Ethnic statistics
When Leo Suryadinata, an ethnic Chinese academic from National University of Singapore, declared through The Jakarta Post last month that the Chinese in Indonesia were not really a minority but the third largest ethnic group in the country (after the Javanese and Sundanese), I decided at first to ignore it. But when this misleading opinion was repeated again in the Post (Nov. 7, 1998) I felt compelled to contradict it. I am afraid if this blatantly false and probably tendentious statement was allowed to be repeated again and again in the media, it could develop into another myth similar to the one about the ethnic Chinese allegedly controlling 70 percent of the Indonesian economy. This latter myth was finally blasted recently after it was widely believed and quoted for many years.
The figures shown below on the population of the various ethnic groups in Indonesia are based basically on the results of a 1930 census, the last official census undertaken by the Dutch colonial government. I have also consulted several additional sources of information including Atlas van tropisch Nederland by S.J. Esser (1940) and Indonesian cultures and communities by Hildred Geertz (1963).
Unfortunately, post independence censuses of 1961, 1970, 1980 and 1990 did not enumerate ethnic population possibly because such statistics are believed to be politically sensitive. But the 1930 census as carried out by the Dutch authorities is considered to be accurate and the data are, on the whole, still generally applicable today because here we are concerned only with relative percentages and not actual numbers.
I should mention that I have rounded off the census figures to the nearest digit and also adjusted the original figure of 42 percent and 15 percent for the ethnic Javanese and Sundanese (out of a total population of 63 million for Indonesia) to 39 percent and 14 percent respectively. This was done because of the significantly lower population growth in Java compared to the outer islands in the past several decades. I have also increased the Chinese figure from the original 2.3 percent in the census to 3 percent on my list to take into account some Chinese immigration that took place between the census year of 1930 and the start of the Pacific War in 1941. No significant Chinese immigration is assumed to have taken place since 1941.
On the following list only the major and medium sized ethnic groups are shown. The few dozens smaller groups account for less than 2 percent of the total population mark. The figures are as follows: (1) Javanese: 39 percent, (2) Sundanese: 14 percent, (3) Malay: 7 percent (namely indigenous peoples of East Sumatra, Riau, Jambi, south Sumatra and some coastal areas of Kalimantan), (4) Madurese: 6 percent, (5) Bugis/Makassarese: 5 percent, (6) Minangkabau: 5 percent, (7) Batak: 4 percent, and (8) Chinese: 3 percent.
In view of the above figures it would be erroneous for the ethnic Chinese to continue claiming that their share of the population varies between 3 percent and 4 percent, although the error would be relatively small and tolerable. What is less tolerable is Leo Suryadinata's tendentious claim that the Chinese are not a minority but the third largest ethnic group in Indonesia, instead of the eighth. I suggest that the professor and others should cease from repeating such a preposterous claim in the future.
However, I think the current speaker of the People's Consultative Assembly and the House of Representatives, Harmoko, is even worse than Leo Suryadinata. Harmoko confidently said during a TVRI news broadcast on July 16, 1991, when he was the minister of information, that ethnic Javanese constitute 70 percent of Indonesia's population, while in reality it is less than 40 percent.
MASLI ARMAN
Jakarta