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NZ Neutrality Needed

If the preeent Malaysia-Indonesian dispute comes to a head we should carefully avoid a commitment to either side, said Lecturer in Geography Mr. T. McGee to an Indonesia Week audience.

We should neither condemn Indonesia nor support Malaysia for actions which we do not understand, he said. Mr. McGee outlined social change in both Indonesia and Malaysia showing how the colonial powers had determined the social structures. The British in Malaya mantained the [unclear: ol] sultanate structure, which prevented the growth of an economic middle class amongst Malays.

The Dutch in Indonesia had pursued a policy of conscious westernization resulting in the growth of a middle-class who had turned into [unclear: vciferous] opponents of the status [unclear: o].

Thus the failure of one colonial [unclear: policy], he said, and the building [unclear: ut] of another, succeeded in building up two different types of [unclear: social] structure in the colonial societies.

He illustrated how both Sukarno and The Tunku were products of these societies: how The Tunku was pro western, and Sukarno revolutionary.

Mr. McGee concluded by saying, "This is a clear case for an Asian solution to Asian problems, and a clear case for the need for New Zealand neutrality.