JAKARTA POST

INDONESIA

RI(Indonesia)'s oppressed minorities

DONNA K. WOODWARD

The Chinese in Indonesia have been well served by the policies of

Indonesia's post-Independence governments, which have maintained a

discriminatory, emasculating regulatory scheme that deprives

Chinese-Indonesians of basic civil rights.

Now the Chinese live in fear of physical attack from run-amok masses of

pribumi (indigenous Indonesian) looters. Chinese-Indonesians are a

numerically very small ethnic minority in Indonesia and doubly

``minoritized'' by the fact that they are generally also adherents of one of

the minority religions in a country which highly values religious unity.

But Chinese-Indonesians are different from minority groups in other

countries in a very significant way. Their minority status and the

consequent denial of civil rights and privileges has not led to economic

oppression as it has for minority populations in virtually every other nation.

Usually, political power and economic strength go hand in hand. For

minorities in many places, political power has not been so much an end in

itself as the means to secure the economic opportunities they have been

denied. For Chinese-Indonesians, however, economic opportunities have not

been denied. In fact, while privately criticizing the system which has

denied them civil rights unlike other oppressed minority groups,

Chinese-Indonesians have largely demurred from taking concerted action in

pursuit of political rights.

Indonesia is atypical in that a minority group which has been denied civil

rights has been able to flourish economically, to the point of holding the

major share of the country's wealth. For this reason, the terms minority and

oppression as they are customarily used, may not be the most helpful

language to use in speaking Indonesia's situation.

Chinese-Indonesians are not typical of oppressed minorities. In many ways

the pribumi are more oppressed though by economic deprivation rather than by

the absence of civil rights. Many pribumi would, I venture to say, gladly

trade their right to government employment, their possession of an uncoded

identity card, their access to state universities for the freedom of

lifestyle that economic privilege can bring. The Chinese-Indonesian minority

might not be as interested in a corresponding trade-off of economic

opportunities for civil rights.

The reservoirs of resentment within both ethnic groups are deepening. As

long as individuals are preoccupied with blaming the other group (''The

Indonesians deny us our full rights''/''The Chinese control all the

wealth'') the profounder causes of oppression and violence remain and are

unaddressed.

The enemy is not each other. Chinese-Indonesians and the pribumi need each

other. The country needs the capital that the Chinese have built up, their

business expertise and the distribution networks. Chinese-owned businesses

need pribumi manpower and the pribumi consumer market. If the pribumi are

driven to mass violence by unjustified price inflations and substandard

wages, or if the Chinese are driven away by large-scale violence, everyone

suffers.

Violence. The person whose shop has been looted and burned, the rape victim,

they are obvious, tragic victims of dramatic violence. The persons who labor

in factories, mills and shrimp farms for wages so low they cannot support a

family in dignity, in a work environment where there is no regard for

workers' health and safety, these are also victims of violence. So are those

whose life savings were wiped out in bank liquidations resulting from

white-collar crimes of corruption.

Who are the oppressed? Who are the victims? The enemy is not each other.

Ordinary Chinese and pribumi are both victims of the collusive partnership

between high-level pribumi officials and Chinese owners of Indonesia's

megabusinesses. These partnerships and the corruption they spawned have

victimized the country without regard for ethnic identity. This collusive

partnership system is the oppressor. Ordinary middle-class and poor pribumi

and Chinese alike are its victims. Can the two communities now cooperate to

recover from violence and oppression together?

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