Chinese should respect

Chinese should respect
other religions

Around the time of the Lunar New Year or Imlek, television
stations aired a number of Chinese-themed programs and serials,
and the print media published articles on Chinese dress, food,
etc. To top it off, the government has announced that Imlek will
be a national holiday.

This clearly indicates that indigenous Indonesians have never
been against the Chinese and that their culture has long been
considered to enrich the local culture.

Only during the New Order regime, the government banned
everything related to their culture and religion. However,
strangely enough, the same government gave ethnic Chinese special
treatment in the business sector, thereby creating tycoons and
unfair monopolies.

During today's warm relations between Indonesians and ethnic
Chinese, it disturbs me to read some reports in the local media,
which are a sharp contradiction, such as Sogo department store in
Jakarta and the Ramayana department store in Tangerang imposing a
ban on their Muslim employees wearing head scarves.

The ownership of both stores is probably not 100 percent
Chinese, but the public perceives them as belonging to ethnic
Chinese.

I am further shocked by the ban on elementary Muslim students
from wearing head scarves in Singapore, where the population is
predominantly Chinese. Based on this kind of attitude by the
Chinese, I wouldn't blame some Indonesians for regarding them as
intolerant of other cultures and religions.

If the Chinese would like their culture and religion to be
recognized by others, then they should start respecting the
culture and religions of others first. Referring to the
aforementioned case taking place in Indonesia, if they can be so
restrictive with the followers of the majority religion, I wonder
what they will do to those embracing minority religions.

PUTU YASA

Jakarta