TITLE: ANALYTICAL FACTSHEET ON PREJUDICE & DISCRIMINATION ON INDONESIAN CHINESE

SECTION I – EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This paper will highlight the details of discrimination faced by Indonesian Chinese, issues of discrimination, the common stereotypes, the reasons necessary for the discussion of the discrimination, the impact caused by the ethnic prejudice and the possible workable solutions suggested to lighten the situation in Indonesia.

SECTION II – THE ISSUES AND WHO ARE INVOVLED
In this case of prejudice the Chinese Indonesians are the minority faced with discrimination. Chinese Indonesians are ranked second with less than 1% of the total population in Indonesia. Johnston stated that it could be due to the long years of discrimination faced by Chinese Indonesians that most of them are reluctant to reflect themselves as Chinese. Even though they may identify themselves as Chinese, they may have already suppressed their Chinese traditions and root. His point is elaborated in his report that the estimation of the Chinese Indonesians by many sociologists of around 7 million is far off from the statistics which is around 3 million. 1

The reasons why I had chosen to focus on this area were firstly as a Chinese personally I felt a strong empathy for my kind in another foreign country. Faced by the unfair and brutal government policies and social prejudice, I felt a need to educate myself with the situation occurring over their region. Secondly, with Singapore being a neighboring country of Indonesia, it allows me to compare the differences of how two different nations with different inversed majority ethnic groups manage their countries and cope the racial tensions within their boundaries. Lastly, I concluded the racial issue in Indonesian is by far the most intense in South-east Asia region after viewing several articles (with the most recent racial riot in Indonesia in 1998) and therefore I found a need to investigate the issue and explain my findings in this fact sheet.

The common stereotypes faced by Chinese Indonesians are mainly rich, arrogant and thinks that they can purchase anything with the intensive wealth power that they had. 2 Although these stereotypes may look harmless at a superficial level, however these were primarily the reasons how the discrimination grew larger into racial riots like how snowballs turnout to be an avalanche.

SECTION III – WHY IS IT IMPORTANT FOR US TO TALK ABOUT IT
Biased policies imposed by the government has given rise to racial tension throughout the years. It is still common for citizens of Chinese descent to pay around 3 million to 7 million rupiah before they are legalized to attend school, obtain a passport and to purchase land although this is no longer official and compulsory. 3This is not particularly fair to the Chinese citizens as not every Chinese citizens are able to afford the amount of money required by the government. It is true Chinese in Indonesia are better well off than most of the Muslims in the country, but the contrary is the same too. There are poorer Chinese that are less well off who lives off by peasantry and there are rich Muslims too. Every citizen should be given the same requirement to settle in Indonesia, and not varies by heritage. However one may argue that the government of Indonesia has their rights over the legislation of immigration and they have all rights to govern the policy. They have all rights to govern their state, however such policies only strength the image of ‘Chinese are rich’ or ‘Chinese took away the wealth of the country’ stereotypes, which gave rise to even much tragic consequences. It does not advance and promote growth of the nation well.

Another example was the introduction to a rise of Chinese Christians. It was partly due to the intolerance of traditional Chinese cultures by the Indonesia officials. Since Chinese schools were banned, the Chinese had to turn to Christian School in response. There is no way the Chinese could be admitted into a normal school with Muslims as they would be treated with inevitable prejudice. They were therefore forced to strip off their Chinese traditions if they choose to adhere onto Indonesian citizenship. 4

Racism cannot be eliminated, it is just to what extend the region can handle and treat the issue. How does a country advance if the internal conflicts are already difficult to cope with? In Indonesia’s situation, they are not experiencing conflicts with minority retaliating against the majority (comparing with Sri Lanka), but rather the majority abusing their authorities on the minority. The majority blamed the Chinese for staggering the growth of their nation. The notable riot that occurred around 1998 May 14 was perhaps the most obvious tragic that propose that the country does not handles its racial issue well. The Muslims even had professionals’ locksmith to open the locks to carry out their raids. 5 It can be seen that their anti-Chinese motives are so intense that they have to bring in locksmith to do the job. Although it has been 10 years after the tragedy, I am pretty sure that such massacre are still ongoing at the time of constructing this fact sheet, but only to question the magnitude of the scale of the raid.

The officials of Indonesia should resolve such racial tension as soon as possible. If they leave it unattended, repetition of the history could very well be the consequence of their reluctance. However from my findings, I had yet to found articles stating that the Indonesian officials are moving to solve the problems. Most of the humanists’ movement groups were countries outside of Indonesia. 6,7 As a conclusion the activists groups were even more anxious about the racial issues in Indonesia.

SECTION IV – WHERE CAN WE START TO FIX THE PROBLEM
Solving the racial issues in Indonesia will be relatively difficult. The discrimination and the prejudice have long started back in the years. Because of the inequality in the society, Chinese are expected to suppress their traditions, which made some to put their faith in Christianity as stated above. Since Chinese are stereotyped to be richer, they are naturally expected to earn more and pay more in terms of money.

As for workable solutions, at the best of my knowledge I have not yet come to a concrete suggestion to reduce the racial tension in the country. The government does not allows campaigns or regimen to voice out their views in public and they monitor media control intensively. As the minority in this case is not the perpetrator for the racial tension in the country, there is likely not many ways they can reduce the tension. It is also not practical to suggest to the Chinese to earn lesser to reduce the stereotype of them being richer. However it is encouraged for institutions to educate the next generation with similar modules such as WISP and point out to them the possible stereotypes they are facing and that most prejudice resulted from such stereotypes. However whether the government allows such education to be carried out in Indonesian education system would be another hurdle to get over.

Number of words: 1180

Done by: Wong Yao Jie
Tutorial Group 10






References:
1,3Johnston, T. (3 March 2005). Chinese diaspora: Indonesia. BBC News. Retrieved 25 April 2010, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4312805.stm
2Chinese & Asian Stereotype. (6 June 2008) Indonesia Matters. Retrieved 3 May 2010, from http://www.indonesiamatters.com/1807/stereotypes/
4Brazier, R. (27 April 2006). In Indonesia, the Chinese go to church. The New York Times. Retrieved 6 May 2010, from http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/27/opinion/27iht-edbrazier.html?_r=1
5INDONESIA: Stop Scapegoating Minorities: Ordeals of Ethnic Chinese Women. (24 August 2001). 08, 09. Retrieved 7 May 2010, from http://www.hrsolidarity.net/mainfile.php/1998vol08no09/1630
6Utomo, D. (2000). INDONESIA: Discrimination against ethnic Chinese. Green Left Weekly. Retrieved 7 May 2010, from http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/22266
7Jusuf, E. (10 August 2001). Statement A: Racial Discrimination and Violence against Ethnic Chinese people in Indonesia. Retrieved 7 May 2010, from http://wcar.alrc.net/mainfile2.php/Statements/85/

Bertrand, J. (2004). Nationalism and ethnic conflict in Indonesia. 1st ed. United Kingdom, The Press Syndicate of The University of Cambridge