Who discriminates against whom?

The Lunar New Year has been celebrated in a festive way everywhere and Indonesians of Chinese descent have rediscovered their ethnic identity. The broadcast and print media, too, have underscored this reality. But this has not yet satisfied everyone.

Frans Hendra Winarta, as reported by Ibukota daily, has complained about a regulation that requires Chinese-Indonesians to possess citizenship certificates, which has not yet been abolished. Meanwhile, the political elite have always made antidiscrimination issues a political commodity, particularly on the eve of general elections.

The same daily also reported a meeting between the Chinese community and top executives of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P). Thamrin Amal Tomagola, a sociologist from the University of Indonesia, described this meeting as a positive move to reconcile "the group controlling economic resources" (the ethnic Chinese) and "the group with political power" (the indigenous Indonesians).

In his view, discrimination will prevail as a logical consequence of the monopoly of strategic resources by one group. The initial step to deal with discrimination is to introduce a structural change in discriminative legislation and redistribution of economic and political resources. Social and cultural issues will be solved only after structural issues are addressed.

For example, the exclusive housing of the Chinese community will pose no problem if the indigenous group can afford to buy the same housing following redistribution of economic resources. On the other hand, Chinese-Indonesians will gain proper access to political institutions to voice their aspirations.

Therefore, both groups are actually practicing discrimination in terms of the resources under control. The government has a very important role in the discrimination through political and economic policies. Lingering discriminative practices will only create tension between the groups in our society.

H. JUNUS JAHJA
Jakarta