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