New Year Bonus For Indonesia's Chinese

[Loh]

Asia Times, Hongkong
March 3, 2007

New year bonus for Indonesia's Chinese
By Kalinga Seneviratne

JAKARTA - Indonesia has taken the symbolic step of reconciling with its minority ethnic-Chinese community by recognizing Chinese New Year as a full-blown national festival, a public celebration it had banned for nearly 30 years. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono attended the United National Indonesian Imlek (Chinese New Year) celebrations at the Jakarta fairground, where his visit was broadcast live on national television.

Adding new fervor to the festivities spread over the past few weeks is the fact that many Chinese-Indonesians are celebrating as legal Indonesian citizens for the first time. A new citizenship act
passed by the House of Representatives last July defines an Indonesian national as anyone born in the country. The legal distinction has allowed many Chinese-Indonesians, who belong to families that have resided in the country for generations but until now were legally considered stateless, to become full-fledged national-identification-card-carrying citizens.

Ethnic Chinese are estimated to represent about 10 million of Indonesia's 210 million people, or about 2% of the total population.
During the authoritarian regime of President Suharto (1967-98), public displays of Chinese culture were banned, and many Chinese were asked to change their names to Indonesian ones if they wished to be eventually considered for citizenship. "Suharto's government saw Chinese characters and culture as political. We were not even allowed to make candles," said Yu Le, a member of a Buddhist temple.

He said he now prefers to use his Chinese name rather than his adopted Indonesian one of Suherman. "Around the temple there were always police and military. We could not celebrate Imlek here. People were afraid to come. We had to do it at home, hiding."

Inside the same temple, an elderly Chinese-Indonesian man, who declined to reveal his name, pointed to the Chinese characters on the shrine's wall and said: "This was not allowed to be printed and we could not make these candles during Suharto's time."

Indonesia's ethnic-Chinese minority had celebrated the Lunar New Year freely until the abortive 1965 coup against Suharto's military regime, which his supporters then claimed was encouraged by China's communist government. More than 500,000 people were subsequently killed in an orgy of violence, including thousands of ethnic Chinese, aimed at destroying the Indonesia Communist Party.

After that, anything red, the color of prosperity for Chinese, or written in Chinese was seen as a threat to state power.

"I and my Chinese friends shared a good time. We helped each other," recalled Mustafa Kamal Ridwan, senior fellow at the Habibie Center, an Islamic think-tank. "However, there was [racial] tension under Suharto. I felt I didn't have any Chinese friends after 1965. We suspected that Chinese people were members of the Indonesia Communist Party, and they became enemies for Muslim people."

Outlawed expressions

The Jakarta municipal government banned Chinese New Year celebrations in 1967, coincident with Indonesia and China breaking off official diplomatic relations. Restrictions covered the use of Chinese language in print and public discourse as well as public performances of cultural acts, such as the lion dance.

Diplomatic relations with China were restored only in 1990, but the restrictions remained in force. During President Abdurrahman Wahid's short-lived tenure, these bans were in 2001 finally lifted. Wahid was notably also the chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia's largest grassroots Muslim organization, with an estimated 40 million members.

His successor as president, Megawati Sukarnoputri, went a step further by declaring Imlek a national holiday.

During Imlek celebrations this year, national newspapers carried colorful pictures of the festivities. At the same time, there were also critical commentaries in daily newspapers such as the Jakarta Post, which questioned the level of ethnic-Chinese integration into mainstream Indonesian society.

Journalist and writer Sima Gunawan, who only recently publicly disclosed her Chinese name as Kho Djoen Siem, argued that few people in Indonesia knew that world badminton champion Rudy Hartono was actually an ethnic Chinese. The same goes for renowned film director Teguh Karya, physicist Yohanes Surya and pop-music star Agnes Monica, she noted. On the other hand, she carped, everyone seems to know the right ethnicity of Chinese-Indonesians who "commit serious crimes or do something wrong".

In an odd historical twist, while on one hand cracking down on public displays of Chinese culture, on the other, the dictator Suharto tapped several ethnic-Chinese businessmen to run crucial sections of the economy, allowing them to amass huge fortunes with the country's fast economic growth.

The fact that the Chinese minority 30 years later still has a strong grip on the national economy is a cause for resentment among many indigenous Indonesians, known locally as pribumis. Those tensions boiled over in the wake the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, when in May 1998 violence erupted against ethnic-Chinese interests across the archipelago, including in Jakarta, Solo and Medan. Many Chinese complained at the time that the government condoned the violence.

Under threat, many Chinese-Indonesians fled Indonesia, including big businessmen who spirited hundreds of millions of dollars out of the country and into private accounts in neighboring Singapore. There are still widespread local perceptions among that Chinese-run family businesses favor their own kind in employment and that they tend to underpay their pribumi workers.

"If we talk about economic advantage or how they control economic opportunity, [the ethnic Chinese] are better positioned than pribumis," said Marwan Batubara, a member of the Regional Representative Council representing Jakarta province. "It is time for the Chinese community to open up and mingle with the rest of the people more openly than before."

The Habibie Center's Ridwan believes that events such as the national celebration of the Imlek festival show the government is trying to reach out to the Chinese community. He foresees the eventual formation of a race-based Chinese political party - similar perhaps to the ones in neighboring Malaysia that represent the larger Chinese minority community there.

"It means there is now a willingness to integrate the Chinese [community] into Indonesia. [But] it doesn't mean they integrate with Islamic culture," he said. "They don't have to be Muslim to be Indonesian. Imlek is not a religious celebration."

(Inter Press Service, with additional reporting by Asia Times Online)

[wilfredlgf]

IMO Indonesian names actually sound pretty cool, at least to me...

'Allan Budi Kusuma'

[cooler]

IMO Indonesian names actually sound pretty cool, at least to me...

'Allan Budi Kusuma'

of course, indonesian language is written in alphabets where as original chinese are written in chinese, only written in english format for sound-like translation. English written in chinese is even more gross sounding i tell ya LOL

eg. toronto -> doll lun doll
calgary? u don't wanna hear it.

[Loh]

IMO Indonesian names actually sound pretty cool, at least to me...

'Allan Budi Kusuma'

Yah, like Rudy Hartono. But I find it difficult to trace the family surname, which is very important to the Chinese. Like Ronald Susilo, his family surname is not Susilo as one would have thought. Even the English still maintain their surnames.

[Bbn]

No respite yet in Muslim Malay South Thasiland,

where if you look Chinese you'll get a bullet or bomb aimed at you.

The separatists waging a terror campaign to frighten away Chinese Thais

from influencing South Thailand.

Some dumb Msians continue to visit the area believing that these people are partial to Msia Chinese who are very kind to their people.

Let's hope that the bullets and bombs have eyes that recognise Msia Chinese.

Pls update if you don't believe the kind of terrorism continuing unabated in Thailand.r

[tutu_h]

Yah, like Rudy Hartono. But I find it difficult to trace the family surname, which is very important to the Chinese. Like Ronald Susilo, his family surname is not Susilo as one would have thought. Even the English still maintain their surnames.

some yes, some not.

e.g.
LIM, LIN, LAM
Halim, Salim, Limanto, Limantoro, Limijanto, Wanandi (wana = Javanese for forest), Liemena (Ambonese Chinese), Alim, Limoa


Chen, Tan, Chan
Tanto, Tanu, Tanutama, Soetanto, Cendana, Tanudisastro, Tandiono, Tanujaya, Santoso and Hadrianto (rearrange ant to tan), Tanzil, Tanasal (Ambonese Chinese), Tanadi, Tanusudibyo, Chandra.

Wu, Goh, Ng
Gondo (= Twin), Sugondo, Gozali, Wurianto, Gunawan, Gotama, Utama

[FEND.]

Let's hope that the bullets and bombs have eyes that recognise Msia Chinese.

Pls update if you don't believe the kind of terrorism continuing unabated in Thailand.r

........... alright................. ok... sooooooooooo if I happen to go to Southern Thailand... by some freak chance you wish my death? Sure mate........

[Bbn]

Terrorism is alive and well.

The purpose is to explain the nature of terrorism in SEA.

Many politicians from this region are always trying to convince Western people that the root of terrorm is the West who instigate civil war and economic deprivation.

South Thailand is a shining example of terrorism unprovoked by external sources, people who want their country to be like say Afghanistan.

Indonesia is improving for the time being as they choose economic development over fundamentalism.

Malaysia is fairly divided as to choice.

The people of the 3 regions are basically the same, the reason why Msia is

progressive is because of the strong presence and influence of the Chinese

who impart economic strength and know-how, and it is only possible because Msia Chinese are in larger numbers.

Same events regularly unfold in Coco Islandsor Fiji and they are not religion based.

Thsi is the reality of life in SEA.

[Loh]

some yes, some not.

e.g.
LIM, LIN, LAM
Halim, Salim, Limanto, Limantoro, Limijanto, Wanandi (wana = Javanese for forest), Liemena (Ambonese Chinese), Alim, Limoa


Chen, Tan, Chan
Tanto, Tanu, Tanutama, Soetanto, Cendana, Tanudisastro, Tandiono, Tanujaya, Santoso and Hadrianto (rearrange ant to tan), Tanzil, Tanasal (Ambonese Chinese), Tanadi, Tanusudibyo, Chandra.

Wu, Goh, Ng
Gondo (= Twin), Sugondo, Gozali, Wurianto, Gunawan, Gotama, Utama

Thank you, this is very illuminating and an ingenious way to retain recognition and identity. It also displays the flexibility and creativity in some Chinese.

[Double_Player]

liem swie king...he uses his chinese name...not sure he's chinese or not...but he played under suharto...

[cooler]

hmmm, it sure discourage me visiting thailand and maybe get some TH coded rackets.

[Bbn]

Dont confuse south Thailand and North.

South is like Tibet in China, it is next to malaysia with the people

closer in race and religion to Msia than the Buddhists in the North.

The terrorists though have threatened to export their technology to Bangkok if their demands are not met.