Ancestry: A bad word in Indonesian

Ancestry: A bad word in Indonesian

JAKARTA (JP): Ancestry: It's something quite a lot of people
reflect on with pride. There are associations in the U.S. like
the Mayflower Descendants and the Daughters of the American
Revolution which sing the praises of the heroics of their
forefathers and foremothers who settled and fought for the
freedom of their country.

There are, of course, many time periods in which the acts of
past generations should be looked upon with shame instead. The
Japanese, vis-a-vis the way their country treated neighboring
nations occupied during World War II, are an unlaudable example
as to how a country looks at such past acts, whereas their
allies, the Germans, have faced their heinous acts squarely.

Still, where less praiseworthy aspects are concerned, there's
at least one country in which many of its citizens are rather
proud of being descended from rum-swilling men and women:
Australia. Even more to their credit, most Australians are
currently well aware of the atrocities committed against the
native aborigines and the need to redress the situation. But by
and large, people everywhere look on their ancestry with
affection.

Except in Indonesia. This is one country in which a segment of
its population have every reason not to even mention their
ancestry: the Chinese Indonesians. The country's recent upheaval
has made this all too clear. Again they have become the butt of
organized rioting. I can't prove this, but I am unshakable in my
belief that the ordinary Indonesian, the man on the street, does
not have it in him to go on a rampage against anyone unless he's
running amok -- in which case he'd be killing indigenous
Indonesians too before turning on himself. One must look beyond
the looting mobs to find the educated group hiding behind them.
After all, hatred, as Oscar Hammerstein said, must be carefully
taught.

"Ancestry" could well be one of the most negative words in the
Indonesian language. Some of you will dispute this, and come up
with quite a lot of others like the ones about bodily waste, for
instance, or coarser expressions referring to the process of
procreation. But these are merely foul words, producing no worse
than a raised eyebrow, a mild, short-term shock, or a slap across
the beezer if you're underage and your parents happen to be
around to hear you say it.

But ancestry (keturunan in Indonesian) has become a word that
is bereft of any connotation except bad, wrong, immoral,
unscrupulous, rich and ... Chinese Indonesian. And don't think
that the unsavory reputation of keturunan had to go through an
evolutionary process before reaching its current meaning. It was
enshrined in our laws and regulations, as any minor immigration
official can tell you. All right, the government has decreed that
Chinese Indonesians are no longer required to declare their
ancestry on official documents, but after some 40 years of
constant rubbing in (call it brain washing, if you like),
everybody associates keturunan with Chinese Indonesian. How do
you erase it from their psyche? Will the passing of time help?

I'm sure that by now you have noticed that there's no further
definition in the use of the term. You don't, for instance, say
keturunan Cina (Chinese ancestry), and this, I'm sure, is to
spare the feelings of those other Indonesians who have a
different alien ancestry, like foreign affairs minister Ali
Alatas, or former minister of tourism, post and telecommunication
Joop Ave.

Come to think of it, I can't remember ever having come across
an article or any kind of writing referring to former industry
and trade minister Mohammad Hasan as a warga negara keturunan
(national with an ancestry), especially during his two-month
position in the cabinet.

But scrapping decrees from the book is not the same as wiping
them out of the people's minds. Or news publications either.
Indonesian rags keep on referring to warga negara keturunan.
English language ones, like the one you're holding now, use
"descent".

I am not Chinese and can trace my lineage back to my great-
great-grandparents who were equally un-Chinese. But of course I
cannot vouch for the sexual mores of my forebears beyond that
level. After all, who can say whether there was an ancestor of
mine who wasn't averse to a fling with an Arab, say, or Chinese,
Portuguese, whatever, from which union I would surely have
inherited more interesting features than the boring Malay ones
I'm sporting now. I have nothing in particular against the
Chinese; in fact, besides the cousins, nephews and nieces I have
who happen to be of Chinese descent, I genuinely like a lot of
them, though I am not ashamed to say that there are some I would
rather see dead than alive. But then, there are also some
Ambonese, Bataks, Javanese, Manadonese, Americans, Australians,
what have you, about whom I think that this world would be
absolutely beautiful if they weren't around. I still say dasar
Cina! (what do you expect from a Chinese!) but just as often I
also exclaim dasar Sunda!, or dasar Bule!

But let's look at this ancestry thing from a different angle.
You see, I feel that the enshrinement in our regulations of the
definition that Chinese Indonesians are warga negara keturunan,
implies that, officially, I have no ancestry and all that its
meaning entails, including culture. Somehow, to me it also seems
to imply that only Chinese Indonesians have a right to an
ancestry. If this isn't extremely objectionable, I don't know
what is. Of course it also means that the government officials
who enacted the regulation have no ancestry either, but I find
that scant comfort because it is not the kind of company I dig.

These scribblings are dedicated to my mom, dad, uncles, aunts,
grandparents, teachers, lecturers, etc., who haven't taught me to
hate. And when I look over the rest of the clan, neither have the
Javanese, Buginese, Minang, Chinese, Dutch, Ambonese parents of
my many cousins, nephews and nieces. Would that the requirement
to declare one's ancestry be a must for all Indonesians! The
daughter of very dear friends would have to be wallowing in
luxury, being able to chose either Acehnese, or Javanese,
Sundanese and Manadonese. I, poor me, have only one! Anyway, from
this moment on, anyone who asks will be told that I am an
Indonesian of Iban ancestry. Maybe I should say "any stranger who
asks" because I have the type of friends and acquaintances,
including Javanese, Sundanese, Chinese, Germans, Americans,
whatever, who couldn't care less.

-- Jak Jaunt