On racism (1)
It would be difficult to respond to Mr. Ross Gulliver's analysis (The Jakarta Post, July 17, 1995) of my June 22, letter concerning "some Westerners" without revealing a few things about myself. It has never been this writer's intention to draw attention to Mr. Gulliver and his family, mainly due to reasons of privacy. Although I would not fault Mr. Gulliver for some erroneous assumptions he made (due to a lack of complete information), he is dead wrong in his other ethnocentric assertions.
"It is impossible for a foreigner to walk a hundred meters in Jakarta without attracting some abusive racial comment." (It so happens that I have a British brother-in-law who has been virtually everywhere here and has no complaints whatsoever. He loves Indonesia).
"This is doubly true for mixed couples...." (My sister and her husband have traveled throughout this archipelago together, including Yogyakarta, Lombok, and Irian Jaya, and have always come back immensely satisfied with their trips.)
"Mr. Baskoro probably has little or no idea of the difference between the medical facilities available here and those in more developed countries." (How patronizing, Mr. Gulliver! Again, reluctantly, I must admit to having lived more than ten years in a developed country. Two years ago, while overseas, I suffered from what was diagnosed later as stress-related headaches. The doctors there suggested early on an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging test) -- more advanced than a CAT scan--and I took one to find out if there were any tumors or other physical disorders. They found none. Those foreign doctors then prescribed medication for me. But it was only after I returned home to a good Indonesian doctor that I was completely cured. This is not to say that local doctors are better, but that Indonesian physicians are equally capable.
"People in strange surroundings tend to seek the company of those who share a similar outlook on life." (True for some, but why did I, in that foreign surrounding--after making friends with other expatriate Indonesians and the caucasians comprising the majority of population--decide to go out and try to get to know different people? Ken Moore was an African-American who taught me how to cook "soul food," Juck was the offspring of Vietnamese refugees who received training in badminton from me, and Henningston, from that part of Nicaragua where Jamaican immigrants had landed years ago, taught this writer Spanish phrases. Don't call Indonesians ignorant and culturally insensitive because I doubt you know them well.)
"He revealed his own racial prejudice..." (I wrote the June 22, 1995, letter as a dig against some Westerners in Indonesia I have met. Please note that I took care to write "some Westerners" and not "Westerners" or "all Westerners." Regarding the anecdote about the Dutchman and Surinamese mentioning skin color, the story was told to me by my English brother-in-law! We had a good laugh when he came to the end of his story. He is not an uptight Westerner like some I know who write to The Jakarta Post).
Mr. Gulliver boast about the West being less racist than Indonesia. So far as I know, there are no organized anti- Westerner groups in this country analogous to "Aryan Nation" in the USA and those skinheads who disrupt soccer games in Great Britain. You erred in your analysis, Mr. Gulliver. Come out of your ethnocentric shell!
FARID BASKORO
Jakarta