Prejudiced act

Prejudiced act

I am one of the thousands of students of Chinese descent who
live and study in Jakarta. I have witnessed directly or through
the media the tragedies that befell ethnic Chinese in this
beloved country last month. Thousands of their shops, cars and
houses were looted and burned, many of them were hurt and even
killed by the callous looters. And worse, many women and children
of Chinese descent were sexually assaulted, stripped in the
middle of the road, some of them were raped in front of their
families.

I know very well that there are indigenous Indonesians who are
well informed and who have a good knowledge of how important the
role of the ethnic Chinese actually is, not only for the economy
but also as part of the Indonesian society and culture. Such
people usually have spent time with ethnic Chinese on a daily
basis and are usually well-educated. I have a number of
indigenous friends on campus and we get along very well, without
any racism or discrimination marring our relationship.

Unfortunately, there are still too many Indonesians, usually
the less educated, who always show their dislike of ethnic
Chinese. They use all kinds of groundless and hypocritical
reasons to excuse their bias.

Recently, I was on a bus heading home from campus when on the
flyover in front of Taman Anggrek apartments, my bus was halted
by 30 to 40 high school students. The students stepped into the
middle of the road and raised their hands, giving the driver no
choice but to stop. They rushed onto the bus noisily and several
of them approached me as soon as they saw me. I was the only
Chinese on the bus and I knew this would be a very bad day for
me. I sat alone on the aisle seat in the second row behind the
driver. One of the students asked me to give way and sat on my
right, while another one pushed me so that he could sit on my
left. Knowing this would be a bad position I moved my legs,
letting him sit on my right next to the other student. He kept
pushing me and began to pull my bag, and before I pulled it back,
the one on my right had grabbed it. They quarreled on whom should
have it, and in the next second dozens of them surrounded me in
such a way that I was separated from other passengers. Several
hands held my shoulders and body, the others searched all my
pockets. There was nothing much I could do during this shake
down. They went through my wallet and took all my money, but they
returned my wallet, ID card and several textbooks. Some of them
forced me to take off my shoes. They even wanted my local branded
shoes. I tried to resist but they said they would stab me and
before I could untie my shoes, they ripped them off my feet. I
didn't resist much because it would have just put me at greater
risk. I was totally outnumbered and they might have carried sharp
weapons in their school bags. Satisfied with their robbing of me,
they got off the bus in Grogol in front of Ciputra Mall.

I didn't report the incident to the police because I
considered it would be a useless effort. Even if they were
captured, they would have been released back onto the street,
looking for another Chinese to kick. I also didn't cry for help
from other passengers or the driver because they obviously knew
what was happening anyway. I didn't see even the slightest
attempt by any of them to help me.

TAUFIK H.S.

Jakarta