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.