Bradley Simpson

TRANSCRIPT:

I have been listening and watching and reading VOA Indonesia for more than 20 years since I was a graduate student in the late 1990s and I have been appearing as an occasional guest on VOA Indonesia for nearly 20 years since I published my first book on U.S. relations with Indonesia. And in my opinion, VOA Indonesia is probably the best Indonesian-language outlet and source for understanding and explaining American politics and culture to Indonesian audiences.

The staff who have been living and working in Washington D.C. for many years now do a really terrific job in explaining American politics to Indonesian audiences. And American politics can sometimes, I think, be confusing for people who don’t live here. And the journalists at VOA Indonesia are very good at explaining American politics and culture in ways that make our country and our politics accessible to audiences in Indonesia, which is the fourth-largest country in the world and a really important country for people to understand what’s happening here, given the long history of relations between the United States and Indonesia.

And in my opinion, there’s really no other news outlet that does this for Indonesian audiences, providing regular reporting in Indonesian of U.S. politics and culture. And I don’t think that there’s really any substitute for the terrific journalism that VOA staff put out on a regular basis. And I think that now more than ever, it’s vital that we maintain these ties and that we continue to broadcast news about the United States and its politics and culture to as wide an audience as possible. And VOA Indonesia is a really crucial piece of that journalistic puzzle.

Published June 3, 2025

Simpson is a historian of U.S. foreign relations and modern Indonesia, whose work has focused on authoritarianism, human rights and politics in Southeast Asia. He is a professor of history and Asian studies at the University of Connecticut.