The Australia-Indonesia Youth Association (AIYA) is a non-profit, youth-run organisation that bridges young Indonesians and Australians together with active chapters in every Australian state and territory, as well as Jakarta, Jawa Barat, Yogyakarta, South Sulawesi and East Nusa Tenggara.
AIYA Victoria President Angus Baranikow joins Billy Adison Aditijanto on The Perantau Podcast to share his thoughts on the Australian-Indonesian relationship in Victoria, aspirations for the future, and why he’s dedicated so much time to learning Bahasa Indonesia and Indonesia more broadly.
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Transcript
BILLY: Hey everyone, I’m Billy and welcome back to The Perantau Podcast.
BILLY: The Australia-Indonesia Youth Association, or AIYA for short, is a not for profit youth led organization that aims to better connect young Indonesian and Australians to each other and to Australia Indonesia related opportunities. With active chapters in every Australian state and territory, as well as Jakarta, West Java, Yogyakarta, South Sulawesi, and East Nusa Tenggara, AIYA is governed by an executive committee of early career professionals.
BILLY: On this episode, we have Angus Baranikow, president of AIYA’S Victoria Chapter, coming on. Angus leads a team that takes advantage of Victoria’s huge Indonesian population, not to mention its interest in the language and culture from the broader community by throwing all sorts of cool events year round, building strong ties with the local Indonesian community, and being a key actor in grassroots Australian Indonesian ties.
BILLY: I’ve been fortunate enough to have worked with Angus a few times in the past, as well as AIYA more broadly a few years back. I’ve always been a keen supporter of AIYA for all the work they’ve done for the community.
BILLY: So everyone, please, without further ado, welcome Angus.
ANGUS: So, well first of all, thank you for inviting me, Billy. So, AIYA is a youth led organisation, a non for profit that exists to better connect Australians and Indonesians together. And we do this by hosting a variety of events, educational, social, cultural, professional, and it’s all done in the hopes of three main objectives.
ANGUS: So firstly to connect young Australians and Indonesians together so they can better interact more in the future, to inspire the next generation of youth ambassadors, to better the relationship between Australia and Indonesia, and the final objective is to inform the public as to the importance of the Australia Indonesia bilateral relationship and also just the importance of intercultural learning as well.
BILLY: Yeah, well, I mean – so AIYA stands for Australia Indonesia Youth Association, right? And of course, your role as the AIYA Victoria president. How do you see AIYA, or at least AIYA Victoria, navigate its role in this space?
BILLY: Because you have, in some senses, more specific organisations that cater to Indonesian students abroad, like Indonesians in Victoria, for example. But then you also have more politically inclined organisations that talk about, well, diplomacy and, well, not necessarily MUN, but like, towards that sort of public policy and development role. So how do you see AIYA’s role in that?
ANGUS: Yeah, that’s an interesting question, because like you said, there’s a lot of organisations based in this field, and a lot of them have more specifically compared to the likes of AIYA. So AIYA does focus more so on the Australian Indonesia side of things, whereas other organisations could focus on international issues, international diplomacy, international relations – some have a more student orientation. But the way AIYA kind of navigates this, well, one of the main ways we actually help navigate this is actually through collaborating with a lot of these organisations.
ANGUS: So recently we held an Indonesian election event and that was done with the Young Diplomats Society. We’d been in talks for like a few months to be doing an event like that, and I think kind of understanding the current climate of like youth organisations and particularly like difficulties in securing funding from various sources.
ANGUS: It’s very important that youth organisations work together to kind of achieve more ambitious projects, and to pretty much make sure that we kind of build connections amongst each other as that allows people to grow and kind of gain more experience. But in addition to that, one thing that I found quite unique about AIYA is that we have a very broad portfolio portfolio when it comes to like the different projects we tackle.
ANGUS: So some of the main teams that we have focus on like professional programs, education and social, social and cultural events. So one thing that I think is very appealing to many of our members about AIYA is the fact that it offers a broad variety of different programs. So it’s not necessarily, you’re not just opting in to join AIYA purely for like professional events – you’re opting in to kind of get like a swan song of like all these different things.
ANGUS: And I think some people may join an organisation with an initial intention like “I want to go attend networking events,” [or] “I want to meet new people.” But then as we present more diverse opportunities for different people. That’s when they start to kind of experience areas that they didn’t think that they knew about or they didn’t expect themselves to get involved in. And I think that that’s really helped build a community where people attend all these different events and we’re constantly attracting new people to join our events either through, mutual contacts or also people just kind of seeing something pop up and be like, “Oh, that’s cool to attend.”
ANGUS: So yeah, in terms of how we like navigate all this, I think the most important thing is that we try to be accessible; not just to young Australians and young Indonesians, but also to anyone who’s interested to learn more about this field. Because I know with some organisations, if they’re simply focusing on like a particular topic, that could potentially switch a few people off.
ANGUS: Some people may not be particularly interested in international relations, for example. But if we, with AIYA, because we offer such a broad umbrella of programs, the benefit of that is they could come to a social event, for example, but then later on, they may be interested to come to an event about international relations. That gets them interested and involved in that area and I think that that’s very important, not only to expand one’s knowledge, but also to potentially discover a new passion.
BILLY: Now I really want to know how effective that’s been in your experience, in terms of, well, because you talk a lot about AIYA’s role in terms of, well, more public policy and international relations, and getting people interested from a sort of grassroots perspective, and then fully fledging it into a potential career, right? So I want to know, how effective has that been for AIYA to be that pathway.
ANGUS: Yeah, that’s, that’s interesting. So we do have a consistent community that attends our events and often what I’ve found is that over time, we tend to attract a lot of students to our organisation. A lot of them, from what I felt, attend events while they’re university students and the kind of the knowledge that they gain from these events can help them achieve a career path, or at least give them inspiration to pursue a particular pathway.
ANGUS: But in terms of kind of ensuring for this retention, the main way we try to do this is to continue to offer a steady supply of events. And again, going back to what I said before, is to kind of offer variety to make sure that they don’t feel like it’s stale. Because one thing I found that is that can be quite detrimental to retaining a consistent audience is to just be doing like the same thing over and over again. But the moment you introduce diversity and new event ideas, that’s something that either brings people back because they’re like, “Oh cool, this is something that we’ve never talked about before at an AIYA event” or it just brings in like an entirely new audience because it could potentially be something that we’ve been into before and definitely kind of going into 2024.
ANGUS: That is my vision for AIYA Victoria. We have one of the most diverse committees that we’ve ever had. It’s also one of the biggest committees we’ve ever had. Currently we’re standing at about 23 committee members and going on to about 24. With that, we have people of all different experiences, all different backgrounds. And what that means is we have the potential to have one of the most ambitious years when it comes to events.
ANGUS: During committee interviews, for example, so many people were suggesting ideas that I’ve never personally thought of, and at least through my experience with AIYA for the last three years, it’s certainly events that we’ve never [had]. So yeah, definitely with this year, we’re very much kind of looking to offer like a more diverse array of events and hopefully that’s not only good for the members who currently support us, but hopefully it also brings in newer members or perhaps older members who have been like busy with work.
ANGUS: And also the other important thing is making these events more accessible as well. So we’re also discussing, um, the potential of making more of these events hybrid just because we understand that a lot of our members, particularly once they get into like professional work, it’s very difficult to attend like afternoon events, particularly during on a weekday. So making these events more accessible by offering a hybrid option is definitely something that we intend to follow on this year.
BILLY: Yeah, and I just want to dig into that a little bit deeper. So what, how long have you been with AIYA Victoria?
ANGUS: So I’ve been with AIYA Victoria for three years now. So I started off in 2022. So I started off as an education officer. Last year I was its Vice President and now this year I’m its president.
BILLY: Now in those three years, what do you think the biggest obstacle’s been?
ANGUS: Biggest obstacle? It’s probably been committee numbers, honestly. Anyone who’s worked in a volunteer organisation knows the potential issues that can arise.
ANGUS: The main thing is obviously people’s personal schedules. That can mean that someone or multiple people within a team are busy and are unable to help out with a particular event. You know, some events we ran, um, last year were very, were very tight in terms of, um, like the human resources we had. And a lot of those were thankfully helped, um, by the likes of, um, Pepe Ia, um, the Indonesian Students Association with many events that we did where they offered, were able to offer a lot more, uh, people power to kind of help us out.
ANGUS: But it was definitely something I learned from speaking with past committee members and current committee members that they felt very strained in terms of resources. So, yeah, I’d say the biggest issue that a lot of youth organisations and a lot of volunteer organisations face is a lack of that kind of ‘people power’ to help them achieve their objectives.
ANGUS:And the way we’ve, I’ve tried to improve that this year is not only have more committee members, but to ensure for, Um, basically a greater platform of like allowing people to communicate essentially. So, one thing I, I really want to stress this year is the, um, the ability of people to, you know, to comfortably say like I’m going to be busy around this time and that allows us to kind of plan around that.
ANGUS: Because the last thing I want this year is for anyone to feel overwhelmed with work pressure, like many did last year. To create an environment where people know that we are ultimately a volunteer organisation and that it’s okay to say that “I’m busy,” [or] “I have personal things to deal with.” That’s okay, and that all in those events, that’s the stuff that takes priority.
BILLY: And I just want to point out that AIYA has quite a number, or at least a balance between, Australian students and Indonesian students [and] everywhere in between, right? What do you think the most significant benefits of that are and could you talk about if there are any setbacks with that as well?
ANGUS: So this is something that I’ve actually talked about a lot with my Indonesian committee members because one thing they’ve noted is that with their experience with their Indonesian friend groups, there has been times where they’ve, where they’ve felt kind of more willing to kind of stay amongst themselves and to kind of mingle amongst themselves.
ANGUS: And also, and definitely like that can be very similar with a lot of Australian students as well. Um, and it kind of takes. Um, it’s, it’s always, it’s, it’s always like difficult to create an event which, which best allows people to kind of break the ice. Um, but one way, but with, through our events and stuff, mainly through, um, one of our programs called Language Exchange, where we facilitate bilingual discussion on a particular topic that applies to both Australia and Indonesia.
ANGUS: One thing that allows for is for people to share their own experiences, not only in Indonesia, but Australia. And pretty much allow them to bond through these particular things and to learn more about each other. And of course, the more that people know about, the more that Indonesians know about Australian cultures and other cultures, and the same with Australians learning more about Indonesian and other cultures as well, is that allows, that makes them become like more willing to kind of break the ice with different people of different cultures.
ANGUS: Indeed, what I found is that once people have attended like a few events, they become much more comfortable in approaching these groups and, uh, pretty much like discussing things that, you know, initially, um, you would learn, it’s like, Oh, don’t mention this particular topic. But what you learned is that once you’ve kind of broken the ice, like there are conversations, um, on like matters like, Uh, politics, religion, that a lot of people are willing to have.
ANGUS: And I think through attending these events as well, a lot of people kind of find the means through which to kind of have these conversations, and to have it in like a respectful manner as well, without making it awkward. That’s like the main kind of way we’ve tried to kind of bridge all these different cultures together.
BILLY: Now I kinda want to talk about you a bit here because well – and I don’t mean this in a weird way but you know, you’re a fully white Australian, you have no Indonesian heritage, no Indonesian background and yet –
ANGUS: Full bule!
BILLY: Yeah! Exactly, full bule. And yet you’ve dedicated quite a few years both in your line as AIYA president, as well as in your academic studies devoted to learning more about Indonesia; it’s politics, it’s history, it’s culture. So I think that begs the question: why?
ANGUS: That is a question that many people ask me I love it when Indonesians ask me because it’s all… it’s comes from a place of like curiosity. Like “why are you so interested in our culture and learning more?” And it’s… I’ve always found it like a very endearing question as well.
ANGUS: It’s like, oh wow, like so many people, like, you know, don’t care about Indonesia. So many Australians don’t care about Indonesia. And like, what makes you so interested when it comes to Australians asking me that question? I, there’s always the initial reaction of me feeling like a little bit annoyed because learning more about Indonesia is the more like you’ve learned about the importance of the relationship between Australia and Indonesia, the long history that’s existed there.
ANGUS: It’s always difficult to answer on the spot because it’s like if someone had like a passion for cooking or something, it’s like, well, “what got you into cooking?” It’s like, that’s a whole story right there. It’s pretty much me telling you my life tale in a single sitting.
ANGUS: To kind of summarise my history with studying Indonesian, I started off in high school, started to learn it as a language because I wanted to learn a second language. I initially started learning both Latin and Indonesian. I cut off Latin after a couple of years because I realised, 1) it was a useless language, but also 2) because it just started getting like it started mentioning like you got infinitives here, then you got some here and it’s like,” I don’t care anymore.”
ANGUS: But with Indonesian, it was very accessible to a lot of English speakers because number one the alphabet’s the same which is a big plus but also it was [that] the translations I found from certain words from English to Indonesian and Indonesian to English I found to be very unique and quite special.
ANGUS: I always say that my favourite Indonesian word is politikus just because at the moment I learned the meaning of tikus by itself meaning rat. I thought that was incredibly funny. Politikus of course mean politician. Um, but in addition to that after I kind of got over the high school hurdle, which was mainly focusing on learning the language, a little bit about the culture and a lot of grammar, university is where I really began to kind of get my teeth stuck into like the meat.
ANGUS: If you will, that is learning about the history, the politics, the culture. And it’s kind of something I’ve always been like a massive fan of history. Like I studied the revolutions the Chinese revolution, Russian revolution when I was in high school, and Indonesian history is so fascinating because you have so many different periods to potentially study. You’ve got the Majapahit empire way back when, then of course you’ve got the colonial era, then you have the independence era, then the Orde Baru then the Reformasi era.
ANGUS: There’s all these different areas of history to kind of discover and to learn about it makes it so like fascinating and it’s interesting to see Indonesia’s journey as not only a people but as a country as well to get where it is. That’s something that I found fascinating and something from what I’ve read is that a lot of academics find quite miraculous how Indonesia went from like an authoritarian dwi fungsi military regime to one of the largest Muslim democracies in the world.
ANGUS: So kind of learning about that and kind of my interest in politics and international relations, it was kind of the perfect way for me to learn about Indonesia as a whole from all these different angles.The more I kept learning about Indonesia is the more I became engrossed in it. And it kind of hit its peak in 2020 of all years when I actually studied at Universitas Udayana in Bali where we did a month intensive in Bali. We had opportunities to go on field trips. We visited Taman Mini in Bali. We visited Desa Bangkala, which is a village in North Bali, where about 90 percent of the population is actually deaf and they have their own sign language.
ANGUS: Even taking field trips outside of our studies where we went on a hike to Mount Batur and all those experiences, particularly like the hike that a few of us took up that mountain, there was a moment when we kind of hit the peak of the mountain where we were – I kind of had like an epiphany where I was like, this is it. This is why, this is why Indonesia to me is so special. And it’s why, like, I’m willing to dedicate myself so much to it because I find it so true. Not only fascinating, but just special and it’s something that at any opportunity I get, I try to get more people involved in it.
ANGUS: You know, having a lot of conversations recently with – particularly after the Indonesian election event – I’ve spoken a lot with people from the Young Diplomats Society and a lot of them were amazed to learn so much about Indonesian politics and it just kind of goes to show that Indonesia and even like other countries within the region itself.
ANGUS: There’s such a like a long history that’s so fascinating to understand and kind of from our perspective as um, like one of the um, it’s kind of like the I guess you could say that I’m one of the only like Western countries within Asia. Like it’s very important for us to kind of gain that Asia literacy. Not only if we want to become like a middle power within the region, but also if we want to kind of show like the respect that a lot of Asian countries deserve, um, and the struggle that they’ve fought to kind of reach these outcomes that they have today.
BILLY: Speaking of dedication, do you want to try dedicating the next few minutes just to talking Indonesian? Let’s get comfortable here.
ANGUS: Hahaha, I can try.
BILLY: Let’s give it a shot, let’s give it a shot. So, well, So, for the last three years, you’ve been in IA. Now, we know why. Wow. Why do you love Indonesia so much? Why do you care so much
about the culture and language
of Indonesia? Now the question is, why are you so stubborn?
Why have you been in Indonesia for three years? Why don’t you go anywhere
else? Why do you dedicate so much of your time
only to Indonesia? Okay.
ANGUS: Could you maybe repeat some of that a little bit slower for me, please?
BILLY: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, all good, all good.
Yeah, my language skills are quite limited. And since I have finished my studies in Indonesia at the University of Melbourne, my language skills have been decreasing quite a bit over time. Um, but yeah, I’m trying to improve my Indonesian.
But yeah, don’t, don’t With Indonesian, I’m very, um, very competent to speak Indonesian, but the area that I’ve always, um, um, Struggled with, is listening. Like, I’ve always, in general, like I’ve always, with some listening things, I’ve always had like a little bit of difficulty. And it’s always like, it’s quite a difficult field.
So sorry if this
is No, all good. But I think that’s the thing with like, uh, language learning as well. I think it’s always the hearing comprehension
that’s always the
hardest. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I’ll just rephrase it to make it a
bit punchier and shorter. No worries. Makasih.
Like, uh, the summary is. Why have you been in Ayo
for 3 years?
Why have you been in Ayo for 3 years? Why Why did you dedicate so much of your time only to Ayo for the last 3 years instead of looking for other opportunities outside
of Ayo?
Bye, Krila. So Just,
yeah. Well, I mean that and why for so long.
ANGUS: AIYA is, for me an organisation that gives me the opportunity to learn more about Indonesia and its culture, and especially to meet with more Indonesian people, who are very important to help me understand more about Indonesia and its culture, to expand knowledge between Australia and Indonesia. With AYA, I have been participating with AYA for three years, because at this time, I am trying to find in the field of Australian-Indonesian [relations], but it’s a very difficult field of work to find opportunities.
ANGUS: It gives me the opportunity to, um, to maybe, um, find new opportunities in this field. Um, and yeah, for me, it’s a very good organization for my ambition, or my ambition. Um, because it’s focused on, um, Australia Indonesia relations. And, um, this show introduced Australia and Indonesia together. So yeah, this is It’s it’s something that I haven’t Honestly, I haven’t really thought about that too much. I found that it’s probably been the like to kind of use the contacts that have been, that I have developed over the years. Um, and as in my role now to kind of help extend those relations. But yeah, it’s something where there have been times where I’ve considered like volunteering for other organisations, but I’ve kind of… I do feel I’m at the point now where I’ve kind of invested a lot into AIYA itself. So I might as well keep that going. And, you know, in kind of my other spare time, like trying to continue to find, like, peluang.
BILLY: Yeah, awesome! Now, let’s give your brain a break. I can see it overheating just a bit. So let’s shift again, and I’ll probably just wrap this up by asking by the end of the year, you know, you won’t be at AIYA forever, right? So by the end of the year, when you eventually leave your post as AIYA Victoria president, what would be your key markers for success?
BILLY: What do you, well, you’ve, you sort of alluded to what you would like to achieve, right? But what are the things that you would like to do when, you know, looking back in a few years time, you would say to yourself, hey, look, I did good here. I made it. What would be those things?
ANGUS: I think the key things would to, would to be um, create long lasting connections between different youth organisations, um, not only just here in Melbourne, but kind of abroad as well. To pretty much kind of create like a committee culture. That’s very flexible as well previous years there has been a tendency for people to kind of stay within their own teams to focus on like the education portfolio or the social cultural, but I, this year, one thing that me and my vice president have really wanted to do is to provide flexibility for a lot of people and to, again, kind of dip their toes into areas that they wouldn’t necessarily have thought they’d be interested in, if it’s something that they want to do, of course. To kind of create a culture that feels flexible and accessible to anyone who would be interested in learning more about this space. But yeah, also creating, um, new relations with different organisations and kind of expanding upon the relationships that we’ve already had.
ANGUS: I know, as I said earlier, it’s very important that youth organisations work together to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes, but also it’s very important that, um, that new relationships are started with like organisations that are perhaps emerging, um, like with this podcast and blog, for example, but I’m though young to automate, um, But yeah, it’s kind of the my markers of success are creating a steady flow of relationships that we can call upon in the future, either for collaboration or mutual support, creating a committee culture that is flexible and accessible.
ANGUS: And also creating like an organisation that offers like a diverse array of events, not just for our members, but also for other people who are looking to get involved in this space. So they feel like more confident and more comfortable in attending these events and pretty much learning more about, you know, the, the fantastic thing that is Australia, Indonesia, um, learning more about each other’s culture and yeah, just kind of kind of learning more about something that needs more attention quite frankly.
BILLY: And definitely talking about the definition of diaspora, especially Indonesian diaspora, has changed quite a bit over the last few years, right? You know, diaspora in the traditional sense, in the strictest sense, usually just talks about first generation migrants usually, or just temporary migrants that go abroad just for a bit and then return back or don’t return at all, right?
BILLY: But then it really doesn’t encompass a larger group of people. And one of the definitions that someone said a few years back was that the Indonesian diaspora, not only includes people like me – temporary migrants outside or even, first, second generation migrants that have lived abroad – but it can also includes people who just has a very deep love for Indonesia.
BILLY: And I think you would, you definitely fit the bill for that sort of definition. So I really appreciate and thank you for your time in terms of talking about these kinds of things and why Indonesia means so much to you without even the slightest background in Indonesia, and yet you’ve dedicated quite a lot of time to learning more about Indonesia more than some Indonesians have ever done in their whole lives. So I appreciate you for that.
ANGUS: No, well, thank you, Billy. Um, like it is really touching to hear that and, I’ll say this as well. Anytime I’ve kind of talked about this with Indonesians, my kind of my background and stuff like that, a lot of Indonesians offer that sentiment as well, where they feel very respected and appreciative that a bule would take an interest in this field.
ANGUS: And I think one thing as well that I would like to achieve like on a personal level is to kind of make that more reciprocal as well. I feel like Indonesians are very, very appreciative of people who learn about their culture. Particularly when it comes to language as well, being in Australia specifically, there’s almost an expectation that you would speak fluent English, for example, and instead of there being like a way through which you can try and like communicate through like loose English or something like that. Instead of that, there’s more like annoyance when it’s not really fluent.
ANGUS: Whereas if an Australian goes to Indonesia, they’re very likely to find someone who can speak English. There’s still that kind of respect, I feel. Definitely, this is something that I think will take time to change this willingness to learn more about each other’s culture and to understand that a lot of people have to work very hard to – not only to get certain language skills up to par – but also it’s a big culture shock as well.
ANGUS: I know that when I went to Indonesia, it was a culture shock at times. That was, that was a big experience. But yeah, it’s definitely so nice to have these conversations with you and other Indonesians. And you know, it’s something that always keeps me going.
ANGUS: You know, meeting new Indonesians, learning about their story, learning about their, how they kind of got into the areas they got into, and kind of their, They’re like long history of, you know, their own personal journeys of getting to where they are. So, yeah, I, I thank you so much for this opportunity,
BILLY: The Perantau Podcast is always looking for new stories to tell and people to meet. So, if you have a story worth telling, don’t be shy. Reach out on Instagram, LinkedIn, email, or wherever else you may find The Perantau Podcast. Until then, thank you, and see you soon.
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