'Pribumi' review essential<\/p>\n
By Harkiman Racheman<\/p>\n
MEDAN, North Sumatra (JP): The ongoing outbreaks of bloody
\nriots in various parts of the country, often culminating in the
\nslaughtering of fellow pribumi (indigenous) people, seem to have
\nshaken certain commonly accepted assumptions regarding
\nindigenousness and nonindigenousness.<\/p>\n
A number of critical people have presumably started
\nquestioning who the indigenous people of Indonesia really are and
\non what grounds are such an implied racist categorization or
\nclassification based.<\/p>\n
The numerous recent sociopolitical calamities suggest that it
\nis, in fact, hard for us to define the word pribumi at the
\npresent time. The reason is because the myth of indigenousness,
\nin the sense of one's naturally secured racial privileges
\nacknowledged nationally, seems too good to be relevant now.<\/p>\n
The huge numbers of native Indonesians fleeing Ambon in Maluku
\nand East Timor, for instance, has clearly indicated that those
\npeople traditionally deemed as pribumi are no longer considered
\nas such.<\/p>\n
The word pribumi, which is synonymous with bumiputra (the sons
\nof the land), therefore, needs to be readdressed or reconsidered,
\nso that its shift in meaning may be clearly identified and
\nsubsequently appreciated.<\/p>\n
During the New Order era, the word pribumi was construed
\nlargely in terms of certain ethnicity and its relation to a
\nparticular geography. A person was regarded as pribumi only if he
\ncould relate his ethnic background and geographical place of
\norigin to one particular area of Indonesia.<\/p>\n
Although this could no way guarantee material security or
\nspecial state protection for any indigenous community (note, for
\ninstance, the unbearable sufferings of the peoples of Aceh, East
\nTimor and Irian Jaya), such a discriminatory classification
\nsystem by the now-defunct New Order government nevertheless
\nseemed to have gained wide indisputable acceptance from among the
\npribumi masses.<\/p>\n
However, recent incidents heavily characterized by an overtone
\nof separatism, especially those which occurred following the
\ndethronement of Soeharto from the New Order administration, have
\ncritically rechallenged or requestioned the old conception of the
\nindigenousness itself.<\/p>\n
In other words, even within the circle of pribumi Indonesians
\nthemselves there is no lack of disagreement with regard to who
\ndeserves to be referred to as pribumi and who should be treated
\nas non-pribumi (read \"migrants\").<\/p>\n
In fact, even an indigenous person (who is traditionally
\nconsidered native to the place of his origin) will not be too
\nreadily accepted as a native son in another part of the country.
\nA Javanese or Batak person, for example, will always remain non-
\npribumi whenever he is found in the East Timor province.<\/p>\n
Perhaps, this is only showing us too obviously that what we
\nused to believe so deeply as our fully fledged nationalism is, in
\nfact, a vulnerable thing, if at all entirely existent.<\/p>\n
In an independent multiethnic Indonesia, this hollow
\nnationalism, as it were, took the form of a political compromise
\nforced back upon the people in a top-down manner by the ruling
\nregime, rather than the manifested aspiration from the entire
\npopulace.<\/p>\n
For certain reasons, for instance, the natives of the Maluku
\nprovince have deliberately thought of their fellow Indonesian
\nmigrants (who have long lived and procreated in the region) as
\nnonnatives. The worst is when these people have been severely
\nmistreated for the reason that they do not ethnically or
\ngeographically belong there.<\/p>\n
In the media, it has been widely publicized how the migrant
\nnatives from other parts of the country, such as the Buginese,
\nthe Butonese, the Makassarese, the Javanese and the Sumatrans,
\nhave fled from this province because of fear or the Ambonese's
\nthreats despite their long history of being \"Ambonese\" themselves
\nthrough and through. All of a sudden, the issues of
\nindigenousness and nonindigenousness have resurfaced as two
\nendangering, as well as self-conflicting, realities.<\/p>\n
Ben Anderson's analysis seems to have strengthened the
\nimpression of such ethnic discrimination. In his recent visit to
\nIndonesia, he asserted that the Ambonese riots and the resulting
\nexoduses were primarily due to the central government's
\nmistreatment as well as the migrants' extreme exploitation of the
\nlocals, who have not done equally well on the economic front.<\/p>\n
With those socioeconomic as well as political grievances in
\nthe background, made worse still by the government's arrogance of
\npower, destructive divisive sentiments or outbursts could no
\nlonger be reserved or held back. All these culminated in a hatred
\nvolcano which vomits out antimigrant or antiminority lava, to put
\nit figuratively.<\/p>\n
It must be realized that the word pribumi has, in fact, a
\nnegative implication. This word can best be compared to
\n\"primitive\", a word which almost always has a negative meaning
\nbecause it has been used by Westerners to refer biasedly to those
\n\"inferior\" nonindustrial, nonverbal cultures of the rural Orient.
\nSimilarly, in the everyday use of the word, pribumi negatively
\nimplies a tyrannical majority ruling oppressed minority groups.<\/p>\n
Within this connection, Habibie's postpresidential appointment
\nstatement that a pribumi, rather than a person identified with a
\ncertain race or religion, is someone who puts the interest of the
\ncountry before his own community or himself, may, therefore,
\nconfuse the already murky meaning of the expression.<\/p>\n
Despite his verbalized determination to abolish the New
\nOrder's racial discrimination policy, by attaching another sense
\nto an otherwise conventionally accepted meaning of the word,
\nPresident Habibie has, in fact, contributed a serious semantic
\nconfusion. Therefore, we ask ourselves: Is Soeharto pribumi or
\nhalf-pribumi?<\/p>\n
Departing from the Ambonese turmoil, we learn that what we
\nunderstood, or though we did, by the word pribumi is a dominant
\ngroup of locals and radicals claiming, one-sidedly, to be the
\nsole tyrannical rulers over other ethnic groups.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, the non-pribumi consist of all those
\nmigrants, regardless of their ethnic background or geographical
\norigin, who have found recently their lives miserable due to the
\nmounting intimidation, potential conflicts and open practices of
\ncultural genocide by the pribumi.<\/p>\n
In our everyday lives, the word pribumi has always been used
\nin favor of a particular mass of people but, unfortunately, to
\nthe disadvantage of other minority groups. During last year's
\nmid-May riots, for example, the houses or buildings marked with a
\nsignboard Milik Pribumi Asli (belonging to real natives) would go
\nunharmed, while those without quickly turned into a flood of
\nfire.<\/p>\n
In addition to that, certain practices in the spheres of
\neconomy, politics and culture can be mentioned due to age-old
\nracial prejudices that pribumi have toward non-pribumi.<\/p>\n
In the economic realm, pribumi businesspeople mythologized as
\nweak and vulnerable are sharply distinguished from nonnative
\nbusinesspeople who are pictured unproportionally as overly strong
\nand fully funded. The consequence is that this dramatized
\neconomic disparity would give a pretext to the government's
\n(including that of Habibie) deliberate affirmative action
\npolicies based on pribumi-favoring grounds.<\/p>\n
It is not surprising that in his article Indonesia and
\nMalaysia Face Racism Allegations years ago, sociologist Arief
\nBudiman had to say that \"a public policy that discriminates
\nagainst the Chinese in order to alleviate the poverty of the
\nindigenous people\" constitutes an unacceptable state of racism.
\n(The Jakarta Post, April 19, 1996).<\/p>\n
In the political sphere, pribumi is always taken to mean a
\ngroup of native Indonesians who have an unquestionable right to
\nparticipating formally in the political decision-making process,
\nespecially that which has a pervasive impact on the whole of the
\npopulace, while non-pribumi constitutes those members of minority
\ngroups who are structurally sidelined in order to become
\npolitical orphans. It is to be regretted that this is still
\ncontinuing to happen despite popular political figures' curse on
\nthe injustice caused.<\/p>\n
In the cultural domain, pribumi cultures have been funded,
\nnurtured and developed, while nonnatives' customs and traditions
\nhave been severely prohibited. The hard evidence to this is the
\nimplementation of Presidential Decree No. 14\/1967, which
\ndisallows Chinese-Indonesians from observing their traditional
\nbeliefs and cultural festivals.<\/p>\n
For many years, nonindigenousness has seemingly given a
\njustification for members of the dominant majority to abolish
\nChinese cultural and religious observances. Perhaps, in exactly
\nthe same way as that which the Ambonese have been accused of
\ndoing to the migrant Muslims.<\/p>\n
Considering the enormous politicking and engineering which has
\ngone into the word pribumi, and realizing just how much
\ndestruction that has entailed, we may well have to abandon the
\nword all together, except, perhaps, for a limited use in cultural
\nresearch. Thus, this modified language usage may help unify all
\ndifferent ethnic components in our society.<\/p>\n
What seems worth popularizing in this reformed era may well be
\nthe expression Bangsa Indonesia (Indonesian). (Compare this with
\nthe phrase Anak Bangsa [son of the nation] frequently used by
\nAmien Rais of the National Mandate Party). There is no doubt that
\nthis word has now become an important entry to the new vernacular
\nof modern Indonesian nationalism. The reason is because this all-
\nembracing phrase will most probably bring together all ethnic
\ngroups throughout the Indonesian archipelago.<\/p>\n
And, if we are determined to lay a firm foundation for a post-
\nelection (June 7, 1999) Indonesia, it may be essential that we
\nbury once and for all the wrong conceptualization of pribumi and
\nnon-pribumi as local dictators who seem to have claimed their
\nright to rule over their vulnerable countrymen.<\/p>\n
The writer graduated from Victoria University of Wellington,
\nNew Zealand. He is currently a Medan-based freelance writer and
\nuniversity teacher.<\/p>",
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