as there is so much to learn from its experience, particularly in the last decade since it voted itself free.
