From UNHAS to Dili: Let Knowledge Build the Bridge

By: Hafid Abbas
Director, Indonesia Study Center at Hartford International University for Religion and Peace (HIU), USA

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On Sept. 5, Hasanuddin University (UNHAS) in Makassar will confer an honorary doctorate upon Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão, Prime Minister of Timor-Leste. The occasion honors a statesman whose life has travelled from resistance and imprisonment to independence, reconciliation and nation-building. But its deeper significance should extend beyond the recognition of one remarkable individual. It invites us to ask a larger question: Can a university help transform a difficult history between neighboring peoples into a shared future of friendship and peace?

For UNHAS, the answer should be yes. More importantly, the foundations for such a role already exist.

First, UNHAS has a historical and geographical connection with Timor-Leste that predates modern borders. Makassar has long been part of the maritime world connecting Sulawesi, Timor and the wider archipelago. Long before contemporary states drew boundaries across Southeast Asia and the wider Asia Pacific region, Bugis and Makassar sailors crossed these seas for trade, migration and human encounter. One enduring reminder is “Pante Macassar” in Oecusse, Timor-Leste. Its name preserves an echo of a time when the sea connected peoples before political borders separated them.

This history gives UNHAS more than a geographical advantage and heritage. It gives the university a cultural foundation for becoming a bridge between Indonesia and Timor- Leste. The sea that once carried goods between Makassar and Timor can now carry something more enduring: students, knowledge, research and friendship. The challenge is to transform an old maritime connection into a new intellectual and human connection.

Second, UNHAS is already demonstrating that education can become an instrument of peace. According to UNHAS data (2026), 252 Timorese students are currently studying at UNHAS, with another 45 new students joining this academic year — all receiving full scholarships from the university. Together, 297 young Timorese are being connected to Makassar through education, friendship and shared experience.

The significance of this commitment goes far beyond the number itself. A Timorese student studying in Makassar does not simply acquire an academic qualification. He or she experiences Indonesian society from within — its diversity, culture, challenges and aspirations. Indonesian students studying alongside their Timorese colleagues, meanwhile, discover that the history they once encountered in textbooks has another, deeply human dimension. A former historical “other” becomes a classmate; a classmate becomes a friend; and a friend may eventually become a lifelong bridge between two nations.

Few universities appear to have made such a substantial scholarship commitment to Timorese students. If sustained and expanded, this initiative could become one of the most distinctive examples of university-led people-to-people diplomacy in Southeast Asia. Each scholarship recipient is therefore more than a student. He or she is a living bridge between Timor-Leste and Indonesia — carrying knowledge from Makassar to Dili, and carrying friendship from one generation to the next.

Third, UNHAS can now turn this successful scholarship experience into a broader architecture of academic peacebuilding. The relationship should not depend only on scholarships or ceremonial occasions. It could develop into sustained joint research, faculty exchanges, student mobility, short courses and academic forums involving universities and young leaders from both countries.

The most important area of cooperation, however, may be the study of their shared history. History taught separately can easily become national memory; history studied together can become a foundation for mutual understanding. Indonesian students should have the opportunity to hear Timorese perspectives, while Timorese students should encounter Indonesian perspectives. Neither side needs to surrender its historical memory. Rather, both can learn that different memories can coexist without becoming enemies.

This is one of the university’s greatest contributions to peace. A university does not have to tell young people what to remember. It can teach them how to remember — honestly, critically and without hatred. It can provide a space where painful histories are examined not to reopen old wounds, but to prevent those wounds from being inherited by another generation.

Fourth, the future of Indonesia–Timor-Leste relations should be built increasingly through people, not only through governments. Diplomatic agreements can establish relations between states, but education can establish relationships between generations. Governments change and political priorities shift, while friendships formed in classrooms and universities can endure for decades.

The young people studying together today may become tomorrow’s diplomats, ministers, teachers, researchers, entrepreneurs and community leaders. Their personal experiences will influence how they see one another long after today’s political leaders have left office. If they grow up knowing one another not as representatives of opposing histories but as classmates and friends, they will carry a very different understanding of the relationship between the two countries.

This is why the honorary doctorate for Xanana Gusmão should be understood not as the conclusion of UNHAS’s engagement with Timor-Leste, but as an opportunity to institutionalize a much larger vision. UNHAS could make Makassar an academic gateway between Indonesia and Timor-Leste, and eventually a bridge between Indonesia and the wider Pacific. Its location, maritime heritage, academic capacity and existing Timorese student community provide an unusually strong foundation for such a mission.

There is also a deeper philosophy from Makassar that can guide this effort. A well-known Bugis expression says:

“Mali siparappe, rebba sipatokkong, malilu sipakainge.” When one is swept away, we help bring one another ashore. When one falls, we help one another stand. When one loses the way, we remind one another.

This is more than an ethical principle for individuals. It can also be understood as a philosophy of relations between communities and nations. Indonesia and Timor-Leste cannot choose their geography, and neither can erase the history they share. But they can choose how they live with that history and with each other.

The old saying that “you can choose your friends, but you cannot choose your neighbors” may describe geography. But peace requires something more than geography. We may not choose our neighbors, but we can choose what kind of neighbors we become.

That is the choice before Indonesia and Timor-Leste.

And it is also the choice before Hasanuddin University.

The sea once connected our ancestors. Let knowledge connect our future.

Let students cross the sea. Let researchers cross it. Let ideas cross it. Let friendship cross it.

For the 297 Timorese students now studying at UNHAS, that journey has already begun. What began as scholarships can become something much larger: a generation of young people who carry not the burden of inherited conflict, but the confidence of shared experience.

Perhaps the most enduring bridge between Makassar and Dili will therefore not be built of concrete or steel. It will be built by students who learn together, scholars who research together, and generations that choose friendship over the inheritance of conflict.

“Mali siparappe, rebba sipatokkong, malilu sipakainge.”

When one is swept away, we help bring one another ashore; when one falls, we help one another stand; when one loses the way, we remind one another.

For neighbors, this is not merely wisdom. It is a way of living together.