Indonesian Chinese in an unfinished integration

Indonesian Chinese in an unfinished integration and the premature cultural dialectics
Khairil Azhar

My memory about Indonesian Chinese has been firstly filled with the fact that several towns in West Sumatera there are locations called “Kampuang Cino” or the Chinese neighborhoods. We can find it in Padang, the capital, or in Bukittinggi, the tourist destination town where foreigners are a daily common view.

Interestingly, the neighborhoods are in the lands where Islam is a very dominant religion and the local traditions tend to be strongly held. Even in Bukittinggi, there is a mosque which is situated in the Chinese neighborhood and is side by side with inns, motels or even hotels which can be easily associated as non-Islamic or is against the traditional customs.

In both Padang and Bukittinggi, Chinese citizens are mostly working in trading field and enjoying good status economically. In Padang or Bukittinggi, if we would like to buy traditional gifts of food or handicrafts, we will find that many of the goods with good quality are sold by Chinese.

Lately it becomes a question in my mind that there is a possibility of such a segregation or localization, consciously or unconsciously, which might have happened to the Chinese fellows. Their being compounded in a certain location and to be only able to make their living in an ostensibly field, even though it is in the center of the city or town, might be a clue of what can be called as an unfinished integration, that they are still “another” among the dominating “natives”.

Furthermore, amid the homogenously built society, as if their presence is only a complementary element—whatever they have in hands or whatever they have done for the sake of the people or country—and is never completely accepted as the true members of the society.

Referring to what is called as dialectic process, which is widely accepted as the way the West Sumatrans enrich their treasure of wisdoms, the fact of the localization of the Chinese both in neighborhood and working field is a reflection of the failure of the cultural dialectic process.

As it is proposed in Hegelian method, the dialectic process requires both the thesis (which is here referred as alam or existed modality) and the antithesis (referred as rantau or the new wisdoms). As the effect of the dialectic process—in terms of negation—there should be an aufhebung, the resulted new thesis with best quality which is naturally proven more acceptable and usable.

In the case of the Chinese and Minangkabaunese (the people of West Sumatra), therefore, the cultural dialectic has seemed to be half accomplished as it stopped in the midway. There are many symbols, as the cultural evidences, for example, which have been absorbed in the Minangkabaunese language. But the possibility of the absorption through the dialectic processes has prematurely ended in a time where the dynamic of the society—as the driving force for a change—was disabled by a so far unknown thing. Consequently, there they are, our fellow Chinese who are encircled and enjoy a limited recognizably atmosphere.

In the context of Indonesia, the thing that happened in the West Sumatra seems to be a representation of the whole thing. Even worse, the current policy of the Tangerang district in Banten province to drive out the Chinese from their compound—where they have lived for more than a hundred years for an unknown development purpose—is describing how the more saddening thing is happening and is possibly to keep so.

Now and unfortunately, the state tends to facilitate unfruitful social differentiation. With the more accumulated power in the hands of the policy holders, with their more absolute and obsolete centralistic mechanisms—contrary to the democracy jargons overstated by the state officials—the possibility of unjust policies, especially over the stereotyped segments of the society because of race or religion, is much more likely to occur.

Therefore, the fastest and most possible way of a better integration—which actually means being better accepted and recognized—for the Chinese fellows, rest on the efforts to burden the continuation of the unfinished work, i.e. enabling a fresh start of cultural dialectic which had been the applicable way of enriching Indonesia as a nation in centuries.

And one of the prerequisites that should be noted is that the old definition of “cultural assimilation” which includes the assumption of being forced to culturally accept unnecessary things such as the necessity to change names, Javanization, or possibly Islamization is already out of context. Rather, there should be recognition of an entity as it is with only good governance function of the governmental institutions which can interfere.

Secondly, if a single effort of a conscious citizen doubled with another one, and then some other ones, to voice a dissenting opinion in a crowd, many better things can possibly happen. This way, we’ll open more suspicious eyes and minds and the possibility of another case like the expulsion of Chinese inhabitants of certain land will be narrowed or even never happen anymore. Or, the partitioned compounds of the Chinese in any places in Indonesia will be gradually open and someday unpartitioned.

The writer is a researcher at Paramadina Foundation