Fighting racism and xenophobia

Chinese Indonesians have been able to openly celebrate Chinese New Year for the past two years. Feb. 15 also marks the once- lively Cap Go Meh celebrations following the New Year. The following article is by Ester Indahyani Jusuf who chairs the Jakarta-based Solidaritas Nusa Bangsa organization which works to fight discrimination.

JAKARTA (JP): Racism in Indonesia continues in complex ways, encompassing various spheres of life. Legally, many racial regulations still confine the Tionghoa (Chinese Indonesians) in economic, social, political and cultural life.

One case relates to civil registration. In the days of Dutch rule, registrations of birth, marriage and divorce were permitted for Europeans and privileged Indonesians. The Chinese were not entitled to this registration, the only clear reason being part of a government effort to control this ethnic group.

When a person of Chinese descent goes to the civil registration office now, she or he still must provide birth and citizenship certificates, as well as other documents -- requirements not requested of other ethnic groups in Indonesia.

Racism in Indonesia has its historical roots in the 17th century, said to be part of the "divide and conquer" policy of the Dutch to ensure no opposition.

A Chinese uprising in Jakarta, then known as Batavia, led to the killing of thousands of Chinese in October 1740. In the aftermath, the Chinese were forced to live in ghettos.

Racist policies continued into the 20th century with society divided into three strata: the Europeans at the top, the Orientals, including Arabians and Chinese, in the middle, and natives on the bottom rung.

This division corresponded with the pattern of economic domination, with European and American companies having the largest control of economic resources and the Orientals acting as intermediary traders between European and indigenous owned capital. Most natives were peasants, workers and small traders.

A regulation requiring permission to leave their communities was another policy mainly targeted at the Chinese, called the passen stelsel.

The Dutch rulers meanwhile recruited army personnel from the Manadonese and Ambonese ethnic groups. Such racial policies would occasionally lead to resentment and trigger riots, such as the conflict between Javanese natives and the Chinese in Kudus, Central Java, in 1918, as recorded by the writer Jan Risconi in 1935.

Independent Indonesia, in a bid to protect indigenous owned businesses from Chinese and foreign capital, issued the Benteng Program in 1950. The aim was to confine Chinese businesses to the cities. Violence was used to implement the policy in some areas.

In the 1960s a number of Tionghoa radicals set up a political organization to fight racial discrimination. This was the Consultative Body for Indonesian Citizenship, known by its acronym, Baperki.

They supported "integration" of the Chinese into Indonesian society. They demanded civil and political rights through recognition of the Chinese as one of Indonesia's diverse ethnic groups.

Later, Chinese Indonesians were the group mainly suspected of being communist supporters leading up to, and in the aftermath of, the communist purge from 1965 through 1967. The Chinese were branded as agents of the People's Republic of China.

More than a million were killed in the communist witch hunt. Anti-Chinese demonstrations were staged in various regions, mainly in Medan, North Sumatra, and Makassar in South Sulawesi.

Riots forced dozens of Chinese to move from Aceh, North Sumatra. In East Java in 1966 the then regional military commander Gen. Sumitro banned the Tionghoa from trading outside the capital, Surabaya, from moving from one place to another, and from using Chinese language in the fields of economy, finance, administration and telecommunications.

This series of policies in East Java included the banning of newspapers using Chinese, according to Nugraha Katjasungkana in his 1999 book discussing racial and ethnic issues.

Two years after the failed coup of 1965, unprecedented violence was inflicted on Chinese. Records note actions organized by provincial chapters of the Muslim Student Union (HMI) in Makassar and by the Ansor youth movement affiliated to the Nahdlatul Ulama organization.

According to a letter of protest from the embassy of the People's Republic of China, quoted in a 1994 book by Charles Coppel, shops and houses of more than 2,000 Chinese families were destroyed and almost 1,000 Chinese families became bankrupt.

The riots spread to other places in South Sulawesi. In Kalimantan the army used the Dayak ethnic group to oppress the Tionghoa, leading to the enlisting of many Chinese in the People's Party of North Kalimantan, Paraku, during 1967 and 1968.

During the New Order rule, the Chinese Question Coordination Board, or BKMC, issued documents containing several racist rules. Among the restrictions, Chinese were not permitted to form any political organization or large organizations. Not many were interested in political activities anyway given the trauma of past suppression.

The government urged the Chinese to change their names into Indonesian-sounding names, as part of the policies of "assimilation" aimed at making the Chinese virtually "disappear".

The Chinese are still identified as those obsessed with making money, who are rich, exclusive, and involved in collusion. They are "foreigners" who came to exploit the natives or pribumi.

Such prejudices lead to the conclusion that Indonesians are racist -- an impact of the racial policies of the Dutch colonial rulers and Indonesian governments until the New Order regime.

The prejudices led to Chinese becoming the main target of anger in every crisis -- the most recent evidence being the May 1998 riots. Chinese were victims of robbery, rape and destruction of their properties in Jakarta, Solo, Surabaya, Medan, Palembang and other cities. The riots seemed to be well organized, breaking out in Jakarta a day after the shooting of students on May 12.

Anti-Chinese riots also took place in other towns in Sumatra, such as Lubuk Pakam, Tanjung Morawa, Deli Serdang and Tebing Tinggi.

Official reports of the 1998 riots indicate the involvement of security officials riding on easily triggered anti-Chinese sentiment, given the economic and political crisis.

Earlier riots also point to the evidence of racial prejudices, such as those in Pekalongan, Central Java, in 1997 and Tasikmalaya in West Java, 1998.

Even the day after the House of Representative convened in November 1998, two days after student demonstrations, unidentified crowds attacked Ambonese, Chinese and churches. More recent riots took place in Batam, 1999. Temples were also vandalized in those incidents.

Ethnic prejudices have also contributed to the 1998 riots in Kalimantan, pitting Madurese, the Melayu and Dayak against one another. Complications of ethnicity, religion and politics continue as a fuel for the conflict in Maluku until today.

Racism is the belief that mankind is divided into races, skin color or religion, making one member of an ethnic group view the other as inferior. Racism in Africa, America, Europe and Australia has caused war, riots, massacres and eternally threatens peace.

International solidarity and networking among organizations working against racism is critical for everyone to learn from each other. In Indonesia, these networks are just beginning, involving intellectuals, students and non government organizations.

As a group, women still need to be more involved, given the similarities between discrimination of minorities and women.

They are both regarded as inferior; women often become victims of many kinds of racial persecution such as sexual harassment and rape.