Foreign Minister of Indonesia under President SBY, Indonesian ambassador to UK and career diplomat. BSc from LSE and MPhil from Corpus Christi, University of Cambridge.

When I first got to the UK in 1976, joining a very English and very strict boarding school, I barely spoke a word of English. Everyone and everything put you in a situation where you are always pushed to work hard. Every morning for three years, I got up at 1 am to sit with a bilingual dictionary and translate each word in my book. In this disciplined way, I was able to keep up with what was going on in class. So my first lesson in the UK was that there is no substitute for hard work.

Later, when I was a student at university, I was easily influenced by political movements and joined many forms of demonstrations. It felt like the most vibrant atmosphere in London. I joined the anti-Apartheid and the pro- Nuclear Disarmaments campaigns; I even slept in a camp site in Trafalgar Square, in defiance of the South African High Commission. When I returned to London as Indonesian ambassador, I finally saw the inside of the embassy buildings where I used to find expression for my political energy. By then I had seen and experience both sides of the coin. It was quite a ranging experience.

The tolerance of the British culture to respect one and another in terms of religion was also a great lesson for me. As a Muslim, I had to join chapel everyday at school. Through this I learnt different religious points of view. When you study in the UK, you will always learn about the importance of hard work, punctuality, reliability, politeness, and decency.

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