Chinese still fight for acceptance in Indonesia

Chinese still fight for acceptance in Indonesia

Nopporn Wong-Anan, Reuters, Jakarta

Sulianto Sunarto remembers the days he had to bribe Indonesian
officials to sell Chinese red lanterns and lion dance gear in
Glodok, Jakarta's Chinatown.

"I felt like a smuggler when I sold those," said Sulianto, who
has sold the ornaments for 31 years and only stopped making
payoffs to corrupt bureaucrats in 1998 when President Soeharto
stepped down after 32 years of iron-fisted rule.

"I felt I was treated unfairly during the Soeharto period,"
said Sulianto, a 59-year-old Indonesian born of overseas Chinese
parents.

And while that particular problem has ended, Sulianto feels
ethnic Chinese are still being mistreated by officials in other
ways, a view common among his nine million compatriots in the
world's fourth-most populous nation of some 210 million people.

Among other difficulties, they still face many discriminatory
laws, some dating back to the Dutch colonial period and some
passed during the Soeharto period with the primary aim of
crushing communist supporters linked to Beijing.

Many Indonesians see the Chinese, who by some estimates
control around 80 percent of the nation's wealth, as overly
privileged, but defenders say their affluence for the most part
simply reflects hard work and an entrepreneurial culture.

Chinese were often targeted in the suppression of communists
in 1965 that left hundreds of thousands of people dead.

Political and economic crisis in 1998 saw looting and burning
of Chinese-owned shops, raping of Chinese women and more than
1,000 deaths.

Several of the discriminatory laws were repealed after that
crisis and Soeharto's fall, but a number remain, as do double
standards allowing bureaucrats and others to give ethnic Chinese
a harder time than citizens from indigenous groups.

Most ethnic Chinese accept the system as a fact of life,
rights activists say. But some young educated ethnic Chinese are
campaigning for equal opportunity and gradually gaining support.

"There is progress, but slowly," said Gondomono, a 70-year-old
indigenous Indonesian professor of Chinese-Indonesian studies at
Jakarta's private Darma Persada University.

"There is still discrimination. That is very obvious,
especially at the low levels of government."

Chinese Indonesians generally have to bribe officials to
shorten procedures for obtaining citizenship certificates,
required under rules imposed only on ethnic Chinese, for their
children to apply for all levels of education or passports.

The whole process could cost US$2,500-$5,000 a person, some
lawyers estimate.

"They treat the Chinese as third-class citizens," said Frans
Hendra Winarta, an outspoken Chinese-Indonesian lawyer and a
leader of the Anti-Discrimination Movement or GANDI.

But he and other activists acknowledge an easing of rules and
some friendly gestures to Chinese in the post-Soeharto years.
Indonesian President Megawati Soekarnoputri has declared the
Chinese Lunar New Year a national holiday. Her predecessor,
Abdurrahman Wahid, lifted the ban on its celebration and revoked
a ban on public displays of Chinese culture.

But GANDI, which receives grants from the Chinese business
community and international aid agencies, says the government
needs to do more, especially to revoke almost 60 laws activists
say discriminate against Chinese directly or indirectly.

GANDI and a small number of parliamentarians of Chinese
descent are drafting laws on civil registration and citizenship
to replace the antiquated ones.

They hope the bills could be submitted to parliament for
consideration by early next year, but some doubt parliament and
the government will move quickly.

"This government has been more lenient toward the Chinese,
although they still hesitate to repeal all these regulations on
the grounds that they are afraid they will be opposed by the
Islamic radical parties," Frans said.

While Megawati's ruling PDI-P party was the most sympathetic
towards Chinese Indonesians, he did not think the government
would repeal all the laws before the 2004 general election.

"We can't push it too much, otherwise she will lose the race
and that will be very bad for the Chinese."

Activists also plead for better public understanding and urge
the Chinese to assimilate more in society.

"The most effective PR campaign for us is if every individual
Chinese wants to contribute to the country: Be a lawyer, a
judge, ...not just being involved in business," Frans said.

He wants the public to understand Chinese have contributed
much to the country, but realizes this is not an overnight task.

"It might be that you have to fight for generations."