Improving RI's race relations

Improving RI's race relations

By S. Belen

JAKARTA (JP): For three decades the New Order government
insisted on retaining policies aimed at forcing Chinese-
Indonesians to become assimilated into mainstream society.

Essentially the policies were designed to make Chinese-
Indonesians abandon their original customs and practices and
adapt their behavior to suit the prevalent values and norms in
Indonesia. For example, Chinese-Indonesians were encouraged to
change their Chinese names into Indonesia names.

Given this state of affairs, why weren't people of Arabic
descent like Ali Alatas, Quraish Shihab and Saleh Affif asked to
change their Arabic sounding names. Why haven't those of Indian
descent been asked to change their names, or Joop Ave and Mario
Vegas Carrascalao told to cast off their western names?

The printing of newspapers, magazines and books in Chinese
script is forbidden and the use of Cantonese and Mandarin is
discouraged. Schools using Chinese as a language of instruction
are also banned. By banning and discouraging the use of Chinese
languages members of that ethnic group have been uprooted from
their culture.

These policies are underpinned by the unsubstantiated notion
that the more deeply a "foreigner" leaves behind his or her
culture and language, the more loyal they become to Indonesia.

If this is so, why doesn't the government forbid those of Arab
descent from speaking and writing in the language of their
ancestors. Similarly, why doesn't the government forbid the use
of Hindi and ban Gandhi schools?

Furthermore, why does the government provide optional local
language curricula for elementary school children from other
ethnic groups?

The government also encourages Chinese-Indonesians to avoid
becoming segregated in exclusively Chinese areas, but at the same
time has no objection to allowing the development of an Arab
quarter, or exclusively Javanese, Timorese or Macassarese
kampongs in almost every town and city in the country. Also
contradictory to this stance against segregation is the
government's efforts to resettle people from the crowded islands
of Java, Bali and Madura into single ethnic group settlements in
the less densely populated areas of Sumatra, Kalimantan and Irian
Jaya?

The government does not recognize marriages conducted
according to Confucian tradition, while at the same time will
accept Islamic, Christian, Buddhist and Hindu unions.

Chinese gravestones are not tolerated but Islamic and
Christian tombs are. Public celebration of the Chinese New Year
is forbidden, but events to mark Idul Fitri, I Muharam, Christmas
Day, New Year's Day, Galungan and Kuningan are perfectly
acceptable.

Those of Chinese descent must negotiate a bureaucratic
minefield to gain Indonesian nationality, and before they do so
are in fact stateless. This is inhuman treatment and Article 8 of
the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) clearly
stipulates that the state has an obligation to protect, and if
necessary, reestablish basic aspects of all children's identity,
including name, nationality and family ties.

The above examples show that the New Order government does not
respect the principle of nondiscrimination that underlies the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the International
Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimina
tion (1965), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights (1966), and The Vienna Declaration and Program of
Action (1993).

The last sternly states that: "The persons belonging to
minorities have the right to enjoy their own culture, to profess
and practice their own religion and to use their own language in
private and in public, freely and without interference or any
form of discrimination," (Article 19).

An alternative to this assimilation model which is frequently
used to describe the development of ethnic relations is that of
the melting pot. Rather than customs and traditions of immigrant
groups being annihilated by the dominant cultural groups,
different ethnic groups exert a mutual influence on each other
and their customs and traditions blend together to form new
cultural patterns (Gordon 1978 in Giddens 1991).

Elements of Chinese arts which can be seen in Betawi culture
include certain musical instruments, dances and ondel-ondel
(giant puppet used in parades). Elements of Arab culture can be
seen in music, mosque architecture and calligraphy. Indian
culture has heavily influenced the Javanese, Sundanese and
Balinese arts, particularly in the wayang (puppet) performances,
gamelan, dance styles and dangdut music.

Western cultural elements appear in modern Indonesian
painting, drama (theater), dance, music, including keroncong
music, which has Portuguese influences, national song and
literature.

Chinese food such as bakso, kwe tiau, bakpau, fu yung hai, cap
cai, jenang,, food cooked in the West Sumatran Padang style,
Java's gado-gado, soybeans and tempe, and Western bread have all
enriched what is known as Indonesian food.

Chinese motives and colors can be identified in the
traditional dress of Minang and Palembang. Arabic influence can
be seen in Moslem attire and Western clothing can be seen in all
parts of the archipelago.

Chinese medicinal herbs and acupuncture, Javanese medicinal
herbs, and Western medicine are spread all over the country.
Bahasa Indonesia, the modern language of the country, has been
enriched with Chinese, Arabic, Sanskrit, Portuguese, Dutch and
English words.

Chinese qualities like taking care spending money, saving to
invest, and the willingness to take a risk have all been
incorporated into mainstream Indonesian society.

Arabic values such as the belief that God will help people who
try hard to forgive others are widely accepted and Hindu
teachings of dharma (good virtue) and karma (what goes around
comes around), and Western qualities of transparency, democracy
and respect for the opinions of others are all qualities which
characterize good Indonesian citizens.

Indonesian society has been a melting pot for centuries and
this process has been accepted democratically and without
discriminative engineering. Some of its evolving elements such as
bakso, gado-gado, bread, acupuncture, Bahasa Indonesia,
literature, batik, national songs, kopiah (caps worn by Moslem
men), keroncong music and dangdut music have been so widely
accepted that we all consider them to be part of the national
culture.

A third model of the development of cultural relations is the
most appropriate way to foster the development of a genuinely
plural society in which the equal validity of numerous different
subcultures is recognized. This model aims to achieve "distinct
but equal" status for ethnic minorities (Giddens 1991).

If we were to follow this path the government would need to
help those of Chinese descent achieve a distinct status by
allowing them to retain their Chinese names in the same way as
those of Arab, Indian and European descent currently are. The
Chinese would also have to be permitted to speak and to print
newspapers, magazines and books in Cantonese and Mandarin. They
would be free to run their own schools, live and run their
businesses in exclusively Chinese areas, practice their own
customs and traditions, and observe their own festivals.
Confucian marriages would have to be recognized and gravestone
architecture of any sort would have to be allowed.

To work toward realizing this equal status, the government
should end the practice of marking the identity cards of Chinese-
Indonesians, and provide them with an equal opportunity to join
the civil service, the armed forces, and the legal and teaching
professions. They should also be allowed to establish their own
political party and been free to run for high political office.
They should be granted an equal opportunity to enter state
universities and be free to pursue their own religious beliefs.

In the Indonesian context, a the mixture of all three of these
models would be the best way to solve the racial problems
surrounding the Chinese-Indonesian minority.

The emphasis on the assimilation model has been proved wrong,
mainly because it sets out to end discriminatory racial practices
by using yet more discriminative measures that violate human
rights.

The melting pot model has to be continued because it has
proved to be effective and does not violate the human rights of
ethnic minorities.

Placing the emphasis on the cultural pluralism model is the
best way to proceed because Indonesia consists of a tremendous
number of ethnic groups, none of which are entirely dominant.
Most importantly, this model is in line with the motto of
bhinneka tunggal ika (unity in diversity).

By coming to view those of Chinese descent, or any other
ethnic or religious minority, as "distinct but equal" then human
rights and democratic principles will be strengthened and the
character and future profile of the nation will be given more
than a little splash of color.

S. Belen, PhD is a social sciences graduate from South Bank
University, London

Window: These policies are underpinned by the unsubstantiated
notion that the more deeply a "foreigner" leaves behind his
or her culture and language, the more loyal they become to
Indonesia.