The Chinese problem

The Chinese problem

A seminar held on Oct. 28, 1997 attempting to find a
satisfactory solution to the problem of nationals of Chinese
descent, finished in an atmosphere of friendship and
understanding. It is understandable that this problem exists
because of the unbalanced economic situation in which 4 percent
of the Indonesian population control, or own, 60 percent of the
Indonesian economy and this 4 percent are Indonesians of Chinese
origin, popularly called non-pri (pri is short for pribumi
meaning indigenous).

Several well-known people have aired their opinions, but I
would like to focus on what a noted military thinker, Gen.
(retired) Sayidiman, has said.

He said that the success of national integrity between pri and
non-pri depends entirely on the authority of the national
leadership, the non-discriminative attitude of law enforcement
agencies and a clean government. The problem in our country is
that the national leadership had made so many statements but the
responsible government apparatuses and officials lack the will or
courage to act. This is also the case with fighting corruption.

Way back in the 1970s our national leadership made so many
appeals; appeals to officials not to accept bribes, and to serve
the people willingly, not to limit their services to when they
can expect to get something in return and do nothing when they do
not get anything. To the business community an appeal was also
made not to give bribes.

But what is the reality? These appeals fell on deaf ears and
government officials continue their unlawful, lucrative business.
We all know about the existence of illegal levies and that this
is becoming worse. An Indonesian tycoon, Sukamdani Gitosardjono,
said that illegal levies by officials have gone too far, but
Indonesian business people are too scared to report this (Suara
Pembaruan, July 19, 1997).

The national leadership said in 1967: "To the whole nation I
appeal not to be trapped into activities which might lead to
racialism. Although they are Indonesians of Chinese origin, they
are Indonesians. They are Indonesian citizens who have the same
position, rights and obligations. We must avoid discriminatory
treatment against them.

On the other hand we must strongly appeal to the Indonesians
of Chinese origin, not to postpone any longer steps to integrate
and assimilate. The government looks at this problem not as an
economic problem alone, but deeper still, as a problem of social
justice."

The Jakarta Post also reported that in the seminar everybody
agreed to give the pri more chances to develop themselves
economically. Again this is not something new because on May 29,
1979 in a seminar for the guidance of non-government national
entrepreneurs the President said: "From now on the government
will start to find a solution to give a better chance to weaker
members of the economy to give them more abilities to participate
in the process of national development. The problem here is to
develop a pattern of national development with the increasing
participation of all potentials in the community and a fair
distribution of the fruits of the development to the community."

This is to my mind is an even better solution than that which
was proposed in the meeting of Oct. 28, 1997. Here we see that
more chances will be given to the weaker economic sector not to
pri alone, because we must admit that besides the non-pri
tycoons, there are poor non-pri, and what is more important is
the effort to create a fair distribution of the fruits of
development.

SOEGIH ARTO

Jakarta