Treating ethnic Chinese equally

By Amir Sidharta

This is the first of two articles on the ethnic Chinese minority.

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Justice Muladi has supported the notion that all administrative requirements that racially discriminate must be abolished.

He said last month that President Habibie had ordered the immediate ratification of the Anti-Racial Discrimination and Anti-Torture Conventions.

Muladi asserted that racial discrimination and the adverse treatment of minority citizens were dangerous offenses of basic human rights.

"I am deeply concerned about this matter. Racial discrimination, such as that experienced by Indonesian citizens of Chinese descent during the recent riots, must be avoided," he asserted. "On the other hand, Indonesian citizens of Chinese descent also have to make steps toward assimilation and avoid isolating themselves."

Although Muladi's statement may even be considered racially biased in liberal countries, perhaps it is true that the Chinese should make greater efforts in becoming more socially inclusive after the abolition of racial discrimination in Indonesia.

However, the minister seems to have missed two important points in his statement. First, it is important to understand that in order to foster the development of a harmonious and civil society, the notion of the assimilation of an ethnic group into a cultural melting pot has long been deemed passe. Today, nations are made up of peoples of various ethnic origins. Indonesia's own Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (Unity in Diversity) emphasizes that it is through this diversity that the nation is united.

Second, perhaps it is necessary to remind Indonesians themselves that ethnic equality is a necessary prerequisite for the achievement of a civil and harmonious society of ethnic diversity. Chinese-Indonesians have tended to become isolated precisely due to the racial discrimination they have experienced and the fact that they have been socially excluded.

Christianto Wibisono of the Indonesian Business Data Center asserted that the Chinese in Indonesia are not merely "economic animals" who have no stake in the history of the nation's struggle. He pointed out that the ethnic Chinese have played a key role since the inception of the nation. Four out of 62 members of the Council for the Preparations of Indonesian Independence were of Chinese descent.

There were Chinese who joined the struggle to maintain Indonesian independence during the 1945-1949 revolutionary war, but their existence has not been made known to the general public.

There were also Chinese-Indonesians who joined the Indonesian delegation at the Round Table Conference in The Hague in 1949, which eventually resulted in the Dutch acknowledgment of the Indonesian sovereignty. During the Sukarno government, many Chinese became ministers.

Under the New Order administration, the social and political role of the ethnic Chinese was revoked, causing them to turn the focus of their activities to businesses. As a result, ethnic Chinese have become perceived as profit-oriented, greedy "economic animals" by their pribumi (indigenous) counterparts.

In essence, the social and political segregation of the Chinese in Indonesia has caused the Indonesian community at large to perceive the Chinese according to stereotypes as conditioned by the bureaucracy. Little is the chance for ethnic Chinese to be judged by their character. As a consequence, they continue to be judged by the color of their skin.

The ethnic Chinese are not only victims of racial prejudice. In the New Order administration, there was clearly also legal discrimination toward the Chinese. An observer, Pratiwo, noted that the New Order government also issued many documents, including the Surat Bukti Kewarganegaraan Republik Indonesia (SBKRI, Letter of Proof of Citizenship), and a requirement for Chinese-Indonesians to change their names to Indonesian names.

An SKBRI was necessary for an ethnic Chinese to settle matters at the immigration office, such as to obtain or renew passports. Hence, it was often used by irresponsible officials to extort money from the Chinese.

Pratiwo said that his late father was once accused of possessing a forged SBKRI and some officials confiscated the document. In order to get it back, his father had to pay Rp 2 million (which was then worth about US$2,000).

Even up to now, every time Pratiwo renews his passport, immigration officers ask him to show not only his own SBKRI but also his late father's SBKRI for the verification of the letter's authenticity.

The SBKRI is only one of the legal documents indicating racial discrimination toward the Chinese. Birth certification also indicates racial classification inherited from the colonial Dutch legal system. Identification cards (KTP) of Chinese descendants, which use birth certificates as reference, also show the racial "status" of their holders.

Irresponsible government officials are able to ask for additional fees to expedite the processing of the documents based on the information. The fees to get these documents processed are greater for Chinese descendants than those for the non-Chinese.

In response to the exodus and return of Chinese descendants following the May riots, a member of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) in Medan, North Sumatra, called for an inventory on "unpatriotic" citizens of Chinese descent who fled the country.

Little did this politician realize that among those fleeing during the riots were many prominent pribumi businessmen and their families. However, he was not concerned about how nationalistic or unpatriotic these fellow countrymen were. The politician perhaps did not even realize that his action was clearly racially biased because he was too concerned about his patriotism.

The ignorance of this politician is evidence of the racial discrimination in Indonesia, where differentiation is made toward the Chinese in legal matters as well as daily practices.

The writer is an art gallery manager.