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Time
for Chinese-Indonesian to claim equal rights as citizenship
Evi Mariani, Jakarta
I am a Chinese-Indonesian, a member of the minority. But
on top of that, I am an Indonesian. I am proud to be one
despite the rampant corruption that has tainted the nation's
image.
For a person of Chinese descent like me, however, having
the word Indonesian attached to my identity is not a matter
of birthright. My family had to struggle to obtain our Indonesian
status.
Indonesian citizenship is not a coveted status, to be honest.
But we have nowhere to go. Tracing up the family tree, six
out of my eight grandparents were born here.
As people of Chinese descent, my father and mother had to
present legal evidence in the 1960s that they were Indonesians.
At that time many Chinese-Indonesians fell victim to forged
citizenship documents, including my father. He realized
he had no valid documents after he married my mother in
1970.
Under Indonesia's paternalistic legal system, all their
children consequently had no citizenship, due to my father's
fake papers. My mother, on the other hand, had valid papers.
To make a long story short, they faked a divorce just before
their first child's birth. They have four children. I am
the third. We all have birth certificates saying that we
are children born out of wedlock to a Chinese-Indonesian
woman. That way, we legally became Indonesians, and legally
became fatherless.
Just having citizenship documents, though, is apparently
not enough for Chinese-Indonesians.
On the street, in public places, at school, some of us occasionally
have the misfortune of having to prove that we are Indonesians.
So we try to keep a low profile in traffic and in public
places. We don't fight back. We give more money than anyone
else every Independence Day, and we give bribes every time
the authorities ask. In a nutshell, we don't want trouble.
We have seen how a traffic accident involving a Chinese
person can set a city on fire.
Besides having nowhere else to go, many of us have somehow
developed an acquired taste for being Indonesian after seeing
both the dark and the bright side.
My parents in Bandung, West Java, have experienced at least
three anti-Chinese riots: in the 1960s, in the 1970s and
in 1998.
We have seen the ugly, racist face of Indonesians. But we
have also seen the kind face. What my parents mostly recall
about the 1970s riot was hiding their toddlers under the
bed, with their hearts pounding. They also remember a savior.
He was a neighbor my father called Pak Haji (signifying
someone who has done the hajj), who stood in front of our
house and told the rioters and looters not to touch those
"kind Chinese folks."
Perhaps unwittingly, at the end of the day we choose to
forget the ugly faces and remember the kind-hearted people
instead.
I grew up believing in a multicultural Indonesia. I believe
in the kind-hearted people who work at respecting differences.
Spending my university years in Yogyakarta, an exemplary
home to multiculturalism, only confirmed my belief.
So strong is that belief that the horrible 1998 riot did
not dampen it. Instead, I saw Chinese-Indonesians overcome
their fear and actually do things to fix the situation.
Many of them timidly became more open, more involved. Some
Chinese-Indonesians formed organizations which encourage
their members to be more open.
In times of riot and trauma, we manage to look up and find
the silver lining. Instead of clouds, I see the sun on the
horizon.
But the news from Makassar, where last week students threatened
to target Chinese-Indonesians, made me think again. I have
probably been over-confident about the state of multiculturalism.
One student, Ibnu Hajar, told reporters: "They (Chinese-Indonesians)
are newcomers, but they act how they like toward locals."
I thought Chinese-Indonesians would never have to be called
newcomers anymore. New what? Coming from where?
Not only in Makassar, but even in Jakarta, we still have
to put up with the word Cina uttered not in a friendly tone
but with suspicion. For example, my neighbor (he is the
head of the neighborhood unit) once mentioned his disappointment
about having a Chinese-Indonesian neighbor to my housemate.
A middle-rank police officer in Jakarta once told me he
preferred pribumi (native) corruptors to Chinese-Indonesian
corruptors.
Considering these prejudices, many of us have reason to
put high fences around our houses. We have reason to be
exclusive. Not that poor and middle-class Chinese-Indonesians
like myself can afford exclusivity. Only the wealthy, just
like rich people from other ethnic groups, can be exclusive.
But the government and the majority only seem to make half-hearted
efforts to change our role as the scapegoats people blame
every time they feel an economic pinch.
There has been no serious effort to rehabilitate our name
in the history books. Just like any ethnic group in this
diverse country, we've had our traitors, but we've also
had our national heroes in the struggle against colonialism.
In my justified anger, I am telling you: as a group, we
Chinese-Indonesians have collectively done a lot, given
our limitations as a minority. We want a peaceful multicultural
country where we can be equal Indonesians, and we have been
working on it.
We have hunkered down for years. It is time for the minority
to stand up and tell the government and the majority: we
have done our part. And we want you to do yours.
The writer is a journalist at The Jakarta
Post.
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