Stop being Chinese?

Stop being Chinese?

Mr. Sri Pamoedjo Rahardjo, in Searching for real racial unity
(June 11 and June 12) believes that affirmative actions by the
government would help so-called indigenous Indonesians improve
their status vis-a-vis Chinese-Indonesians.

Maybe. Maybe not. As far as I understand it, officially, it is
the Chinese-Indonesians, with all the extra administrative
burdens, limitations and discriminations, who are the second-
class citizens.

Then how about the "racial" violent tensions among those
diverse ethnic groups liberally termed "indigenous" Indonesians,
as seen in Ambon and Sambas and other places? Should the poorer
"indigenous" Dayak enjoy affirmative actions vis-a-vis the
immigrant Madurese?

Anyway, with certain fine tuning, his idea borrowed from Dr.
Mahathir might just work. And his other idea, that "it is
imperative that racial differences be understood by all members
of society", is certainly noble and worth pursuing.

Most of what Mr. Pamoedjo said apart from that, however, was a
heap of confusion. He criticized the failure of the Chinese-
Indonesians to "assimilate" with the host culture. He accused the
male peranakan (half-bred) Chinese of "maintaining strictly their
Chinese cultural heritage".

While assimilation means the merging of cultural traits from
previously distinct cultural groups, he either ignored or is
ignorant of the fact that in practice, to ask, or to force, the
Chinese-Indonesians to assimilate is to demand them to let go of
their distinctness and adopt a dominant culture; that is, to stop
being Chinese-Indonesians. I wonder if he would demand the same
from the myriad of cultural minorities across the archipelago?

Then Mr. Pamoedjo touched on the issue of Chinese tycoons.
Before anybody accused me of defending them, let me state here
clearly that I'd like to see Soeharto and all his cronies be
brought to trial for their economic crimes. (Other kinds of
crime, too. But, that's another story).

Mr. Pamoedjo did not differentiate between "clean" and
"contaminated" businesspeople. He did not even try to
differentiate between the few, very few cronies, and the millions
of Chinese-Indonesians who have nothing to do with the power
elite. He also failed to mention the richest family in the
country, who is not of Chinese descent. He failed to mention all
the non-Chinese cronies with no less of ill-begotten wealth in
their pockets. He failed to mention the former and current (non-
Chinese) government dignitaries and officials who no doubt also
have laid their dirty claws on the pie.

The fact is, Chinese or no Chinese, people are prone to the
destructive disease called greed. To single out the Chinese-
Indonesians in this is a simple act of racism.

As a last word, I hope, if a version of the affirmative action
takes place in the future, the government will remember the
Chinese maid who every day washed and ironed the clothes of the
little Malay-Indonesian boy who later become the famous poet
Soetardji Calzoum Bachri.

SAMSUDIN

Jakarta