Assimilation creates barriers

Here are a few lines from V.S. Naipaul's book The Middle Passage: "Racial equality and assimilation are attractive but only underlines loss, since to accept assimilation is in a way to accept permanent inferiority."

And the Chinese here have lost most of the things Chinese, but without racial equality. The Chinese cultural pillars are also already nowhere to be seen. Chinese schools, languages, media and association (huiguan) are banned, with one exception: the half- Chinese "advertisement newspaper" Harian Indonesia.

Chinese religion and beliefs have also been reduced to rites, rituals and funeral ceremonies, without the philosophical foundations. Confucianism here has also undergone many adaptions, with Confucius being a prophet. And there is also the name changing. For Chinese, a name is not just for a name's sake, but is one's link with one's ancestry, one's identity. Confucius said, "No ancestor, no identity." And Chinese here have lost their identities too.

One's identity is not only one's internal identification with one's ancestry, but is also an externally and politically imposed one. If the Chinese are constantly pegged down as such for discrimination and persecution, they will further be targeted in times of desperation. Sinologist Leo Suryadinata quotes Walker Connor, saying assimilation is not just one-way traffic, and can also be reversed.

For more than 1000 years, the Chinese have been trading and settling in Southeast Asia and beyond, without grand designs like the colonial masters. They did not establish a Son-of-Heaven city or New Peking or Port of Canton -- like Queenstown, New England, New Amsterdam or the Port of Spain -- but became integrated into the host societies.

Examples are too numerous to mentioned here, but to cite a few, there are the half-Teochew Chinese King Thaksin and his son- in-law, founders of the Thai Dynasty and T. Khoman, B. Rojanasanthien and Chuanleekpai; in the Philippines, the mestizo Jose Rizal, Cardinal Sin and Cory Aquino; and in Japan the Monofuku family (formerly Wu Baifu) inventor of instant noodles and founder of Nissin.

Of course, there are many in Indonesia too.

Chinese have been settling here for hundreds if not thousands of years, but are still considered non-indigenous, whereas Arab descendants are considered indigenous to Indonesia. The Chinese, most having different religions to the rest of Indonesia, seem to be without a homeland, and are given no place here.

But Indonesia was cast in a colonial mold, and the Indonesian identity as an amalgamation of cultures is still in the making. To try to impose enforced assimilation and complete it in 53 years is a fantasy.

The Indonesian national identity puts too much emphasis on geographical criteria, religion and ethnic origins, instead of cultural values, and thus disorientates and divides the people. The present tragedies testify to this.

SIA KA MOU

Jakarta