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.