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