Own up to ethnic problem

Own up to ethnic problem

Today, the Center for Information and Development Studies
(CIDES) is scheduled to hold a seminar to address a problem that
should have been discussed a long time ago: Precarious ethnic
relations, more specifically the relations between the dominant
pribumi (indigenous ethnic groups) and the descendants of ethnic
Chinese, the largest minority ethnic group in Indonesia.

The issue has always been considered too politically sensitive
to be discussed openly. It is considered taboo even as ethnic
relations have reared their ugly heads in the form of riots with
anti-Chinese overtones. The official line has always been that
these riots, which claimed lives and property on both sides of
the ethnic divide, had nothing to do with race and the problem
was left at that.

CIDES, a think-tank arm of the influential Association of
Indonesian Moslem Intellectuals (ICMI) should be commended for
its decision to discuss the problem in the open. Former minister
of home affairs Rudini, one of the speakers in today's seminar,
has also given his endorsement to the seminar, saying that it was
time that the nation owns up the problem once and for all,
instead of sweeping it under the carpet. Rudini says that further
postponement would lead to national disintegration.

The various anti-Chinese riots over these past months -- in
Situbondo, Tasikmalaya, Pekalongan, Rengasdengklok, and
Ujungpandang -- have become too frequent to keep denying that
Indonesia does not have any problem with ethnic relations. And
with each riot seemingly more violent than the previous one, our
greatest worry now is less on when and where the next riot will
hit, but how severe it will be.

While we praise Rudini for his statesmanship for being one of
the first public figures to push the pribumi-nonpribumi issue to
the forefront of the national agenda, we tend to disagree with
his analysis, and much less with his proposal.

Rudini argues that the wealth gap is at the root of the
problem in ethnic relations, with the wealthy Chinese, who are
dominant in commerce, on one side, and the relatively poor
pribumi on the other. Some of the anti-Chinese riots, he says,
have been provoked by jealousy created by this gap, and by anger
that the mighty Chinese traders were now intruding into small
businesses that had been the domain of the small pribumi
entrepreneurs. Rudini proposes that a law be enacted to preserve
the businesses of pribumi entrepreneurs by barring Chinese
traders from entering these sectors.

The widening wealth gap has certainly played its part in some
of the attacks on Chinese descendants and their property, but it
was not necessarily the decisive factor. It might have been the
decisive factor in such riots in the 1970s and 1980s, but the
income disparity that exists in Indonesia now is no longer along
the old ethnic lines. There are now many conglomerates controlled
by pribumi who also hold monopolistic and oligopolistic powers
just as the Chinese-controlled conglomerates have. They can be
just as menacing to small-scale enterprises. With companies going
public or forming joint ventures, it is even more difficult now
to identify the ownership of companies along ethnic lines.

The chief problem facing small entrepreneurs is their lack of
access to capital, technology and management. Now with the advent
of free trade and economic globalization, they are coming under
even greater pressure from competitors. Any desire to help them
should focus on ensuring that they get the necessary access. This
means the enactment of a legislation on small and medium scale
enterprises that would apply across ethnic lines. To protect them
against monopolistic and oligopolistic practices, an antitrust
law should suffice, because it would prevent any tycoon, whatever
their color of skin, from intruding into small business sectors
in an unfair manner.

A law that favors one ethnic group or discriminates against
certain ethnic groups will be the first step toward
institutionalizing discrimination practices, something like
Malaysia has with its bumiputra policy but one that Indonesia has
managed to avert all this time. Even the United States is now
rethinking the effectiveness of its affirmative action policy
designed to promote the lot of the disadvantaged minority groups.

Such a law in Indonesia would only strengthen ethnic divisions
and would take us further away from our goal of national
integration. Even in the absence of such a legislation, the
ethnic Chinese community has already had to take the brunt or
the wrath of the people every time something goes wrong with this
country or the economy. Any discriminative legislation will only
strengthen this kind of stereotyping, and may even encourage more
Chinese bashing.