Roots of anti-Chinese sentiment

Roots of anti-Chinese sentiment

By Onghokham

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Chinese, as they are referred to,
are an important element among Indonesia's middle and upper class
capitalists, entrepreneurs, business people, traders,
professionals and skilled people.

It should not be forgotten that although there are also poor
Chinese, seven or eight of the top 10 capitalists in Indonesia
are of Chinese origin. On the list of the 200 richest people in
the country over 50 percent are Chinese.

Indicative of this predominance in the economy is the
proliferation of Chinese-owned shops along the main streets of
all Indonesian towns and cities. The retail trade is an important
aspect of the livelihood made by the Chinese community in
Indonesia.

The Chinese are not a homogeneous group and are almost as
diverse as the archipelago itself. The Chinese in Java came as
individuals or in small groups and arrived here even before
people from the West. The migrants largely became integrated into
the local population so that now Javanese-Chinese in the main do
not speak any of the Chinese languages.

In West Kalimantan on the island of Borneo and on the East-
coast of Sumatra, the Chinese migrated as whole communities to
work on plantations and in mines. The Chinese in these regions
have retained their own languages. In Northern Sulawesi (Celebes)
and the Moluccas they have become assimilated into local society.

In addition to these different circumstances, the Chinese
practice a variety of religions, including denominations of the
Christian faith, Buddhism and Taoism.

The origins of the Chinese minority dates, like so many other
things in modern Indonesia, from the days of the Dutch colonial
regime. Both the Dutch and the Chinese were trading peoples and
came to the archipelago for that purpose.

The Chinese were the trading partners of the Dutch, right from
the early days of the Dutch East Indies Company (VOC), and they
never lost this intermediary position. This did not mean that
relations were always smooth. In fact, the first massacre of
Chinese occurred in Batavia in 1740 and was perpetrated by
members of the Dutch population in the city.

After this event, the Dutch enforced an official racial
segregation policy. The Chinese had to live in their own
quarters, which were found in all towns, and a permit was
required to travel between Chinese areas in different cities.
This ghetto system restricting Chinese physical mobility was not
abolished until 1905.

The Dutch East Indies split the population of the archipelago
into three groups for administrative purposes -- Europeans,
Foreign Orientals, and Natives. The system was an embryonic form
of what later became known in South Africa as apartheid, and
which now has pariah status among the world's political
ideologies. It is therefore a fallacy that Dutch favoritism
helped the Chinese into their powerful economic position.

Strong anti-Chinese sentiment existed among Dutch colonial
officials and was particularly evident under the Ethical Policy
(1900) which was introduced to promote the interests of the
indigenous population. Dutch colonial officials felt they had to
protect the native population against the shrewd Chinese.

However, this and other discriminatory practices did not mean
that the Chinese did not flourish under the colonial system.

Wealth has traditionally been made through governments in the
Indonesian archipelago. In the nineteenth century, the Chinese
were granted the privilege to grow and trade in opium and to run
pawn shops in exchange for lucrative tax payments which they had
to make to the government. This did not endear them to the native
population. Farms were usually owned by semi-hereditary headmen.
The owners were also usually the main traders because their
favored status with the government meant that they and their
agents were exempt from the travel restrictions imposed on other
members of the Chinese community. This system promoted the
development of Chinese capitalism.

The Chinese, as Dutch trading partners, were subjected to
Dutch property and business laws. From the early 20th century
they were also subjected to Dutch family law. These laws gave the
Chinese a degree of security on their commercial holdings which
could not be obtained under the arbitrary adat (traditional) law
which was laid down upon them by the high and mighty Indonesians
of the day.

Protection afforded by Western law and their position as
traders placed the Chinese beyond the reach of the vitriolic
sentiment of Dutch official, which was said to be worse than the
anti-Chinese sentiment held by the other colonial powers of the
day, including Britain and France.

It is often said that newly independent countries reflect
their recent colonial past, which may go some way toward
explaining the anti-Chinese sentiment held by Indonesian
officials today.

Colonial anti-Chinese polices gave rise to the so called
Chinese movement in Java, which aimed to emancipate the Chinese
community by demanding that restrictions on the movement of
members of their community be abolished, full equality before the
law, and the establishment of Chinese schools.

The movement was the first emancipation movement which the
Dutch faced from their colonial subjects. The movement was not
anti-colonial in nature. It only sought rights for the Chinese
people of the Indies and did not speak for natives or other
ethnic groups. Political and social movements tended to retain
the segregated character of the colonial society which spawned
them and speak only for a single ethnic group.

Around 1900, most of the Chinese demands were met and Dutch-
Chinese Schools (HCS) were launched by the colonial government,
even before the Dutch Schools for Natives (HIS) came into
existence.

When the government lifted the ban restricting Chinese
mobility in 1905, Chinese business people moved out of the
ghettos and came increasingly into competition with the Javanese
entrepreneurial classes.

The Sarekat Dagang Islam (Association of Moslem Traders),
which later became the Sarekat Islam (1909), formed in response
to this development, and went on to become the first mass social
and political movement in the Indies.

The first anti-Chinese riot occurred in 1918 in the town of
Kudus, which had a strong Javanese and Moslem bourgeoisie. The
catalyst was a Chinese temple procession which offended the
Moslem population, however the incident occurred against a
backdrop of middle class rivalries.

All other Indonesian political movements were equally
exclusive and admitted Indonesians only. Even the PNI
(Nationalist Party) formed by Sukarno in 1926 admitted Chinese
only as observers. The exception to this exclusivity was the
Indies Association of Tjipto Mangoenkoesoemo, Douwes Dekker and
Ki Hajar Dewantara which accepted Chinese and other ethnic groups
as members.

In response to being largely excluded from the jostling for
political power, Chinese professionals who advocated an
independent Indonesia formed the Partai Tionghoa Indonesia
(Indonesian-Chinese party) in 1930.

In the late 1930s, the left wing PARTINDO lead by Amir
Syarifudin decided to accept Chinese members, whereas the more
rightist PARINDRA would not.

That was the situation when the Japanese invaded in 1942. Only
after the invasion did mass anti-Chinese violence explode for the
first time. The worst hit areas were on the north coast of Java
and the targets were mainly the homes and shops of wealthy
Chinese.

Indonesia's history since the war has been violent in
comparison to its immediate neighbors Singapore, Malaysia and
Thailand.

However during the revolution against the Dutch, not all
violence was directed toward the Chinese. Eurasians, Moluccans
and the traditional elite were also targeted. The only notable
anti-Chinese incident during the revolution occurred in
Tangerang, near Jakarta.

The 1950s saw the introduction of policies which discriminated
against the Chinese, including the "Benteng" policy which
attempted to encourage the rise of an Indonesian business class,
and later bans on foreign Chinese trade and settlement in rural
areas.

During the early 1960s, the country's economy deteriorated and
the Chinese became a pawn in Cold War politics. Several serious
urban riots which targeted the Chinese occurred during the
unsettled period of 1965/1966, although most violence was
directed against suspected communists.

Punch and counterpunch of pro- and anti-communist forces lead
to serious unrest in Indonesia, which many experts abroad
mistakenly interpreted as a massacre of the Chinese. This
misunderstanding may have arisen as a result of the introduction
of a ban on many aspects of Chinese life and culture which the
government introduced around the same time. Among aspects of
Chinese culture declared illegal were plays (but not films),
public festivities and Chinese characters. A drive to encourage
Chinese to adopt local names was also launched to coincide with
this suppression of Chinese culture.

Under the New Order government, tensions between the Chinese
and native communities grew as a result of the widening gap
between rich and poor in the country, and the low pay given to
the state bureaucracy, military and police. Furthermore, while
the native population turned ever more toward Islam, the Chinese
sought spiritual comfort through the Christian faith.

Violent incidents during the New Order government have been
racial and religious in nature. Violence can destabilize any
government and is revolutionary in nature. It is a criminal act,
regardless of whom it is directed against or who is using it to
advantage.

Violence is no solution to the tensions that exist in society.
The only way to achieve harmony is to change one's perceptions of
society and view it as a multi-ethnic, multi-racial and multi-
cultural entity. The Indonesian nation is political concept, and
to ensure future stability different ethnic groups must be
treated in the same way and meet as equals under the same legal
protection.

Recent anti-Chinese riots in Jakarta happened as a result of
jealousy and racist sentiment. The Chinese community has shown
creativity and achieved economic success, despite their unpopular
position in society. The feudal elite, as obsessed by power and
status as the Chinese are by money, felt threatened by this
success and became jealous.

Today, private enterprise is at a standstill, many buildings
stand in ruins and government and military authority are fast
waning.

Paku Buwono (Nail of the Universe) is the traditional title
given to the Javanese monarchy. If the Nail is removed the
Universe will collapse. History in Indonesia is cyclical, but
nobody seems to learn from it.

The writer is a historian.

Window : As a result of the colonial anti-Chinese polices there
arose the so called Chinese movement in Java aiming at
emancipating the Chinese by demanding the abolition of the
physical restrictions on Chinese, equality before the law,
establishment of Chinese schools and others.