Talking Indonesia

Joko Widodo’s recent trip to four African countries marked the first ever by an Indonesian head of state. The President’s five-day visit took him to Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique, before finishing in South Africa where he attended the meeting of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) group of nations in Johannesburg. In his address to the BRICS conference Jokowi evoked the ‘spirit of Bandung’ in reference to the Asia-Africa conference held in the West Java capital in 1955 and called for solidarity and cooperation between the nations of the Global South. But Indonesia stopped short of accepting an invitation to join the expanding group, which is seen as a potential challenge or alternative to Western hegemony in a changing new world order. So, what motivated such a high-level trip to Africa? Why did Jokowi choose to make such an historic visit at this stage in his presidency? What is the current state of Indonesia-Africa relations and what might Indonesia’s ambitions be for its future in the