Learn to honor others as individuals

Learn to honor others as individuals

By Harry Bhaskara

JAKARTA (JP): People who live in a pluralistic society like
Indonesia find it difficult to imagine social conflicts in more
homogeneous societies.

There are so many things which can trigger social conflict in
pluralistic societies, as the numerous riots and bloody clashes
in Indonesia have attested. Curiously, however, the same can be
true in homogeneous societies.

To most Indonesians, a mixed marriage is one in which a
Christian marries a Muslim. If a Protestant married a Catholic,
it would not be a mixed marriage because both Protestants and
Catholics are considered Christians.

But this is a mixed marriage according to the people of
Manson, a small town in Iowa, the United States. This town is a
very homogeneous society.

Now, if Hong Kongers had a dispute with mainland Chinese,
would this be a racial conflict? No, because both are Chinese,
aren't they?

The Feb. 24 edition of the Far Eastern Economic Review
reported this was a racial conflict. The dispute swirls around
Hong Kong's immigration policy, which is considered by many as
discriminating against mainland Chinese.

Why the seeming inconsistency?

"People have a tendency to label their enemies as coming from
different ethnic or racial groups," Merle Ricklefs of the
University of Melbourne said in a lecture here last Saturday.

The people of Manson, where Ricklefs comes from, have very
similar backgrounds. The town of 2,000 in the central part of the
United States is very homogeneous in term of race (white),
citizenship (Americans), language (English), religion
(Christian), tradition (northern Europe and British), level of
income and education.

And yet people are divided into several groups according to
either their religious or family lines. And conflicts do occur.

A Catholic-Protestant marriage is a mixed marriage, so it
could create problems, according to Manson residents. More
startling is their perception that a marriage between someone
from the German Lutheran Church and American Lutheran Church is
also a mixed marriage, Ricklefs said.

"Humans will always look for their differences despite their
great similarities. Manson proves that there will always be
differences between people anywhere in the world all the time,"
he said in a lecture organized by the University of Melbourne
alumni association at the Regent Hotel.

Racial prejudice can be based on small differences considered
trivial by outsiders, he said.

What factors contribute to racial stereotyping? Ignorance is
one, said the professor of Asian Studies.

The five districts which supported Pauline Hanson's anti-Asian
One Nation party in the 1996 elections were those districts with
the lowest average educational level in Australia.

Ricklefs added that well-educated people like Margaret
Thatcher also held that every ethnic group had a distinct
culture, characteristics and ideas which would be wiped out
should different ethnic groups mix.

Presaging Hanson's idea of Australia, Thatcher said she was
afraid Great Britain would be swamped with different types of
people from other Commonwealth countries.

The British had contributed democracy and a good judiciary
system to the world due to its distinct characteristics, Thatcher
said in 1978.

Ricklefs said the works of two other intelligent people --
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Samuel Huntington -- had traces of
racism.

Huntington asserts in his book Clash of Civilizations that
Western civilization is the most precious not because it is
universal but because it is unique.

Ricklefs said that Huntington, who predicted a clash between
Western culture and Chinese and Muslim cultures, overlooked the
cultures of Latin American countries and Greece, as well as
Buddhism.

"If Huntington was only a lecturer at a small university in
Jakarta, nobody would have noticed his book," Ricklefs joked.
"The problem is that he is a Harvard professor."

In Clash of Civilizations, Huntington quoted Schlesinger, who
wrote about the uniqueness of European ideas, such as individual
freedom and democracy, in his 1992 book The Disuniting of
America.

Schlesinger also wrote racial antagonism was the most natural
reaction following the Cold War.

According to Ricklefs, Schlesinger displayed inverted logic.
"The natural reaction is not racial antagonism, but the depiction
of enemies as a different ethnic group."

Alas, Ricklefs said, the concept that a race has unique ideas
could also be found in Adolf Hitler's book Mein Kampf.

As a historian, Ricklefs contents these people have a
distorted view of history.

"Their views (on racial relations) are very shallow. The
definition of an ethnic group is always changing, depending on
social conditions. There are numerous examples of excellent
interracial relations," Ricklefs said.

He cited two reasons why these racist views were flawed. One
is that a community of man -- with their different religions,
beliefs and habits -- is never static, but always changing.
Second is that a culture can never be isolated, but always
interacts with other cultures.

Citing an example from the history of Java, he said the term
wong Jawa (Javanese) was a relatively new one which was first
introduced in the 17th century. Prior to that there were only
wong Mataram or wong Pajang or wong Tuban.

The identity of an ethnic group is fluid and depends on social
conditions, he said.

"The important differences are those defined by men themselves
within given social conditions," Ricklefs said.

During the War of Surabaya in the early 18th century, when
Surabaya aristocrats rebelled against the Central Java-based
Susuhunan Pakubuwana I, who was an ally of the Dutch colonial
power, the Javanese ethnic identity was just beginning to be
associated with Islam.

There was a group in the Surabaya camp which only recognized
Muslims, including Chinese Muslims, as members of their group.
They rejected Balinese, who were Hindu.

Ricklefs acknowledged there were ideas and questions related
to racial issue which were still being debated.

Experts still differ on questions such as why certain races,
like the Japanese and Europeans, are more productive compared to
other races.

"What is clear is that we are all influenced by our genes, but
differences among individuals are a great deal bigger than
differences among groups," he said.

When asked how people can accept each other's differences and
live together peacefully, Ricklefs said: "Leadership has an
important role to play .... we have to learn to appreciate others
as an individual and not as an ethnic group. But this is an
extremely difficult thing to do."

What to do if these differences have resulted in bloody
conflicts, as in the case of Christians and Muslims in Ambon, and
an aspiration to secede, as in Aceh and Irian Jaya?

One has to identify which social elements, including politics,
economics, religion and language, have fueled conflicts in a
given place at a given time, and replace those elements with
cooperation, he said.

In a bloody conflict, do not hastily conclude it is people's
nature to kill each other, Ricklefs said.

"Rather look at history. Wherever and whenever it is,
differences exist among people," he said.