Treating ethnic Chinese equally

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.