Who are the Indonesians?

Who are the Indonesians?

Meidyatama Suryodiningrat, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Since early childhood, Indonesians have been, and continue to
be, taught that their country is a huge archipelago comprised of
thousands of islands and hundreds of ethnic groups. It is also
common knowledge that the Javanese are the largest ethnic group
in the country and, not surprisingly, that the island of Java is
the most populated in the country.

Beyond these facts few actually know the exact ethnic
composition and distribution of these groups.

The 2000 Population Census conducted by the Central Statistics
Bureau provided much insight into the make up of the Indonesian
population. Further invaluable analysis was provided by Institute
of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) when in 2003 it published
Indonesia's Population: Ethnicity and Religion in a Changing
Political Landscape, which was planned as the first in a series
of publications on the Indonesian population.

The findings of these two reports, both of which complement
each other, has provided some striking knowledge about the people
who inhabit the world's biggest archipelago.

What is interesting about the methodology of the BPS census is
that ethnicity is defined by the respondents themselves. That it
is people themselves actually choosing which ethnicity they self-
identify with. Those who do not respond or cannot make up their
mind are classified according to their father's bloodline.

The diversity of this country was confirmed with the finding
of about 1,000 ethnic and sub-ethnic groups in the country.
However most are very small. In fact only 15 of the ethnic groups
have a population of over 1 million.

Omnipresent

There is no surprise that the Javanese continue to be the
predominant ethnic group (Graph. 1). Combined with the Sundanese,
these two ethnicities make up over 57 percent of the Indonesian
population.

Such is the preponderance of the Javanese that they have a
high concentration in almost all provinces. Javanese comprised of
at least 15 percent of local populations in 13 of the 30
provinces surveyed by BPS in 2000.

Even outside of the island of Java, Javanese make up the
largest single ethnic group in the provinces of Bengkulu, Lampung
and East Kalimantan. In many other provinces they are usually
only second or third to the local indigenous population in terms
of size. For example, they are the second biggest ethnic group in
North Sumatra comprising 32 percent of the provincial population,
in Riau with 25 percent, Jambi with 27 percent, Central and South
Kalimantan with 18 and 13 percent respectively.

The demographic shifts can be attributed to several factors
such as transmigration, greater mobility as a result of
intensified transportation infrastructure and the search for
economic opportunities.

The high concentration of Javanese in many provinces supports
the increased diversification of the Indonesian population. It
would be a simplification nowadays to say that a particular
province simply belongs to a certain ethnic group. The facts
simply do not support it.

In only six provinces did the perceived indigenous population
comprise more than three-quarters of the total provincial
population: West Sumatra (Minangkabau); South Kalimantan
(Banjarese); Yogyakarta along with Central and East Java
(Javanese); and Bali (Balinese).

In other words, there is greater diversity within the peoples
of any given province.

In terms of religion the numbers have generally remained
consistent over the last three decades with the Muslim population
accounting for 87 to 88 percent of the population. In the 2000
census over 88 percent of Indonesians chose Islam as their
declared faith, followed by Christians with 8.9 percent, Hindus
1.8 percent and Buddhists with just under 1 percent.

The caveat however, is that the government only formally
recorded and recognized five religions: Islam, Protestanism,
Catholicism, Hinduism and Buddhism.

There little room for deviation if one prescribes to an
alternative faith. Up until 1971, Confucianism was still listed
in the census with a record of 0.82 percent. Since then
consequent censuses have not officially recorded the numbers of
those following Confucianism. In the 2000 census, those who did
not prescribe to the five recognized religions were categorized
as 'others' and accounted for 0.8 percent of the population.

Ethnic Chinese

Despite being so prevalent on the economic stage, repeated
surveys have consistently shown that ethnic Chinese constitute a
tiny minority of the population, in fact less than 1 percent.

In Indonesia's Population... by Leo Suryadinata et al, it is
suggested that because the survey was based on self-
identification by the respondents, many second and third
generation ethnic Chinese (peranakan) considered themselves to be
part the local indigenous population. Furthermore, despite the
era of greater openness, some may continue to fear the stigma of
being considered Chinese.

In the mid-1960s the government launched a campaign to
'indigenize' the ethnic Chinese by encouraging -- or forcing --
them to shed their Chinese names and adopt more locally sounding
ones. Under President Soeharto's three-decade rule, Chinese
cultural and ethnic symbols, including their celebrations, were
completely forbidden. It was not until the presidency of
Abdurrahman Wahid could this rich cultural heritage resurface.

Suryadinata in his study nevertheless suggests that even if
the number of ethnic Chinese in the 2000 Census was inflated
further to account for those who refused to identify themselves
with this ethnic group, their composition would only range
between 1.45 to 2.04 percent of the population.

Based on data compiled from the statistics bureau, nearly half
of all ethnic Chinese are concentrated in two provinces: Jakarta
and West Kalimantan. (Graph 2)

This statistical information helps show two things:

First, it confirms the diversity of the nation and illustrates
the intensity of pluralism pervading all corners of the
archipelago.

Second, it also exposes the fallacy of accepted 'prejudices'
when talking ethnicities. People, for example, are wrong when
they say that "the Chinese are everywhere" when in fact the group
as a whole comprises no more than three percent of the
population.

Furthermore, due to increased mobility, mixed marriages, and
economic activity, it becomes increasingly difficult to make
simplistic categorizations of the Bataks only living in North
Sumatra, or the Dani tribe in Papua. Respective 'indigenous'
populations may have historical and cultural ties born out of a
particular venue, but what Indonesians are realizing is that no
one group has particular exclusivity as a consequence of it.

This is the challenge of the evolving new Indonesia.