Semiotic analysis of recent riots

Semiotic analysis of recent riots

By Asvi Warman Adam

JAKARTA (JP): On Jan. 27 rioters set fire to the Tanah Abang
district office in Central Jakarta. The incident began at 7 a.m.
after 20 city law enforcement officers and 10 military personnel
asked sidewalk traders to move to the market building because
their presence on the shoulder of Jl. Fachruddin was causing
serious traffic congestion. Nothing happened. Some of the traders
did as they were ordered, albeit reluctantly.

But tension was in the air after one trader was taken away by
the officers. The traders' anger reached its peak in the
afternoon when they heard that a sidewalk trader had died after a
car carrying duty officers failed to avoid him.

Suddenly a crowd of some 3,000 people went wild, setting fire
to five cars, including one belonging to an officer. As the
situation got out of hand the angry mob went to the Tanah Abang
district office and set fire to the three-story building and cars
parked on its premises.

The Tanah Abang incident echoed the previous riots in the East
Java town of Situbondo on Oct. 10, 1996, and Tasikmalaya in West
Java, on Dec. 26, 1996. In Situbondo a group of people were
disappointed after a prosecutor sought a five-year jail term for
a defendant charged with defaming Islam. They believed the
prosecutor was too lenient in his request and set fire to the
court house and 25 churches.

In Tasikmalaya the riot broke out when a pesantren
(traditional Moslem boarding school) community protested the
beating of a religious teacher by police officers. The people
burnt down shops, the police office and a number of churches.

One usually analyzes these events by looking for the person
who masterminded the riot, the intellectual actor. Who are the
intellectual actors behind the riots in Situbondo, Tasikmalaya
and Tanah Abang? And why did the riot take place? Is the socio-
economic gap the cause of the three incidents?

But there is an aspect which has been overlooked, which is
important from a semiotic viewpoint. This focuses on what was
damaged by the mob. The masses wanted to vent their anger on a
certain person, group or institution by attacking certain
attributes of the party they loathe such as a vehicle, place of
worship, a shop or an office.

The more expensive the property they damaged, the more angry
they became. They vented hatred which has accumulated in their
hearts for years.

In the three events, the objects damaged or destroyed included
officials' vehicles, ethnic Chinese shops, churches and
government offices.

Shops owned by the Chinese have always been easy targets even
in cases unrelated to race. One example is a mass brawl between
university students and pedicab drivers in Yogyakarta in 1983.

Two students living in a hostel were killed by a mob of
pedicab drivers. Other students went into the street to show
their solidarity. The dispute centered on people's annoyance of
the large number of Chinese shops on Jl. Malioboro.

One possible cause of the problem is the economic gap.
However, I think a more rational explanation is the majority
versus the minority problem in the community, or the dominant
versus the dominated. If the relationship between the two groups
is not harmonious or people are not adequately integrated, the
dominant group (the majority) is able to repress the dominated
group (the minority).

The ethnic Chinese have been made a target of irrational
hostility by the masses. This is all the worse because non-
indigenous people (in Indonesia in the New Order era) have no
political power to speak of.

But what about the churches which were burnt to the ground? I
do not agree with Sarlito Wirawan Sartono (Kompas, Jan. 27), who
said one of the causes was the sermons of kiai/dai (Moslem
teachers/proselytizers) at grassroots level, which cultivated a
negative attitude and prejudice against other religions. Why then
did the riots take place in the East Timor capital of Dili? Does
it mean that priests instigated their congregation to demolish
mosques? I do not think so.

The problem is also related to the majority versus the
minority. In Situbondo and Tasikmalaya, the church is a symbol of
the minority, likewise the mosque in East Timor. As places of
worship they are sacred to certain people. Therefore, any action
against a place of worship will get the widest and deepest
response and reaction.

The Situbondo, Tasikmalaya and Tanah Abang riots were
triggered by a disharmonious relationship between civilians, the
military and judicial apparatus and the public. In the first two
cases the initial targets of the attacks were the court house and
the police station.

In the Tanah Abang incident there was heightened
aggressiveness. The district office, a symbol of government
authority was not only damaged but also burnt down. The concrete
building was a symbol of the success of economic development of
the New Order government. In the past a district office was only
a wooden construction or at the most a small single-floor
building.

The brutal assault against the building was also an attempt to
undo the government's activities. The incident took place on a
work day when the administration was busy serving the public. The
arson, apart from being a manifestation of discontent, was also a
strike against government authority. Our fear is that the Tanah
Abang case is an indication of a crisis of credibility in the
government. If so, it needs to be addressed immediately and
thoroughly.