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.