Here is synopsis of "Chinese" in Indonesia. They started arriving in 7th century and established peaceful co-existence, centuries before the archipelago became Dutch East Indies or the migration of Islam by Arab traders.
They are all mixed up from way back when through intermarriages with the indigenous. It was not as if they kept to themsleves and kept their separate identity and forced Chinese ways to the locals. Not like here in the Americas where the primary goals of the westerners were to "civilize" the barbarians. Rather it was assimilation and integration. That should be scary impact statement because it is so different from western ways of domination. Assimilation is not domination. Ray - if you have not been there, you are missing some delicious food, mixed (or integrated) cultural cuisine. By the way, the first prez Sukarno was 1/8 Chinese, and likewise former prez Wahid (a muslim cleric) his mother was 1/4 Chinese, but all guessestimate more or less because they have been so mixed up and integrated. Read links below why the Chinese became scapegoats, and remember Suharto as the 3-decades dictator placed on the pedestal by US CIA.
The biggest hunting down of 'em Chinks was in 1965-66, and it was based on anti-communism, spearheaded by the US. At that time, anti-communism was still in high fever pitch in the US. Almost 500,000 "accused communists" killed in 1965-66 and the event was made into a movie "The Years of Living Dangerously". It also made the top 30 Worst Atrocities of the 20th Century (see link at the bottom). Most of them were Chinese with small businesses. How times have changed! You know? the simplistic shallow minded association: Chinese = China = Communists? Those were the years around our own cultural revolution - the civil rights movement.
Message 20870127
The History of Indonesia
home.iae.nl
Chinese culture colors Indonesian life
atimes.com
Indonesian Chinese are not a transient immigrant minority indeed they are a settled population
daga.org
And in times of political upheaval, they have borne the brunt of communal violence.
news.bbc.co.uk
Behind Indonesia’s anti-Chinese riots
wsws.org
witcombe.sbc.edu
asia-art.net
"There are some people who are considered Chinese by themselves and others, despite generations of intermarriage with the local population, resulting in offspring who are less than one-quarter Chinese in ancestry. On the other hand, there are some people who by ancestry could be considered halfChinese or more, but who regard themselves as fully Indonesian. Furthermore, many people who identify themselves as Chinese Indonesians cannot read or write the Chinese language."
(That's WRONG! It should be MOST)
countrystudies.us
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The Chinese continued to become convenient scapegoat. In the 1998-1999 pillage, it was "While cracking down on anti-government demonstrations, the Suharto regime is trying to whip up hostility against the ethnic Chinese."
uscis.gov
wsws.org
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"racialized state-terrorism, rather than racially-motivated mass riots."
nyct.net
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Far Eastern Economic Review, 5 March 1998
The Fifth Column, by Michael Backman, principal author of Overseas Chinese Business Networks in Asia.
BLAME INDONESIA'S CHINESE?
Two events have marked the perilous position of Indonesia's Chinese community in recent weeks. First, there are reports that 13 leading Indonesian-Chinese businessmen were telephoned by the chief of the Indonesian armed forces and exhorted to repatriate funds to Indonesia. The second was the questioning by military police of Sofyan Wanandi, a well-known Indonesian-Chinese businessman, under the ridiculous pretext that he might have some connection to a bomb blast.
This reaction to Southeast Asia's financial crisis compares starkly with the reaction in Malaysia. Early on, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamadever the nation builder identified an outsider, George Soros, as a common foe that Malaysia's ethnic groups could unite against. Indonesia, on the other hand, seems determined to bring the blame home to its own Chinese.
About 7 million ethnic Chinese live in Indonesia. Many have become phenomenally wealthy. It is usually said that while Indonesia's Chinese comprise only 3.5% of the population, they control more than 70% of the nonland, corporate wealth. The social implications of such an imbalance are obvious.
What has made the Chinese in Indonesia so spectacularly successful? Certainly, the usual explanations that the Chinese "like hard work," value education and are "good" at business have a measure of truth but then these social characteristics tend to be present in Overseas Chinese communities everywhere. So what has made Indonesia's Chinese go that little bit further?
The answer lies with how Indonesia's Chinese are treated by their government. The vast majority were born in Indonesia. Many have little direct knowledge of China and most have never been there. Even so, Indonesia's Chinese face one of the most culturally oppressive regimes anywhere.
All the symbols and celebrations normally associated with Chinese culture are banned or frowned upon in Indonesia. Lion dances on the streets are largely banned during Chinese New Year or any other time. Chinese-language schools and Chinese chambers of commerce are banned. The open display of Chinese characters is frowned upon. Entry to the civil service and the military is prohibited. And until recently, the identity cards that all Indonesians must carry contained a code that may identify the holder as Chinese.
The overt discrimination against Indonesia's Chinese is apparent even before one's arrival in the country. Customs forms handed out to passengers on flights bound for Indonesia seek declarations on all the usual nasties such as firearms, narcotics and pornography, but Chinese medicines or anything marked with Chinese characters also must be declared -- surely, the ultimate ignominy.
Indonesia has around 300 ethnic groups and as many as 365 languages. Members of all the other ethnic groups are only too willing to tell you that they are Balinese, Sundanese, Javanese or whatever. There is even government funding to support cultural centres for the various ethnic groups or for public displays of their traditional dancing. But not for the Chinese. For them, cultural support is replaced with cultural cleansing.
Indonesia's Chinese are never allowed to forget their migrant heritage and yet never are allowed to celebrate it. The pressure is unrelenting. Consequently, they react like most other pressured minorities, seeking to protect themselves by making money. Money buys a house with high walls and security guards. It can stop harassment by government officials. Ultimately, it can pay for a hasty departure should the need arise. For Indonesia's Chinese, wealth buys the security their government denies them.
With few exceptions, almost all migrant ethnic minorities have at one time or another been disproportionately wealthy or successful in business. That success appears to be directly proportionate to the persecution they faced. Nothing, it seems, succeeds like distress. Once minorities become more accepted into the broader community in which they live, they no longer need to seek refuge in business and wealth creation. Correspondingly, their share of the national wealth declines.
There is no doubt that Indonesian-Chinese have poured billions of dollars out of Indonesia, mostly to Singapore as the Indonesian economy has gone from bad to worse. This has earned them the reproach of the Indonesian government and demands that they be more "patriotic." But appeals for patriotism from people who have never been made to feel that they belong not surprisingly fall on deaf ears.
If Indonesia wants its Chinese to assimilate and loosen their stranglehold over the economy, it must stop forcing them from being hell-bent on wealth creation. It must stop state-sponsored persecution of the Chinese. It must make them feel at home. That is one lesson Indonesia would do well to learn from Malaysia, which under Mahathir has allowed "Chineseness" to become a significant element of the amalgam that has become the Malaysian identity. |
