A member of Indonesia's parliamentary committee on foreign affairs, Yusron Ihza Mahendra, this week suggested issuing travel warnings against Malaysia "so other nations will know Indonesia is saying its neighbour is a dangerous place to go -- and that will have a negative effect on their tourism".The proposal failed to get up, but it offered an insight into how Indonesian legislators view Australia's terrorism-based travel warnings against their country. Mahendra's suggestion played into another recent diplomatic spat -- the alleged theft by Malaysia of a traditional song from Indonesia's Moluccus islands for use in a tourism campaign.

Bewildered Malaysians protested that they had sung Rasa Sayang (Feelings of Love) for years and that Indonesians had no sense of humour. The Jakarta Post suggested Malaysians suffered from an inferiority complex and had "a habit of claiming things which are not theirs". But it's not just words that sting. Indonesian karate coach Donald Luther Kalapita felt the Malaysian way for himself when, taken in by immigration police while in KL for a tournament recently, he fought back the way only a martial arts expert can. His enraged captors took him to a city police station, beat him up and then let him go, after finally accepting he was in the country legitimately.

Muslinah Nurdin, the wife of Indonesian Education and Culture attache Imran Hanah, was spared the beating this week but had a hard time proving to "volunteer" immigration police who seized her in a shopping mall that she belonged in the Malaysian capital. The illegal migrant issue will probably never go away, since Indonesia is one of the biggest suppliers of domestic workers to the region and relies on remittances for a part of its economy. And the recent rape by at least 12 men of an Indonesian female domestic worker, at the prompting of the same "volunteer" organisation whose members seized Mrs Nurdin, prompted little in the way of "rasa sayang" between the two nations. It is hoped that when Beyonce wiggles her sequined behind next month, KL does not interpret it as an obscene gesture aimed its way. From the Australian online.....