Flaws of riot media coverage<\/p>\n
By Ariel Heryanto<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): The mid-May violence in Jakarta and several
\nother cities could best be described as racialized state-
\nterrorism, rather than racially motivated mass riots.<\/p>\n
Failure to recognize the difference has been alarmingly
\nendemic in media coverage. This is especially rampant in the
\nforeign media, otherwise sympathetic toward the victims and the
\nfuture of Indonesia. Not only can such misleading coverage boost
\nracial antagonism, more seriously it implicitly exonerates the
\nreal culprits.<\/p>\n
State-terrorism is a series of state-sponsored campaigns that
\ninduce intense and widespread fear over a large population,
\ninvolving minimally these three elements. First, fear is derived
\nfrom spectacularly and severely violent actions conducted by
\nstate agents or its proxies.<\/p>\n
Second, violence is directed against individuals or social
\ngroups, as representatives of a larger population. Third,
\nviolence is displayed as public spectacles, so that the intended
\nmessage of victimization is widely disseminated. The aim of
\nstate-terrorism is to spread greater fear among the large
\npopulation against whom similar violence could happen at any
\ntime.<\/p>\n
At present we have less than unequivocal evidence to indicate
\nwho exactly must bear the greatest responsibility for the
\nviolence in May.<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, reports of independent investigations by non-
\ngovernmental organizations and testimonies from witnesses confirm
\na widespread suspicion that the case has the qualities of state-
\nterrorism as characterized above.<\/p>\n
Eyewitnesses described riot instigators as heavy-built males
\nwith crewcuts who wore military boots. Some rape victims saw
\nsecurity uniforms in vans in which rape took place. While such
\ntestimonies may be sincere, they are inadequate for any
\nconclusions to be drawn. Other indicators are called for.<\/p>\n
Anyone familiar with Indonesia is fully aware that no social
\ngroup outside the state can possibly have even half of the
\ncapacity to conduct the violence of the magnitude and
\neffectiveness as took place in Jakarta and Surakarta two months
\nago.<\/p>\n
No racial or ethnic groups in Indonesia, no matter how
\nagitated, could possibly inflict the systematic violence in which
\n1,198 lives (of which 27 died from gunfire) were lost, 150
\nfemales were raped, 40 shopping malls and 4,000 shops were burned
\ndown, and thousands of vehicles and houses were set afire
\nsimultaneously in 27 areas in a capital city of 10 million
\ninhabitants in less than 50 hours. All was done without the
\nculprits having to confront state security forces or face
\nindictment.<\/p>\n
The violence was just too perfect to leave any doubts about
\nthe narrow range of potential suspects. To have a better
\nperspective, the following points are helpful. First, while no
\ncivilian groups in the affected areas had either the power or
\nexperience to take any active involvement in such violence, the
\nArmed Forces has both in political-trouble spots of the nation:
\nIrian Jaya, Aceh and East Timor.<\/p>\n
Second, May's violence was not the first of its kind in Java.
\nIt was a recurrence of a series that followed a pattern. This
\ncentury has witnessed periodic attacks against the ethnic
\nChinese. None of these attacks appeared to have been conducted
\nspontaneously by local, angry and poverty-stricken masses of
\nother ethnic groups.<\/p>\n
In 1983, thousands of known criminals across Java were
\nsystematically slaughtered in front of their families, and their
\ndismembered bodies were displayed in the busiest spots of public
\nplaces (schools, shops or movie complexes).<\/p>\n
The qualities of state-terrorism look glaringly obvious in
\nmany of these events. Locals are aware of what happened. Yet,
\nwhat appeared in the media both inside and particularly outside
\nIndonesia curiously betrays the phenomenon. Most news reports,
\ninvestigative journalism, interviews or opinion columns on the
\nevents in May have focused only on racial issues. The history of
\nChinese immigrants, their relationships with locals and their
\ndisproportional control of the nations' economy have all been
\ndiscussed.<\/p>\n
Central to the dominant media coverage of Indonesia's riots is
\nan allegation of who was responsible for the mass destruction:
\nethnically the so-called pribumi (natives), economically deprived
\nand angry at the Chinese.<\/p>\n
These allegations sometimes come with condemnation, sometimes
\nwith defense. The former portray the ethnic Chinese as purely
\ninnocent victims. The latter recite the problematic mantra to the
\neffect that the Chinese constitute only 3 percent of the
\npopulation but control 70 percent of the nation's economy. Either
\nway, society is perceived to consist of only the good and bad
\nguys.<\/p>\n
Those blaming the poor masses are not only being unfair to the
\naccused, but unwittingly helping the state-terrorism by
\nprotecting the perpetrators. These high-moralizing journalists
\nand observers are free to expand their imagination, because the
\naccused have no access to rebuke their accusers, especially in
\nforeign media. Those who defend the pribumi are being self-
\ndefeating. Underlying their act of defending the pribumi by
\nrationalizing the act of looting, burning or raping is an
\nacceptance of the accusation that it was pribumi masses who
\nactually committed the crimes.<\/p>\n
Either way, both camps in the debate have missed the point. By
\nlocating the riots in the racial framework, both intensify the
\nfamiliar tendency to racialize the population and send people's
\nimagination in various directions. Some militantly promote
\nChinese identities in culture, arts, history or party politics.<\/p>\n
Others emphasis exacerbating interracial hostility. Both
\nexempt state agents from serious questioning and possible
\nprosecution. No wonder gang rape continues well into the second
\nmonth following the mid-May unrest.<\/p>\n
Once entangled in a racial framework, many commentators draw
\ncomparisons from Indonesia's situation with unrest in Malaysia in
\n1969 or the Los Angeles riots in 1992. Such comparison is useful,
\nbut for reasons that are contrary to those commonly presented. In
\nboth Malaysia and Los Angeles violent conflicts involved
\nprimarily segments within civil society, each generally
\nidentified with ethnic markers. That is precisely what
\ndistinguishes them from Indonesia's case.<\/p>\n
In Indonesia the agent provocateurs had no ethnic identity.
\nNor did they come from any particular groups within civil
\nsociety. They victimized more than one ethnic group, although
\nthose of Chinese descent were their primary targets. In this
\nsense, the violence can better be described as racialized than
\nracist. It adopted racial colorings, apart from patriarchal
\nbrutality, but the motive was not genuine racism.<\/p>\n
No wonder the pribumi were not left entirely untouched by the
\nviolence. Many pribumi risked their own safety when offering a
\nhelping hand to individual Chinese strangers both during the
\nviolence as well as afterward. Public condemnation of the state
\nand aid campaigns for the victims have flourished among pribumi
\nactivists.<\/p>\n
As repeatedly aired in public, the state suspiciously came out
\nlate with any remarks about the gang rapes.<\/p>\n
All the aforementioned is not to deny that racial problems in
\nIndonesia exist, more specifically the problems between the
\nChinese minority and self-proclaimed pribumi majority. What I am
\narguing is that existing racism among members of civil society
\nwas not responsible for the recent riots, nor most other major
\nanti-Chinese riots in past decades. This racism must be clearly
\ndistinguished from the effective racialized, masculine and
\nmilitarized state-terrorism that most analysts choose to ignore.<\/p>\n
As elsewhere, racism in Indonesia flares up in household
\nconversations, jokes, gossip or in private quarrels. Such
\npervasive sentiment partly explains the ease with which terrorism
\nevolved last May. However, it did not cause the mass burning,
\nraping or looting. It simply does not have the capacity. Rather
\nthan causing the May riots, civilian racism has been affected and
\nintensified by both the patriarchal state-terrorism and the
\nracializing media coverage.<\/p>\n
The writer is with the Jakarta-based feminist journal, Jurnal
\nPerempuan.<\/p>\n
Window: No racial or ethnic groups in Indonesia, no matter how
\nagitated, could possibly inflict the systematic violence in which
\n1,198 lives (of which 27 died from gunfire) were lost, 150
\nfemales were raped, 40 shopping malls and 4,000 shops were burned
\ndown, and thousands of vehicles and houses were set afire
\nsimultaneously in 27 areas in a capital city of 10 million
\ninhabitants in less than 50 hours.<\/p>",
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