A familiar story<\/p>\n
Our land, with it's reputation as a home to peaceful, smiling
\npeople, has been rocked by anti-Chinese riots once too often.
\nLearning from experience, the authorities have not been pompous
\nor arrogant enough to guarantee when these ugly demonstrations of
\nhate and anger will end.<\/p>\n
The public has shouted itself hoarse through calling for
\ncontrol to be brought to bear on the situation, but despite this,
\nall hell continues to break loose with frightening regularity.
\nThe authorities have been urged to set up a serious investigation
\ninto the cause of these outrages, but at the same time they
\nappear to be bracing themselves for history to repeat itself in
\never widening circles and increasingly brutal ways.<\/p>\n
Before 1997, many agreed that the most riotous year in
\nIndonesia was 1996, when rampages broke out in many towns in
\nJava. The casus belli were often very trivial, but unfortunately
\nthe same could not be said of the lost lives and damaged property
\nwhich subsequently resulted.<\/p>\n
After every riot, members of the ruling elite would boldly
\nclaim that it would be the last while singularly failing to
\naddress the root causes of the tension which would periodically
\nerupt into displays of racist mayhem.<\/p>\n
So, when these disastrous events returned, then returned
\nagain, those caught up in them could do nothing but try to escape
\nwith their lives and their belongings.<\/p>\n
Then came the month of May, when two days of serious rioting
\nin Jakarta became the icing on the cake for a whole string of
\nsimilar tragedies. The riots helped push president Soeharto from
\nhis throne and the drama which engulfed Jakarta won worldwide
\nbanner headlines.<\/p>\n
Two days before the riots broke out, the police boldly stated
\nthat Jakarta was under control. In reality it was a seething
\nhotbed of anger and discontent primed to explode, which it duly
\ndid, claiming the lives of 1,200 people in the process.<\/p>\n
Now, three months on, sporadic outbreaks of rioting and
\nlooting continue to blight towns in Sumatra and Java. Bagansiapi-
\napi, a small coastal town in Riau on the island of Sumatra, was
\nhit by an ugly anti-Chinese riot on Tuesday and was still tense
\nyesterday. Local authorities have asked residents not to leave
\ntheir homes after sunset.<\/p>\n
Here too the casus belli was a small, almost trivial incident.
\nThe catalyst was a traffic accident involving Indonesians of
\nChinese descent and local Malays. Some unscrupulous individuals
\nmade the best use of the mishap to turn the fishing port into a
\ncrude imitation of hell.<\/p>\n
Why do these abhorrent demonstrations of shortsightedness,
\nhate, ignorance and impatience always come back? It is because
\nnothing has been done to address the scandalous social gap left
\nas a legacy of Soeharto's regime. His economic policies made
\nselect groups of people fabulously wealthy while impoverishing
\nthe majority of the country's population.<\/p>\n
Aggrieved parties were denied the right to register their
\ncomplaints by the government's readiness to use military muscle
\nto crush opposition in the name of \"political stability.\" At the
\nsame time, they turned a blind eye to the axiom that there would
\nnever be stability without justice.<\/p>\n
In this worsening economic situation, riots will continue to
\nreign blows upon the fabric of our society until justice is
\ndelivered. The government must give more thought to this latent
\ndanger.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/a-familiar-story-1447893297",
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