Statistics debate

Statistics debate

I felt relieved to read Leo Suryadinata's letter "On ethnic
Chinese" again published in The Jakarta Post on Nov. 25, 1998, in
which he denied saying that the ethnic Chinese were not a
minority but the third largest ethnic group in Indonesia. As
readers might recall, it was this absurd claim that prompted me
to protest in the first place (my letter on Nov. 16).

The basic difference between Leo Suryadinata's list of ethnic
groups shown in his letter and my list is of course that his
represents the situation in 1930, while mine is meant to indicate
today's position based on data adjusted from the 1930 census. I
should point out that there has been a significant decrease in
the population share of Java and Madura from 67 percent in 1930
(namely 42 million out of 63 million for the whole country) to 58
percent today. Much of this 9 percent decrease (about 18 million
people in terms of today's population) should be attributed to a
lower population growth among the major ethnic groups on Java and
Madura, because only a small proportion of the decrease
(amounting to a few million people) could be ascribed to
transmigration projects. This is the reason why I have adjusted
the population of the major ethnic groups outside Java slightly
upward and correspondingly decreased the figures for the ethnic
Javanese, Sundanese and Madurese. However, for reasons unknown to
me, Leo Suryadinata's list did not include the Malays, while his
rather small figure for the Bugis (2.6 percent) is probably
because he did not include the Makassarese. Anthropologically,
the Bugis and Makassarese are normally combined in one group, as
they were on my list. At any rate, I believe the ranking order of
the main ethnic groups as shown on my list is largely correct for
today's situation.

As regards to the claims made by Sia Ka Mou (the Post,
Nov.20), he said that according to a census by the Central Bureau
of Statistics in 1995, the number of ethnic Javanese was 67.4
million, Sundanese 25.2 million and Minang 4.3 million. I have
three comments to make. First, there was no census held in 1995.
Second, the figures given cannot possibly be ethnic populations
because since independence ethnicity simply has not been included
in all censuses. Third, I know most certainly that the 4.3
million figure quoted by him is the 1995 estimate of the
population of West Sumatra province only, which is a lot less
than the total number of the Minang people. As a result of the
centuries old tradition of emigration, slightly more than half of
all Minang people live outside West Sumatra today.

While we are still on the subject of claim and counter claims
which seem to be in vogue, I would like to mention an interesting
claim made by Anom Surya Putra in his article End to anti-Chinese
prejudice (the Post, Nov. 26). Although his English is rather
tortuous and rather difficult to follow, but I think what he was
trying to say was that Sunan Ampel, Raden Patah and Sunan Kudus,
three men well-known in the history of early development of Islam
in Java, were actually Chinese men who came from Yunan province.
I am no expert in this field, but according to Ensiklopedi Islam
(1994), volume 5, pages 173-184, Sunan Ampel was born in Aceh in
1401, with the original name of Raden Rahmat, while Raden Patah
was born in East Java in the 15th century and was a son of Prabu
Wijaya, a king of Majapahit. As for Sunan Kudus, he was born in
Kudus, Central Java, also in the 15th century, with the original
name of Jaafar Sadiq. I would appreciate it very much if Anom
Surya Putra, not someone else, would care to clarify the
different versions in the Post and prove that he is right and the
encyclopedia is wrong.

MASLI ARMAN

Jakarta