Discrimination still common: Sociologist
JAKARTA (JP): A noted sociologist said on Wednesday that President B.J. Habibie's instruction outlawing discrimination had yet to prove to be effective considering the difficulty experienced by Chinese-Indonesians in dealing with the bureaucracy.
In his Sept. 16 instruction, the President banned government agencies and officials from discriminating against citizens based on "tribal affiliations, religion, race and societal groups".
Ministers, heads of state agencies, governors, mayors and regents are to dispense with the use of the terms pribumi (indigenous) and nonpribumi (nonindigenous).
"We need clarity in (the decree's) implementation, because at the lower level it might not be applied the same way (by officials)," Mely said after the launching of a book on Chinese- Indonesians by renowned writer Pramoedya Ananta Toer.
"According to a 1996 rule, every Indonesian citizen only needs an identity card and birth certificate to apply for documents, but until now Chinese-Indonesians need to provide more, including a letter of citizenship and proof of their change of name," Mely told The Jakarta Post. She stressed that there should only be two groups of residents: Indonesians and foreigners and the need for legal certainty against discriminatory practices.
Pramoedya's book Hoakiau di Indonesia (Chinese in Indonesia) is a reprint of the first edition printed in 1960. It was first published by Bintang Press and was banned in the same year.
The publisher of the new edition, Garba Budaya, says the May riots triggered publication.
One of the reviewers on Wednesday, Sumit Kumar Mandal of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, said that apart from Pramoedya being jailed, the deeper implication of the book being banned was the nonexistence of polemic concerning the book, which was on "an exploration of dimensions of a nation's identity".
The book contains Pramoedya's correspondence to "Ch. Hs-y in P" on hoakiau. A term usually understood as overseas Chinese, Sumit said Pramoedya referred to "natives with the culture and norm of Tionghoa (ethnic Chinese)."
Pramoedya said the book was written in response to the treatment of Chinese-Indonesians following the issuance of government regulation no. 10/1959. The regulation aimed to give more opportunity to native entrepreneurs and stated that Chinese- Indonesians operating in rural areas were to close their businesses by Jan. 1, 1960.
Force was apparently used in some areas. In 1960/1961 about 100,000 Chinese-Indonesians left the country, Pramoedya said.
Another reviewer, chief editor of the new Tempo weekly Goenawan Muhammad, questioned whether racial-related riots here, including those in the 1950s, were "state racialism" or "mass racialism", or a combination of both.
Further study, he said might enable "better analysis of the (recent) riots and violence, including the rapes." (01)