Ethnic Chinese urged to enter political arena

Ethnic Chinese urged to enter political arena

A'an Suryana, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The struggle of Indonesians of Chinese descent to put an end to
racial discrimination here will never succeed if they fail to
gain influence in the decision making process in the country, a
discussion concluded on Saturday.

Titled The Duty and Role of Chinese Indonesians in Building
the Nation and State, the discussion underlined the fact that
Chinese Indonesians must become well represented in politics in
order to stymie the adoption of any potentially discriminatory
government policies.

By actively entering politics, Chinese Indonesians could also
contribute something to the country, according to the discussion
participants.

"Chinese Indonesians should not merely concentrate on
business, but must also consider entering politics. By entering
politics, they could gain significant bargaining power in the
decision making process in the country," lawyer Frans Hendra
Winarta told the participants.

All the speakers, and most of the participants during the
discussion, which was organized by the Tionghoa Indonesia
Association (Inti), were Chinese Indonesians.

The speakers included, among others, Eddie Lembong, the
chairman of Inti, Brig. Gen. (ret) Teddy Jusuf and K. Sindhunata.

Despite being powerful in business, the Chinese Indonesian
community, comprising 6 percent of the total population of 210
million here, is not well represented in politics. Few of them
manage to enter the legislative and executive branches so that
there is no powerful lobby to act on behalf of the interests of
the Chinese community.

Some political parties seeking to represent Chinese
Indonesians have been formed but they have failed to get a single
representative into the legislature.

Winarta said that Chinese Indonesians should learn from the
Jewish minority in the U.S., which was backed by a powerful
lobby.

"The Jews make up only 3 percent of the total U.S. population,
but they are very powerful. In the Israel-Palestine conflict, for
example, the U.S. government can never go against Israel because
of the Jewish lobby," said Winarta, who is also a member of the
National Law Commission (KHN).

There were several important politicians and scholars from the
Jewish community in the U.S., including Henry Kissinger,
Madeleine Allbright and Daniel Lev, said Winarta.

"The parents of Chinese Indonesians should not merely
encourage their kids to go into business, but the kids must also
be urged to go into politics," he said.

Another speaker, Benny G. Setiono, shared Winarta's view,
saying that Chinese Indonesians must come out of "the business
cage."

"Politics is not scary and should not be avoided. Rather it
should be learned and understood. Chinese Indonesians can form
political parties, or join the existing parties to fight for the
interests of their community," said Benny, from Inti's Jakarta
chapter.

However, instead of thinking narrow-mindedly about political
parties, Chinese Indonesians should join hands with other
prodemocratic elements in the country to build a democratic and
corruption-free Indonesia, said Winarta.

"Should Indonesia achieve genuine democracy, transparency,
justice and the other good qualities of democracy, racial
discrimination would automatically be abolished in the country,"
Winarta said.

After the start of the reform era, the Indonesian government
had repealed a few discriminatory rules against Chinese
Indonesians. However, many others still remained, such as the
regulations on Chinese Indonesian's citizenship.