Chinese should be active in political life: Arief

Chinese should be active in political life: Arief

Sri Wahyuni, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta

Government critic Arief Budiman has said that it is time now
for Indonesians of Chinese descent to become political activists
or figures who have the guts to criticize national leaders, even
though they may risk being sent to prison.

"Doing so will enable Chinese Indonesians to consider
themselves as Indonesians who have the same rights and bear the
same risks as other Indonesians throughout the country," Arief,
who is also of Chinese descent and currently a lecturer at
Melbourne University, Australia, said on Sunday.

Speaking in a monthly discussion titled Reconstructing the
Social Relations between the Minority and Majority Dichotomy in
Indonesia held by the Brotherhood Forum of Faith Society (FPUB),
Arief said that Chinese Indonesians had long been perceived as a
business-minded community.

"They have been perceived as people who are reluctant to be
involved in political activities and are involved only with
business activities," Arief said, adding that such a stereotype
was a result of the devide et impera (divide and rule) policy
applied by the Dutch colonial government, which was continued by
Soeharto's New Order regime.

This policy was needed to create a new business class, in this
case a Chinese one, he said, to prevent the Javanese from
acquiring economic authority, as the Javanese already had
political power because Javanese kingdoms at that time were the
centers of political authority, which could not be easily be
penetrated by the Dutch colonists.

That's why the Dutch needed to stop them from accumulating
economic power, he said.

For a similar reason, the New Order government did the same
thing. On one hand, it needed a bourgeois community that
possessed capital, while on the other, it had to prevent this
particular community from acquiring political power.

"That's why an anti-Chinese move was created about every 10
years, to make the Chinese community here feel that they would
always need protection from the government," Arief said in front
of some 100 people, of whom some 70 were of Chinese descent.

"In other words the (New Order) government showed two
different faces in dealing with issues regarding Chinese
descendants. On the one hand it 'provided protection' to them,
but on the other it provoked anti-Chinese sentiment," Arief
added.

According to Arief, discrimination against the Chinese
occurred in almost every aspect of life, including education.
Gadjah Mada University (Yogyakarta), the Bandung Institute of
Technology, and even the University of Indonesia (Jakarta), he
said, applied a sort of quota for students of Chinese descent.

Yet, Arief also said that there had been a good sign regarding
the issue of the Chinese community in Indonesia, especially after
the reform movement, which began a few years ago.

"It was a relief knowing that Kwik Kian Gie was actively
involved in a political party and nothing untoward happened to
him," he said.