A supremacist?

A supremacist?

In the Netherlands, the country I come from, Masli Arman would
be renounced as a white supremacist who tries to sweet talk his
way out of the guilt of the injustices done to an ethnic group in
Indonesia. I'm not sure what to call an Indonesian with the same
attitude, perhaps one could call him a Moslem-supremacist (which
is just as bad).

In his article in The Jakarta Post on July 30, Masli Arman
hides a message that the rape of Chinese-looking women and girls
is all right because some ethnic Chinese do not conform to his
standards. He tries to make an oversimplified case by relating
stereotypical incidents between ethnic Chinese and indigenous
Indonesians and the riots. I've never read such nonsense in the
Post before, so let me respond to the article.

Perhaps Masli Arman should realize that the humiliation and
trauma of being gang raped certainly is not the same as having to
clean a toilet or being paraded as a thief. In my opinion there
is no excuse whatsoever for the rape of any women or girl; the
men who do that should be publicly castrated with two stones and
be left on the roadside to bleed to death!

I also wonder what language and customs Masli Arman uses when
he is with Minangkabau family or friends; my experience is that
the different ethnic groups in Indonesia all prefer their local
dialect and customs. Calling that disrespect for the Indonesian
language or customs is senseless. What about the "Unity in
Diversity" principle of Pancasila, shouldn't it encompass ethnic
Chinese as well as ethnic Minangkabau?

Furthermore, Masli Arman acknowledges that about 70 percent of
the so-called ethnic Chinese have fairly assimilated. Yet he
still relates to them as ethnic Chinese. The statement that he
will call them Indonesians when they all have assimilated thus is
at the least dubious.

Even more ridiculous is his statement that the current crisis
was caused by Chinese speculators and/or multinationals. Sure,
there are speculators using the crisis for their own profit and
thus increasing its effects, but not only Chinese speculators.

And clearly the root of the crisis also lies in the political
and social instability of Indonesia. There were clear
depreciations of the rupiah after several of president Soeharto's
presentations of the new Development Cabinet earlier this year
and after the riots.

Let me use Masli Arman's simplistic stereotyping on himself,
to underline the stupidity of it: he'll probably rape my 13-year-
old daughter because I refuse to throw my garbage out on the
street as "all" Indonesians do, or because I complain about his
smoking on the bus and poisoning me with the fumes. I won't even
mention similar racial nonsense about the discriminative
character or the corruptibility of Indonesians, but hope you see
the stupidity of it. I also hope the article doesn't reflect the
opinion of the editors of the Post, and they will be more careful
with articles in the future.

BART VAN ASSEN

Bogor, West Java