The Future of Huaren in Indonesia

July 23, 1998

The terrible prosecution to Chinese race in Indonesia have been carried out since late 19th century when the Chinese business district- Pasar Tanah Abang was totally destroyed and a lot of Chinese people was murdered. After the economy in Batavia collapsed following this incident, the Dutch Government took stern measures to restore security for Chinese community, and requested the fled Chinese businessmen to rerun the economy at Tanah Abang - Batavia. After the cooling down period in early 20^th century, the prosecution toward Chinese race restarted in 1963 in Bandung and continued to other area in Java island. The most violent one was the recent May 13-15 attack where looting, raping, burning and killings were carried out in a mass and systematic way.

The sad thing to see the reaction of majority of Indigenous Muslim Indonesian think that they are not to be blamed or in other words they are correct in what they have done. The government reaction are mixed with the leading opinion from President Habibie as saying: "It was about justice", and not about racial problem. I am extremely sad to see this because most of them do not want to admit it was absolutely wrong thing to do for whatever reasons. We need justice and we believe that everyone has to reap for what he has sown. Time will prove this either now, later or in distance future. No one can escape from this law.

The terror to Chinese Indonesian still continue with the latest report on raping to one student girl of Tarumanegara University last July 2, 1998. The three rapers intentionally ruin her genital with massive object that the girls required two operations to remove her womb. The report was given by Father Sandyawan in a Seminar at the University of Santa Dharma last July 8, 1998. Why do this prosecution to Chinese and also Christian happen again and again in Indonesia?. In our analysis the root causes of the problem are three folds:

The wrong concept of teaching within the Muslim Indigenous that the non-Muslim is "Kafir" or non-believers. The non-believers are thus to be eliminated.
The Indigenous are envy to see the fact that most of Chinese Indonesia ( whom are non-Muslim) becoming relatively wealthier regardless of how these Chinese should go through hardship and humiliation to succeed. The wrong concept have been taught over time so that the negative thinking will be stored in their subconscious mind. Combined with the blinded envy toward Chinese supremacy on Indonesian economy, the situation is potentially explosive.
Few Chinese businessmen were doing their business in an unethical way (like Eddy Tanzil etc). The scandals have always been exaggeratedly exposed in mass communication through print and electronics media. The emphasis is usually on negative connotation of "the suspect's Chinese names". Under distinct domination of Chinese businesses in Indonesia the scandals have created strong negative sentiment among the Indigenous which often generalize for all Chinese.

Those factors have created envy and deep hatred in most Indigenous Muslim. We can see from the day to day life that small indigenous Muslim Kids often make fool of Chinese in an offensive words. How could these kids know about hatred?. They know from either the teaching of their parent, relatives, friends or society. In contrary, the envy and hatred towards Chinese do not exist in Eastern part of Indonesia where society is predominantly non-Muslim ( either Hindu or Christian ). The potential explosive hatred was exploited and organized by the Mastermind within the political elite to prosecute the Chinese last May for their own objectives.

What is the prospect for Chinese in Indonesia?

The anti-Chinese sentiment will remain until the foreseeable future due to the above root causes. The other reasons as claimed by the Indonesians are only the cause and effect events and also excuses for their justification. Furthermore there is no law enforcement in Indonesia. This built a precedent to the evil people that it is alright to repeat what they did as there is no penalty from the Government. As the result the looting continue and now it is targeted further to plantations, shrimp farming's, consumers and commodity goods during transportation and containers of exported goods. The number of apparel containers looted on the way from Bandung to Jakarta port so far has reached 65.

What will be the trend of Government Policy in Indonesia?

With the high uncertainty in current political turmoil, the Government will likely to issue populist regulations to further restrict the Chinese businesses in order to gain public support. We can see this from the Government statements.

In my opinion the Huaren in the world should unite and support the Chinese in Indonesia with actions among others:

To promote justice to the International world.

To support the victims through non-profit organizations.

To establish more solid business network among Huaren in Indonesia and the world.

The benefit is actually more for Indonesian if the Chinese people are genuinely accepted to build the country. We will see the history later.