End to anti-Chinese prejudice

End to anti-Chinese prejudice

By Anom Surya Putra

SURABAYA (JP): Anti-Chinese rumors circulating some time ago
can be reflected upon and developed as a historical study of
ideas, particularly with a view to sharing a common understanding
and evaluation of the intellectual processes of the presence of
the term Cina (Chinese) as a text.

In this hermeneutic process, there are a number of
presumptions in considering, viewing and hearing the anti-Chinese
"rumors".

The first is that ethnic Chinese have committed gross
socioeconomic sins and are devoid of the courage to renounce
their sins openly. In a major corruption case involving Chinese-
Indonesian businessmen Eddy Tansil -- which caused an adverse
impact on the Indonesian people -- the racial implication was
unchecked because the ethnic Chinese failed to respond by
launching a moral drive to renounce such a corrupt attitude.

The second presumption is that ethnic Chinese have accepted
their lot in the economic sector, making them, as a result,
unwilling to be involved in sociopolitical matters. A political
occurrence such as the murder of labor activist Marsinah near
here several years ago failed to move ethnic Chinese to
participate in legal advocacy.

Why? The answer is that it is the result of the limitation
imposed by the New Order regime on the ethnic Chinese community
under the strategy of "normalization" of their political, social
and cultural life.

This empirical proposition is obviously seen in Presidential
Instruction No. 14/1967, which prohibits public performances of
Chinese cultural expression. Since then, the lion dance, which
resembles East Java's Ponorogo reog or masked dance, has never
been performed in public.

The third presumption is the domination of historical
description of the ethnic Chinese in the context of the colonial
times, the Old Order era and the New Order period.

Anita Lie in "Sins of Chinese Indonesians" (Jawa Pos daily,
July 14, 1998) made an analysis of the lives of ethnic Chinese
during the Old Order period and the New Order era, while
Onghokham in a follow up article in the same newspaper (July 15,
1998) has taken a look at the history of ethnic Chinese during
the colonial times and the New Order era.

The question is whether these three periods are adequate to be
used as references. What about the history of the Moslem Chinese
in Java in the 15th and 16th centuries as they also had a say in
the course taken by the ethnic Chinese community in Indonesia?

The fourth presumption is that the problem of relations
between ethnic Chinese and indigenous Indonesians should be
resolved through a public policy of "assimilation" that should be
implemented down to the smallest social units, such as the
neighborhood communities called RT and RW. It is believed that
such a solution, which is sociological and juridical-dogmatic in
nature, can put an end to the "anti-Chinese" social formulation
spreading throughout the community.

The fifth presumption is that, in social image, there is a
basic difference between the term Cina and Tionghoa (Chinese) as
a text. Cina has evolved into a derogatory term, while Tionghoa
is subjectively more neutral and devoid of any hostile
implication. Charles A. Coppel (1983) says that during the New
Order era, three terms -- komunis (communist), Cina and Khonghucu
(Confucius) -- were used with negative presumption.

According to Coppel, Tionghoa was known earlier than Cina and
the campaign of using the latter was not intensified until the
New Order regime came to power, particularly after the eruption
of anti-Chinese riots from 1965 to 1967.

This "textual" power has changed into a cultural-
sociological power through the efforts made by a certain social
group to adopt the text and change it into an ideology. In this
respect, ideology may be defined as a limited number of ideas
which have been simplified to direct social forces toward certain
acts, such as cornering, showing hostility and hurting the ethnic
Chinese community.

Therefore, Cina and Tionghoa are distinguishable through the
power inserted in both by the political elite, such as the
president with his presidential instruction, or by the community
itself.

Coppel's historical perspective of ideas which explores both
cultural and sociological sphere differs from that of Onghokham
and Anita Lie, which is descriptive and linear, and is, as a
result, not sensitive enough to discern the ideas hidden behind
an event (rioting) and historical discontinuity.

Onghokham describes that both the colonial ruler and the New
Order government were discriminatory in dealing with the ethnic
Chinese. However, his description says little about the Old Order
government, which, Lie asserts, allowed the political
participation of the ethnic Chinese.

Earlier in history, a Chinese from Yunan province, Bong Swi
Hoo (known as Sunan Ampel in Surabaya, East Java), and Jin Bun
(better known as Raden Patah in Demak, Central Java), exerted
great influence on the development of the Hanafiite school of
thought in Islamic laws in Indonesia. The same is true of Ja Tik
Su (known as Sunan Kudus in Kudus, Central Java), on the Shafiite
school of thought.

There was also the first Chinese from Fujian province, Haji
Tan Eng Hoat (Maulana Ifdil Hanafi or Prince Regent Wirasenjana)
to live in Cirebon, West Java. He promoted the Shafiite school of
thought and, at the same time, acted as liaison between non-
Moslem Fujianese and Moslem descendants from Yunan. These
Fujianese descendants upheld their traditions. Tan Sam Cai, for
example, faithfully burned joss sticks in Talang Temple in
Cirebon (H.J. de Graaf, 1998).

Why has the discourse on the Sunan (pioneering propagators of
Islam in Java), and those of Chinese origin, been neglected or
overlooked in speaking of the history of ethnic Chinese in
Indonesia?

Unfavorable beliefs and negative images of ethnic Chinese --
prejudices -- have been mythologized and affirmed against the
scientific and rational theory of history.

Stories about Chinese wali (religious leaders) in Java --
originally intended to shape the behavior of Moslems through
unique explanations about the origin, significance and/or purpose
of professing a religion -- have failed to function. The myths of
Sunan Kudus and Sunan Ampel have undergone mystification or
turned into a collection of norms to be finally used to justify
certain social and political conditions.

A concrete example is that harsh acts against ethnic Chinese
differ from stringent measures taken against nonindigenous people
of Arabic origin simply because the number of Sufic figures of
Chinese origin is smaller than those of Arabic descent.

The variable of religious discourse in the history of Chinese
Moslems must be taken into account in evaluating the social image
of Indonesian society about the state of being Chinese itself.
Mystic symbols of the tradition of Chinese wali did once have a
great impact on the social life of Moslems in Indonesia.
Unfortunately, the continuity of this impact was cut off by the
third ethnic Chinese generation during the Dutch colonial times.

It is therefore important to trace a more complicated
relationship between the variables of economic struggle and
religious discourse in the relationship between ethnic Chinese
and indigenous Indonesians in the country. But it should be for
the sake of historical studies and not simply a collection of
statements of the politics of interests. Otherwise, we shall be
prompted to hastily overcome anti-Chinese racism only in the
juridically dogmatic, cultural and sociological realms.

A proper grounding in the history of Chinese Moslems may serve
as inspiration for the replacement of Cina with Tionghoa in the
effort to eliminate prejudice against the ethnic Chinese.

The writer is an alumnus of Airlangga University's School of
Law in Surabaya and a researcher at eLSAD Foundation.