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