Calvin H asked:
Yes, I’ve read the wiki article on anti chinese legislation in indonesia, but i cannot find very much information on WHY such laws were passed.
November 23, 2006
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Yes, I’ve read the wiki article on anti chinese legislation in indonesia, but i cannot find very much information on WHY such laws were passed.
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Look at Chinese politics circa 1959…the Great Leap Forward, etc. Chinese were seen as political radicals back then, and were mistrusted.
Comment by Alexie N — November 24, 2006 @ 9:38 pm
The average Indonesian was jealous of the Chinese immigrants’ superior business abilities, work ethic, and capital accumulation.
Comment by presidentofallantarctica — November 27, 2006 @ 1:39 am
the whole thing started because the dutch divided people in indonesia based on their race and class and the Indonesian people are the ones at the bottom.
White, Arab, Chinese, elite Indonesians and the rest of indonesians.
they had to go to different schools and many Indonesians from lower class couldnt even go to school at all. they held different positions at work as well.
You know that the dutch colonized the country for over 350 years, so the issue stayed in people’s mind for generations.
The next one is Suharto propaganda
Suharto did not want to acknowledge the chinese existence (in a way) there is no chinese holidays and suharto didnt let chinese people to use their language at all and the fact that in indonesia you can only have 5 religions, many chinese people whose religion is one of one of the 5 are not acknowledge.
suharto claimed that what he is doing is actualy uniting the country by looking at everyone is the same as Indonesians.
In a country with hundreds of languages and tribes, this is a completely wrong methode.
the only way you can unite and get rid of racism is by acknowledging the difference of each group and promoting tolerance. stamping that everyone is the same is only made it worse.
the chinese feels oppressed and the Indonesians are lacking of knowledge of their chinese brothers.
there are also other factors such as the goverment propaganda against communism (this is probably what you are looking for) which also leads to more tension between the two.
-look up communism in Indonesia-
and the last one, although not a big factor is the religion issue.
this is not a big issue. Indonesians have been living together hand in hand for so many years, but the religion issue can be a serious issue when provoked. (which is often happening now)
the fact that arab merchants were moslems make the integration a lot easier. people share the same ground, and the arabs, who came to indonesia a lot sooner, they came in peace and the process of islamization in indonesia happened over the course of many many years. they also brought a lot of things, such as education and promotes unity and integrations within the country.
the chinese, with their different religions tend to clash with indonesians.
the fact that there is already tensions between them makes the 2 even more difficult to intergrate. both blaming the other side.
many moslem workers admit that they are not allowed to pray when they work with chinese non Moslem employer. and the Chinese also think that the indonesian is being racist towards them and think that Indonesians are lower class and uneducated (back again to what the dutch taught)
I believed that most of the insidents happens because it was provoked, because indonesians have lived for hundreds of years (back from before it was a country) in harmony.
currently it is a lot better. the chinese are celebrating their chinese holidays and it has become a national holiday so the whole country can see, learn and enjoy their cultures.
— it may be dificult to find info about this because during suharto area, a lot of things are sensored and band, history was re-written, so it is very dificult to findout about what actually happened. im indonesian and still have no idea what exactly happened. we had to memorize the suharto version.
Comment by lampu — November 29, 2006 @ 5:01 pm