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