The Chinese in Indonesia 9814022365, 9789814022361

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Pramoedya Ananta Toer

THE CHINESE IN INDONESIA

With essays from

K.S. Jomo Leo Ou-Fan Lee Max Lane Sumit K. Mandal

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f The Chinese in Indonesia (A translation of Hoakiau di Indonesia, first published 1960) Copyright to contributed essays belong to the respective authors > © Pramoedya Ananta Toer 2007

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Published by Select Publishing A subsidiary of Select Books Pte Ltd 19 Tanglin Road #03-15 Tanglin Shopping Centre Singapore 247909 Tel: (65) 6732 1515 Fax: (65) 6736 0855

SELECT BOOKS Tie Asian Book Specialist Email: info a.selectbooks.com.sg Website: www.selectbooks.com.sg

Original text in Indonesian by: Pramoedya Ananta Toer

Translated into English by: Max Lane Edited by: Mary Redway, Tan Dan Feng

With contributed essays from: K.S. Jomo Leo Ou-Fan Lee Max Lane Sumit K. Mandal Printed by Stellar-Grafix (S) Pte Ltd

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying or recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission from the publisher.

National Library Board Singapore Cataloguing in Publication Data Toer, Pramoedya Ananta, 1925-2006. The Chinese in Indonesia : an English translation of Hoakiau di Indonesia / original text in Indonesian by Pramoedya Ananta Toer; translated into English by Max Lane ; edited by Mary Redway, Tan Dan Feng ; with contributed essays from K.S. Jomo ... [et al.]. - Singapore : Select Pub., 2007. p. cm. ISBN-13 : 978-981-4022-36-1 (pbk.) ISBN-10: 981-4022-36-5 (pbk.) 1. Chinese - Indonesia. 2. Indonesia - Ethnic relations. I. Lane, Max. II. Redway, Mary. III. Tan, Dan Feng. IV. Jomo K. S. (Jomo Kwame Sundaram) V. Title.

DS632.3.C5 305.89510598 - dc22

SLS2OO7O35858

Contents Section One: On the Author Pramoedya: Defiant to the End K.S- Jomo

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Pramoedya Ananta Toer - In Memoriam Leo Ou-Fan Lee

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Section Two: On the Work

Pramoedya. Racialism and Socialism Max Lane

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‘Strangers who are not Foreign’ - Pramoedya’s Disturbing Language on the Chinese in Indonesia Sumit K. Mandal

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Section Three: The Chinese in Indonesia

Letter One Limited and Universal Humanism

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Letter Twro About Digging up Crimes that are not There

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Letter Three The Expulsion of the Chinese and Its Reality

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Letter Four The Social Position of the Chinese is the Result of a Long Process of Social Historical Development

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Letter Five The Chinese can be Friends in Struggle

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Letter Six The Contribution of the Chinese tow ards the Progress of Indonesia Letter Seven The Demographics of the Chinese in Indonesia Letter Eight The Economic Position of the Chinese: the Balance between Demographics and Production

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Letter Nine Some Conclusions

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Acknowledgments and Publisher’s Notes

Publication of this first complete English translation of Hoakiau di Indonesia would not have been possible without the commitment and help of Mary Redw ay, James Redway, Nancy Chng and Lena Lim.

Mary Redway, in particular, has been instrumental in the initiation and early editing of this work.

We would also like to thank Professor K..S. Jomo, Mr. Max Lane, Professor Leo Ou-Fan Lee and Professor Sumit K. Mandal for the essays used in this publication. These essays contribute greatly in providing a more complete picture of the author and this work.

In the concluding chapter of the book, the author points to the insufficiency of social-historical materials on the Chinese in Indonesia as one reason that racialists could “enter [this] area and appoint themselves as supreme rulers and then practice their brinkmanship” and pleads for the publishing of more works on the Chinese in Indonesia. The publication of this translation is based on this shared conviction that overcoming ignorance is a critical step towards achieving a just and humane w orld for all.

About the Cover

The cover background features the famous Megamendung (storm cloud) batik design of Cirebon, Java, which w'as, for many centuries, a centre of Islam. This traditional Javanese textile style features Chinese-influenced motifs and patterns, which arrived in Java through Chinese ceramics, paintings and embroidered textiles. We are grateful to Dr. Sharon Siddique for providing the inspiration for the cover design.

Section One ON THE AUTHOR

Pramoedya: Defiant to the End K.S. Jomo In April 2006. one of the world’s greatest literary' giants went to meet his maker without being properly recognised by the international literary community. True, Pramoedya Ananta Toer was honoured by PEN, but he never received any of the major literary prizes he so richly deserved. Only in recent years w as he honoured with a number of Asian aw ards, although he had been translated into well over 30 languages, mainly in Europe.

Pramoedya was not only a literary icon, but also a symbol of leftw'ing nationalist political defiance. Although best known for his novels, many of w hich have an almost epic character, my preference has alw ays been for his short stories. Many of these were almost feminist in sensibility, but written well before the modem feminist movement of the last third of the 20th century . Pram was also a trenchant essayist who did not shy away from controversy and robust debate, usually thriving as the underdog. His polemical essays on historical subjects have contributed to a significant and original reinterpretation of the sources of the Indonesian nationalist and anti-colonial movements. His essays underscored the importance of ethnic Chinese publishers in the promotion of the Malay language (then the native tongue of a very small minority of the Indonesian population) throughout the Dutch East Indies from the late 19th century (as elaborated by the w'orks of the historian Ahmat Adam and bibliographer Ding Choo Ming). Working in parallel with Benedict Anderson - his admirer and arguably the finest observer and most original scholar of modem Southeast Asia politics, who underscored the role of ‘print capitalism’ in the imagining of the nation - Pram’s Tempo Doeloe (Past Times) captures the significance of the media and the emergence of Malay - originally the language of a small minority, but crucially, the language of regional commerce - as the common (and later national) language of the Dutch East Indies.

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His Burn Quartet - built around the historical character of the pioneering journalist Raden Mas Tirto Adisuryo, who helped set up the first patriotic national (as opposed to Javanese) movement, Sarekat Islam (of which one faction, the Sarekat Islam Merah, was closely associated with the Indonesian Communist Party, the PK.I) - subtly drew attention to both indigenous as well as international influences on the early nationalist movement in Indonesia. His literary device of changing the narrator in the final volume sharply reminds the reader of imperial surveillance and repression as well as indigenous collaboration despite humiliating subjugation. Pram was a proud and defiant man from an early age. He suffered during the Japanese Occupation, but did not condemn those nationalists who sought to use the political space offered by inter-imperialist rivalry' to further the nationalist cause. Later, he was jailed by the returning Dutch colonialists, but never descended into anti-European jingoism. During the Soekamo presidency, he was detained by the army for over a year in the early sixties for expressing support for ethnic Chinese subjected to persecution, most notably in Hoakiau di Indonesia (The Chinese in Indonesia). Yet he never turned against the first Indonesian President despite his opposition to aspects of Soekamo’s government.

After the military' coup of October 1965, his library was burnt, his house was confiscated and he was personally brutalised - losing his hearing in one ear to a rifle butt - before being incarcerated for 14 years, much of the time on the remote and almost barren island of Buru. In 1989, I met Pram, his editor Joesoef Isak and publisher Hasjim Rachman, all men of letters and recently released political prisoners, and agreed to publish Pram's post-Buru work in Malaysia as his books had been banned in Indonesia within days of appearing in the bookshops there.

Years later, the avuncular Pram took special delight in meeting my then young children, reminiscent of Lu Xun’s description of one who glares defiantly at the overwhelmingly stronger enemy, yet is cowed by the innocence of young children.

Before leaving to work in New York, my wife and I visited Pram and his wife at their new home in the hills near Jakarta in late 2004. Some years before, he had bought the land with some of his Magsaysay prize money, and for years thereafter, spent much of his time working this land. Later, after

Pramoedya: Defiant to the End

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inning the Fukuoka prize, he built this house, where he enjoyed entertaining his grandchildren on their weekend visits as well as visitors. His actual literary output after his release in 1979 seems quite modest • contrast with his earlier work up to 1965. In fact, his six major historical noVels published after his release were largely written during his last years on Buru after he was finally allowed access to a typewriter, with many only ublished thanks to the deft editorial hand of Joesoef Isak, who was Secretary General of the Afro-Asian Journalists’Association until his arrest.

Besides engaging in vigorous polemics on political and cultural issues of the day, Pram also wrote a significant amount of non-fiction, including a collection of lectures on Indonesian history, his book on ethnic Chinese Indonesians and Tempo Doeloe.

However, he never came close to completing his intended magnum opus, an encyclopaedia of Indonesian geography. His explanation of the reason for engaging in this painstaking project and his many requests for additional reference materials (such as the two-volume History ofJava by Sir Stamford Raffles) was that one cannot truly love one’s country' if one does not know it. I feel humbled and honoured to have sat at the feet of such a giant of a man, who was defiant and brave to the last.

K. S. Jomo is UN Assistant Secretary General for Economic Development and was Professor at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur until late 2004.

Pramoedya Ananta Toer: In Memoriam Leo Ou-Fan Lee (written 4 May 2006)

This morning as I opened my email, a message from a reporter from the China Times in Taiwan informed me that the Indonesian writer Pramoedya Ananta Toer was dead. “Is he an important writer?” the reporter asked innocently. Important? That would be an understatement, for I consider him to be not merely Indonesia’s greatest writer but one of the most significant writers of the twentieth century. If I were asked to nominate one Asian writer for the Nobel Prize, I would have no hesitation in nominating him; in fact Pramoedya has been nominated many times - but to no avail. Too late! Once again, the Nobel Committee has missed out!

I first came upon Pramoedya’s novel, This Earth of Mankind, the first of his renowned Burn Quartet depicting the rise of Indonesian national consciousness, in a bookstore in Singapore in 1989. It was the first Indonesian novel I ever read and I was overw helmed. I read every word of its small print (in the English translation by Max Lane in a Penguin paperback) so intensely that my eyes became bleared. I had to go to an eye doctor for treatment. It was a momentous occasion for myself: in fact, my own consciousness of Indonesia - in particular its modem history - was raised by the novel, and I became aware of a brave new world through the eyes of Minke, the novel’s young hero. Later on, I bought other volumes and followed the Footsteps (the title of the third volume) of this Child of All Nations (the second volume). What struck me most was that this avowedly leftist writer lavishes such painstaking care on depicting the Dutch colonial background of Minke’s education - presumably out of a sense of historical fidelity a la Balzac and Stendhal. There is no modem Chinese historical novel I can think of that is remotely comparable to it: Imagine wrriting a long roman-a-clef modelled after the life and career of Liang Qichao, China’s first great journalist and a formidable intellectual who was, like Minke, the originator of many significant ideas of Chinese nationalism. (As most of the Indonesian readers already know, Pramoedya’s Minke was modelled after Tirto Adisuryo, a real journalist). For

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Chinese readers, it bears mentioning that Pramoedya not only visited China but was first imprisoned in 1960 for defending the country’s persecuted ethnic Chinese. You can imagine my astonishment when I read Footsteps and learned that after Minke’s first wife died, he fell in love with a frail Chinese woman and married her - only to suffer a second bereavement. She was a Chinese nationalist and a revolutionary!

For those who think the works are sheer ‘leftist’ propaganda, let them read the fourth volume, House of Glass, in which the protagonist* narrator is on the opposite side - Minke’s nemesis and an evil man who slowdy and deliberately persecutes him to death. It is out of the envious introspections of this colonial servant that we finally gain the true measure of this nationalist hero’s greatness. Obviously Pramoedya was quite versed in Western literature and its modem narrative techniques. (The first three volumes can be regarded as a form of bildungsroman). Still, he kept his fictional devices to a minimum in order to preserve this historical truth. Such a move is in sharp contrast to most contemporary post-modem fictions, which have no truths to speak of, merely displays of technique and word play. Perhaps a national saga has to be written by someone who truly experienced all the tribulations and suffered all these years for a utopian cause that, alas, is yet to be realised. Only two months ago in the International Herald Tribune (9 March 2006), an article by Michael Vatikiotis informed us that Pramoedya had just published his latest work about The Great Post Road, the first modem highway in northern Java built by Indonesian slaves under orders of the Dutch colonial government. Like everywhere else in Asian countries, modernity was acquired at a great price, the price of at least 12,000 human lives.

I have no idea if Pramoedya’s novels have been translated into Chinese in addition to its translations into 28 other languages. But I for one have been championing his literary cause for over a decade. But my clarion calls have so far been met with silence in the Chinese communities. Perhaps Pramoedya is used to it now; As the modem Chinese writer Lu Xun once said in a classical poem, “Where there is silence, one hears thunder”. This time the ‘thunder’ has surely come to us from east of Java, from Bum Island w here Pramoedya spent fourteen long years (1965-79) and the best years of his life as a political prisoner.

Pramoedya Ananta Toer:In Memoriam

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Leo Ou-Fan Lee is Professor ofHumanities at The Chinese University ofHong Kong and has taught at UCLA, Chicago, Indiana, Princeton, and Harvard.

Section Two ON THE WORK

Pramoedya, Racialism and Socialism Max Lane Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s The Chinese in Indonesia is a polemical work against the racism and the racialist ideas and policies being propagated in Indonesia in 1959 and 1960, and associated with a government policy aimed at excluding Chinese Indonesians from operating as merchants in middle and small town Indonesia. The book is based on a series of articles on the front paue of Jakarta's biggest selling daily new spaper at the time, Bintang Timur, published by one of Indonesia's great new spaper and publishing figures, the late Hasyim Rahman. Hasyim was to be a close collaborator w ith Toer during his years in Suharto’s prisons (1965-79) and for more than a decade after that. It is remarkable that Toer’s work is the only significant writing opposing anti-Chinese racism from that period, outside of articles w ritten by Chinese community leaders themselves, especially those associated with the left-oriented BAPERKI group. This contrasts markedly with the situation in Indonesia today, where there is a relative flourishing of commentary' on this issue and an increase in debate about the so-called ‘Chinese question’ by Chinese-Indonesian intellectuals and community activists.

This very active increase in writing is a direct product of the increased strength of a new democratic agenda that developed during the period of the Suharto regime in opposition to that regime. This agenda comprises a w ide range of differing emphasis, but all w ithin a framework that demands recognition of basic human and democratic rights, and an end to all discrimination. The creation of this agenda has been one of the most fundamental features of the last 30 years of Indonesian history. An ‘agenda', of course, does not exist in the abstract separate from any agents, any human beings, developing its ideas, advocating for them, and mobilising support for these ideas. In Indonesia, there have developed scores of groups out of the movement against Suharto, especially during the 1980s and 1990s. These were think tanks and research institutes, new trade unions, peasant organisations and women's groups, human rights organisations.

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political organisations and most prolifically, ad hoc action committees. These have sprung up in relation to every kind of injustice and abuse and in opposition to more general anti-democratic phenomenon such as the presence of the military in political life and institutions.

These scores, indeed hundreds, of organisations still only directly involve a small percentage of the population. Indonesia has not yet re-entered a situation such as that existed in the 1950s and 1960s where literally millions of people were active in political or social movement organisations. In 1965, the new ruling group, headed by General Suharto, concentrated its full military might to murder between 1 and 2 million of these people, imprison tens of thousands of others, and thus terrorise tens of millions more people away from such political involvement and activity. The leading mass activist organisations, the Indonesian Communist Party (PK.I), as well as its associated mass organisations were not only subject to this mass violence but also banned. Other mass organisations, such as the Indonesian National Party and its affiliates, were not banned but they too saw thousands of their members killed and imprisoned. The policies of suppression were implemented in a sustained manner for the last 30 years, accompanied by a massive programme of falsification of history' and general de-education in social and political affairs through the formal education system.

The re-emergence of activist politics and of political and other civic organisations campaigning for democratic issues and values takes place within the framework of a recovery from these three decades of oppression. Toer’s book, The Chinese in Indonesia, was re-published in 1998 after the fall of the Suharto dictatorship by a small publisher located among a section of these new democratic agenda organisations.

However, the significance of the rise of the new democratic agenda activity is not just that it brought into being groups and individuals interested and capable of re-publishing this book. It is also highly significant, indeed central, that Toer’s arguments in this book are assessed and re-located forty years later. At one level, it points to the reality that the issues of discrimination against Chinese-Indonesians worsened during the period of dictatorship

pramoedya. Racialism and Socialism

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and remain today, such that democratic intellectuals, including ChineseIndonesians, considered that the book was still relevant. At another level, it points to a framework in which Toer’s ideas about the process of integration of the Chinese-Indonesian community into the Indonesian nation can be re­ evaluated. Discrimination and integration: the dictatorship’s framework

Ironically, the Suharto dictatorship adopted one idea which Toer argued for, namely, that capital owned by Chinese-Indonesians should not be viewed as foreign capital but rather domestic Indonesian capital that should be mobilised for production. The overlap with Toer’s views was. however, only superficial. Toer argued for an end to the discrimination against ChineseIndonesian traders and a policy of better organising and mobilising their capital and skills, especially in the realm of distribution, within a framework of ‘finishing the Indonesian revolution’ with its components of ‘nation­ building’, ‘character building’ and ‘guided democracy’ all as part of trying to move Indonesia into a framework of ‘socialism a la Indonesia’, Indonesian socialism.

Toer repeatedly asks the question in his book: Why criticise the Chinese for being good at making money and profits when Indonesia remains a liberal, market economy which is oriented around making money and profits? As long as no law is broken, then what is the problem? If there are things happening which are considered to be harmful to society, then change the laws to outlaw' them and prosecute anybody of whatever background who breaks these laws. At the same time, he argues from w ithin a framework that was gaining increasing dominance in the early 1960s, namely, that Indonesia should move towards becoming a socialist economy. Indonesia under Suharto’s dictatorship totally reversed this direction. When Suharto’s cabinet issued its 1967 ‘Basic Solution to the Chinese Problem’ and recognised their capital as domestic capital ‘in the hands of aliens’ as distinct from foreign capital, they set in motion a policy of integrating Chinese-Indonesian businesses into the economic strategy and business practices of Suharto's Indonesia. At the top, this strategy and practice w as characterised by deeply embedded crony ism and corruption, into which a layer of Chinese-Indonesian business people also became integrated.

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But this was not the only level at which Chinese-Indonesian capital was integrated. First, a Chinese middle layer of business people and professionals were absorbed into the rapidly expanding business scene that was fuelled, especially after 1975, by oil and gas revenues and concentrated in a few large metropolitan centres. Second, however, provincial and small town Chinese-Indonesian businesses, like medium and small businesses owned by non-Chinese, remain contained at the provincial and small town level. The huge conglomerate capital blocked their advance upwards towards becoming national scale businesses.

Chinese-Indonesians among the toiling sectors of the population, labourers and tradesmen in the cities, and in the mining and port areas of Bangka and Belitung in Sumatra as well as small farmers in areas such as West Kalimantan, suffered the same ups and mostly downs of the rest of the working population. It should be noted that farmers and labourers are where the representation of Chinese-Indonesians as a percentage of the population is the highest. For example, in the 2000 census, the concentration of the ChineseIndonesian population was 11.54 % in Bangka-Belitung and 9.54% in West Kalimantan, compared with 5.54% in Jakarta and around 1% or less in most other areas. Suryadinata. Arifin and Ananta (2003 p 77-78) estimate that the percentage of Chinese-Indonesians in the total population is between 1.05% and 1.49%, although they note the 2000 Population Census collected data on ethnicity and race based on self-identification. They provide some speculative calculations to account for this, meaning that the percentage may be closer to 2%. It is important to note how this figure averages out higher concentrations of Chinese-Indonesians in mining, port and farming areas, where they are often labourers and poorer.

In any case, the business culture into which larger and betterconnected Chinese business people were integrated was a culture developed by non-Chinese Indonesian military’ politicians who quickly enriched themselves and turned themselves into heads of business families. Transparency International, an international corruption watchdog, estimated in a report issued in March 2004, that Suharto himself accumulated through corruption somewhere between USS 15 and S35 billion. This was the reverse of the kind of economic integration for which Toer was arguing for in 1960. It w as this kind of integration which has fostered the spread of the identification of wealthy Chinese business people, know n as cukong, with the phenomenon of cronyism

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d corruption- Names like Liem Sioe Liong and Bob Hasan have entered popular political culture as symbols of the cukong. While the process of cukong-crony integration into the most lucrative parts of the economy continued, it is also important to note that the oft-heard statement that “the Chinese own 30% of the economy” is both factually wrong as well as a misrepresentation of the social composition of the Chinese-Indonesian population, as has already been discussed. The single bicaest economic bloc operating in the Indonesian economy is not the ChineseIndonesians, but rather the international banks and transnational corporations operating out of North America, Western Europe, Japan and Australia. Apart from the hold that the International Monetary Fund and World Bank have over the economy through using debt as a lever, there is hardly a major high profit sector of the Indonesian economy where international capital does not dominate, either directly or indirectly.

The emergence of a high-profile (but tiny) group of ChineseIndonesian businessmen, well connected to the former dictator, has been probably the major form of political integration of the Chinese-Indonesians. This is also a reversal of the trend that had been developing in Indonesia at the time Toer wrote his book.

In the 1960s, Indonesian politics was characterised by a deep and fundamental battle around the question: what kind of country should independent Indonesia become? Political integration of the Chinese-Indonesians was viewed by Toer, and by a large number of Chinese-Indonesian leaders, as something that would be achieved by Chinese-Indonesians, like all Indonesians, joining the struggle to finishing the Indonesian national revolution and consolidating Indonesian socialism. The largest active Chinese-Indonesian organisation during the sixties was BAPERKI (Badan Permusyawaratan Kew arganegaraan Indonesia - Consultative Body of Indonesian Citizens) which adopted this perspective. It was banned and its leaders also arrested in 1965, at the same time as Toer and hundreds of thousands of others. Anti-Chinese prejudice generated by bourgeois interests

For Toer, moving in a socialist direction was a crucial part of the solution to discrimination against the Chinese as well as the framework that could

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facilitate full integration. He repeatedly illustrates how the whole history of discrimination against and oppression of the Chinese has been driven by the dynamics of competition among sections of capital, imperial as well as domestic. The Dutch, he explains, afraid that there were more Chinese active in trade compared to the initial tiny number of Dutch were the first to act against them, even to the extent of carrying out horrific massacres. All the early regulations taking away the rights of Chinese subjects to live and work where they wish w ere instituted by the Dutch.

Evolving in an atmosphere where Dutch policy had ghettoised them, later tensions between Chinese and non-Chinese inhabitants of the ‘Indies’ were, argues Toer, initially stimulated by Dutch manipulation and then further developed as a result of rivalry with non-Chinese aspiring capitalists. He attacks mercilessly the commercial motives of such aspiring business people behind the 1959 regulations against which the book is aimed. Toer’s point here is that the origins of anti-Chinese hatred cannot be traced back to any inherent problems between Chinese and non-Chinese workers and peasants, even if, by the 1960s, anti-Chinese racial stereotyping had gained some influence amongst sections of the masses.

Under Suharto’s New Order dictatorship, this dynamic remained, but was given some new twists. First, the relationship between the country’s top capitalists, namely the Suharto family, and other military or politician families, foreign businesses and the largest Chinese-Indonesian capitalists, became increasingly characterised by partnership rather than rivalry. However, the Chinese cukong businessmen, alongside but often more easily appearing alien than the cronies generally, did emerge as a symbol of the blockage that the huge capital of the crony conglomerates represented to the thousands, even tens of thousands, of aspiring medium and small business people that emerged in Indonesia’s oil revenue fuelled business world.

Thus, as soon as the economy went into severe crisis in 1997, various political figures, many of whom had previously been in partnership with Chinese-Indonesian businessmen, started to scapegoat them, often using the issue of capital flight. There was a massive campaign from within the Indonesian political and military elite to blame the Chinese for the economic crisis. Then when the crony conglomerates were dislodged from their position

pramoedya Racialism and Socialism

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of dictatorial political power in May 1998, there were attempts to revive campaigns to dislodge Chinese-Indonesian businesses at all levels. There was one attempt to start such a campaign during the Habibie presidency (1998-99) by the Minister of Cooperatives and Small Enterprises, Adi Sasono, when he beean promoting the government ‘cooperatives’ as an alternative distribution system. This echoed almost exactly the propaganda that Toer was answering in 1959 and 1960, even the same claim that there was no specific targeting of Chinese.

Even as late as August 2003, there was an attempt to include a reference for preferential treatment to ‘native businesses’ in a key Economic Recovery' Decree being considered by the People’s Consultative Assembly. Public opposition, generated initially by the democratic agenda advocacy groups, eventually forced the deletion of this reference.

In the post-Suharto period, one result of the long period of partnership between Chinese-Indonesian business cronies and the Suharto family and other leading non-Chinese business groups, is that the word cukong, as a symbol of big business wealth and accumulation, has been over-taken by that of kroni itself. Tensions between smaller businesses and ‘Chinese’ businesses became increasing conflated with anti-kroni and anli-konglomerat sentiment in general. Of course, when Toer wrote his book, the massive business conglomerates built by Suharto’s family did not exist. Nation-building, Indonesian socialism and double alienation

The other phenomenon which ended in 1965 upon the seizure of power by the Suharto clique was the central position occupied by the battle over what kind of country Indonesia should become. The violent suppression of the country’s largest political organisations, involving at least 20 million active members, who had been campaigning under the banner of‘socialism a la Indonesia’, had ‘resolved’ this issue - at least for the time being. From the point of view' of the analysis presented by Toer, this would have also taken away the framework in which a real integration of the Chinese-Indonesians could have been achieved. If there was to be no struggle for a socialist Indonesia but rather simply an Indonesia driven by a ‘liberal economy’, where self-enrichment by

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whatever means available was the engine for all economic activity, as it was under Suharto, then there was no possibility of an integration based on joining with other inhabitants of Indonesia in the struggle to build the nation through a collective, conscious socialist effort.

For Toer. Chinese-Indonesians were indeed Indonesians, who happened to have their own specific traditions and culture. He saw no reason for them to give up these traditions simply to become Indonesian. He was a nationalist, but not an assimilationist nationalist. For Toer, the Indonesian nation w as still being created, as was its culture. In terms of national culture, Toer w as - and still is - in fact an internationalist, taking the best, most progressive and democratic ideas from wherever they had originated - as is the essence of his Child ofAll Nations, the second of his series of four books on the awakening of Indonesia, beginning with This Earth of Mankind. For Toer, Indonesia was ‘the earth of mankind’, not of some single race, and its ideas were to be drawn from the struggles of all nations. There was no Indonesian culture into w hich the Chinese-Indonesians could assimilate. There was rather an Indonesian culture to be created. In this latter struggle, perhaps traditions and cultures might need to be abandoned, but the same applied to other traditions as well, especially that of the Javanese. Under the Suharto dictatorship, however, the Chinese-Indonesians’ rights to express their traditions and cultures were suppressed. The Suharto dictatorship instituted policies explicitly banning Chinese traditional cultural practices from being carried out in public. Chinese language schools were suppressed as w as the use of the Chinese language in the media. The pressure for Chinese-Indonesians to change their name to an ‘Indonesian’ name was increased. This pressure had been around before 1965 but had been contained by public statements by President Soekamo who often raised the question which Toer would have also asked - what is an Indonesian name? In a speech at the main Jakarta sports stadium in 1963 at a rally organised by BAPHRK.I, Soekamo expressed his viewr on this issue with the following words. But my personal feelings, my brothers and sisters, is that I don’t recognise difference in blood. The samefor names. For example my own name, Soekamo. Is it an original Indonesian name? No! It comesfrom Sanskrit, ‘sukarna'. Ah, over there Abdulgani, Arab; yes brother

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Roeslan has an Arab name. And then there is Pak AU, his name is mixed. Ali is Arab, Sastramidjaaja is from Sanskrit. ... Ifyou want to be an Indonesian, there is no need to change your name. You want to keep Thiam yiio as your name. fine, why not? ... Why do people demand that Chinese-Indonesians change their name if they want to become a citizen of the Republic of Indonesia? ... No! This is a private matter... (Speech by Soekamo at the 8th National Congress of BAPERKI, Jakarta. 14 March 1963) Chinese-Indonesians were subject to a double oppression under Suharto. They were banned from freely practicing their traditions, while along with the rest of the population, disenfranchised from meaningful political participation, namely, in the political struggle to shape Indonesian society. Reformasi. Chinese-Indonesians and Toer’s ideas

We often read at the moment how reformasi is dead, or that it has already failed. When the student movement against Suharto reached its peak in May 1998. the cry for reformasi total also reached its height. There w ere only a few' attempts, perhaps even only one attempt (that of the People's Democratic Party, PRD) to set out comprehensively and analytically what ‘total reformation' might mean. However, among students and democracy activists of every stripe and from every sector, there was a strong sense as to which direction such a ‘total reformation' should head. Among the mass of the population too, there were some well accepted components to this: an end to the pervasive presence of the military in politics, an end to corruption, and an end to the total disinterest of the national elite in the material and cultural welfare of the mass of the population. The military, though entrenched as a real power in Papua, no longer play the same pervasive role in day-to-day politics at every level of society. As an institution, the Armed Forces remains intact and its generals are all too eager to return to the centre for pow er, but - for the time being at least - they have been forced away from the centre and must compete for a share of power with other factions of the elite. But corruption and the gap between the rich and

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The Chinese in Indon esia

poor continue to grow and to be observ ed with a lack of interest by the national elite. Reformasi has not delivered an end to corruption or elite apathy. And while dislodged to the edges, the army remains ready for a comeback. But this perspective on reformasi is too narrow and misses the essence of the process. There was never any clear program or agenda for reformasi. The term reformasi only emerged very late in the movement against Suharto as it headed for ultimate confrontation in May 1998 and then became the slogan for the most popular campaign for change since the fall of Suharto. However reformasi can only really be understood as an extension, a continuation, and a qualitative escalation of a process that began back in the 1970s.

The violent repression by the Suharto regime during 1965-66 of all those struggling for ‘socialism a la Indonesia’, through the very magnitude of its violence and the totalitarian nature of the control that followed, had ended a period of Indonesian history - its only history up until then - that had been marked by the central place occupied by the open struggle to decide just what kind of country and society Indonesia would be. Such struggles in the histories of most countries are associated with their great modem revolutions. Suharto in 1965-66 in Indonesia used brute force to suppress the processes of the Indonesian national revolution. However, by the mid-1970s, the struggle over what kind of country and society Indonesia should be had begun again, even though suppressed, partial and hesitant. Huge sections of society, especially among peasants and labourers, were still traumatised by the terror of 1965-66. Millions of activists had disappeared from politics. A whole world of ideas-the ideas of‘socialism a la Indonesia’, - had vanished, just likes the scores of books and stories written by Pramoedya Ananta Toer and other writers of the Left. The great Suharto falsification of history had begun. Open party politics was banned among the mass of the population.

All the same, a new student movement and the poems, plays and songs of popular artists, as well as courageous statements by other dissidents, put the issue back on the agenda. When exactly did this hesitant, very partial movement for reformasi begin? While there is no one event that comes to mind in this respect, I think that when the play The Struggle of the Naga Tribe, written by Rendra, was performed in 1974, it pointed to the fact that the battle

'

oedya. Racialism and Socialism

23

rthe, idvllic. socially just Naga, with collective control over the land.

one woun became aa truly national celebrity until his imprisonment by Suharto in 1978 for one year.

At that time. Pramoedya Ananta Toer was in the prison camp on Buru island in eastern Indonesia, nine years into his imprisonment. It is not the place here to try to recount the whole process that unfolded from the mid-1970s. What is crucial to note is that reformasi since 1998 is not so much some kind of reform package or even some kind of transition process, implying as the word ‘transition’ does, a conscious movement from A to B. Rather it is the moving back onto centre stage the open conflict over what kind of Indonesia people want - that surely is an implication of the word ‘total’ in •total reformation’.

There is a deeper issue here, obvious if one thinks about the words: •‘moving back onto centre stage the open conflict over what kind of Indonesia”. It presumes that this issue has not yet been resolved, despite 1965 and the New Order. It presumes that it is not a settled question. 1965 suppressed a revolution which was still unfinished, as Toer put it in a 2002 Independence Day speech. Now it was reviving. In the same speech, Toer also pointed out that the hesitations in this process were due to a break w ith the continuity of the earlier revolution. He told the packed crowd in a Jakarta venue:

The problem is that the starting point of the younger generation and students, and also the peasants in the interior, has been ‘reformasi’: a movement to restructure and give new content to the New Order. This not only involves avoiding but even negating our national history. We nationally have been born through the national revolution and we succeeded in defeating imperialism, we did that. The stage of the national revolution was followed in 1950 by the stage

24

The Chinese in Indon

of the struggle to complete the revolution: now it has been extinguished completely. Forget about things like ‘nation and character building’, instead, now there have been more and more actions murdering the nation, including reviving the old colonial practice of sending Javanese soldiers to the regions to subdue the regions outside Java. Why is all this continuing to happen? My conclusion is that the course of developments since the New Order has turned its back on history as a source of understanding the proper starting point, thereby losing direction, and therefore does not know its destination. In other words, it has lost its way.

(‘17 August 1945’, Inside Indonesia, Oct-Dec 2003) The ideas raised by the human rights, labour, peasant, agrarian reform, environment, women, student, fishing folk and scores of other organisations - including those campaigning for the rights of Chinese-Indonesians - have all been contributing elements and energy to the new democratic agenda and the reformasi process. Toer’s view is that this reformasi process can only truly give birth to a new national leadership if there is a realisation that it must be seen as a resumption of the struggle to complete the original revolution. Despite the partial character of the process, underlined by Toer’s remarks about these limitations in consciousness, there can be no doubt that more than twenty years of anti-dictatorship struggle has produced at least the ingredients for both a total reformation policy platform as well as the start to relearn and reassimilate Indonesian revolutionary history. The latter indeed has been one of the main tasks of the six historical novels and one historical play that Toer himself wrote on Buru Island. It was one of the purposes of the 1998 re-publication of The Chinese in Indonesia. It is manifested in the emergence of new organisations explicitly working for a new historical awareness and at de-falsifying the history produced under the dictatorship.

For the majority of Chinese-Indonesians. reformasi - in this sense of a struggled resumed - brings with it many opportunities. First, the emphasis

pran1°e^' a

Racialism and Socialism

25

d mocracy and justice in the reformasi consciousness has meant that the of discrimination against Chinese-Indonesians could not be defended ffidal policy of the State. The ban of practicing Chinese tradition in public repealed very quickly after Suharto was forced to resign. Imlek, a Chinese W ditional day of thanksgiving prayer to the Creator, has become a public

on

h liday The ban on the use of Chinese writing was lifted. The requirement for Chinese-Indonesians to present proof of their citizenship before their children ould get birth certificates, or before they could obtain marriage certificates or other official documents was ended, although many parts of the bureaucracy still refuse to implement this. Discrimination by the state apparatus has by no means disappeared.

Second, a more honourable, productive and democratic avenue for integration has opened up again - in the same spirit as Toer's ideas about joining the struggle for nation building and socialism and finishing the revolution. No Ionizer is the only form of real integration being encouraged that simply of joining the rest of the elite in self-enrichment, although that option is by all means still there for those who choose it and have the w herewithal to join the oame. Now, once again, politics is the potential integrator. Politics may divide alontz ideological and class lines, but it can integrate across ethnic line when there is an open battle over which w ay a society should and can develop. Even at this very early stage - w here everything is hesitant and partial - the open participation of Chinese in political activity is very evident. There are many new Chinese-Indonesian civil organisations campaigning against discrimination. The Jakarta Post new spaper has identified at least 172 Chinese standing for election in the 2004 General Elections, for either the national or local parliaments, compared to just a few before 1998. There is now a plethora of activist organisations raising the issue of discrimination, often more dynamically and clearly than the still mainly elite-based political parties. The issue of the history and position of the Chinese-Indonesians is constantly being debated in the media, with many Chinese-Indonesians also contributing articles. Any assessment of what has been achieved so far in comparison writh what still needs to be done will underline how much more needs to be done. However, a comparison w ith what preceded May 1998 points to a huge leap forward.

These initial developments also re-atfirm the relevance of Toer’s ideas, and those of the Chinese-Indonesians who argued for integration through

26

The Chinese in Indonesia

joining the struggle to complete the revolution. In an interview with the Straits Times in August 2001, Toer told the journalist something which he has often repeated: “Reformasi is just part of a bigger social revolution, just a beginning which many do not realise.” His arguments in The Chinese in Indonesia on the question of the integration of Chinese-Indonesians remain valid precisely because he is also correct on this question as well. Humanism and the national revolution

Toer begins The Chinese in Indonesia with an elementary introduction to the humanist outlook, rejecting collective punishment, racial prejudice and stereotyping and defending freedom of religion and traditions. A favourite saying of Toer is that it is the duty of humans to be human and not take on the demeaning behaviour of beasts. As the first chapter of The Chinese in Indonesia shows, he is also very aware that awareness of a human quality, of ‘kemanusiaan’, of humanity, has developed through history and that early humans did not at all see each other as from the same race, sharing the same earth of mankind, of being the child of all nations.

He knows that the notion of humanity both as a quality and a material reality - collective humanity bound ultimately by the same fate - has had a history of its own, travelling specific differing courses through time and place. His works, especially his works from the 1960s onwards, reflect an increasing internationalisation of his sources and ideas. His Buru Quartet (This Earth of Mankind, Child ofAll Nations, Footsteps and House of Glass) traces some of the history of this notion in Indonesia and its relationship with the emancipatory thinking of the revolutions of France, the Netherlands, America, China and the Philippines. In Indonesia, ‘humanity’ as a category; as distinct from ethnic, racial or religious grouping, has been no less tied up with a national revolution than in Europe and North America, where the concepts of the rights ofman also became embodied in various revolutionary manifestos (although later dropped in practice in favour of the rights of property holders). This idea is also prevalent all through Pramoedya’s The Chinese in Indonesia. It is evident in his explicit elaboration of a humanist outlook and in his constant search for the truth about the role of Chinese living in the archipelago and their contributions to the advancement of society and culture and their contributions to the creation of Indonesia.

pramoedya, Racialism and Socialism

27

He wrote this book before the 1965-66 counter-revolution against the national revolution, so he did not discuss the implications for the Chinese of an end, reversal or suppression of the national revolutionary process. But now the record speaks for itself. Rolling back the national revolution devastated and narrowed grossly the internationalisation of Indonesian national culture. Before 1965, a national culture was being forged from an engagement from within the Indonesian historical process with all the world’s revolutionary ideas, bourgeois and proletarian - Sun Yat Sen, Mao Tse Tung, Marx, Lenin, Jefferson, Lincoln, Rousseau, Rizal, not to mention from the world of the arts and literature. Under the New Order, the engagement with the international was reduced to the non-ideas of Western consumer culture, of the babble of MTV. advertising, soap, and the worst of Hollywood.

The nation was sold off commercially and put into hock to the Western states in the Consultative Group on Indonesia (CGI), which provided most of Indonesia’s conditional loans, and to the IMF, so its cultural development was sold off as well. This is easily done w hen national history is falsified and then learned by rote in school. Here the Chinese-Indonesians’ burden was also deeper under the New Order. Not only were they were denied the right of expression of their traditions but, like all Indonesians, denied a role in the development of their national Indonesian culture. But there is a deeper, grimmer, consequence of the suppression of the revolution. It is not only that the w orld of ideas has been impoverished for the mass of the population, but the very concept of ‘humanity’ is made fragile. The magnitude of the violence, the mass murder, that Suharto and his generals (and his American, British and Australian backers) thought necessary negated any development of the concept of humanity from the very' beginning. In his 2002 Independence Day speech, Toer quotes a former New' Order security boss as saying that there w ere 2 million people killed in the process of establishing the New Order. That is not the basis of developing and embedding ‘humanity’ as part of an established cultural outlook.

As soon as this anti-human, counter-revolutionary violence began in 1965, some Chinese became victims. In speeches from October 1965 onwards, Soekamo - who had in fact already lost real power to General Suharto - constantly protested against racialist incidents. He identified the dynamics of where anti-Chinese agitation came from in the aftermath of the attempted

28

The Chinese in Indonesia

mutiny in the Armed Forces known as the 30th September Movement, that Toer had provided in the situation of 1960. In a speech at the Presidential Palace to cabinet ministers on 23 October, 1965, Soekamo criticised the way many groups were falsely accusing their rivals of being supporters of the 30th September Movement and therefore liable for punishment: death, arrest or having their property seized.

In the economic arena for example, there are those economic groups, a grouping of businessmen, who have for some time now, for many years faced competition and suffered blows from the Chinese in the commercial arena. Yes, it is often said: "Chinezen zijn pienterder dan wij” (the Chinese are cleverer than us) in commerce. But then this is manipulated by our economic grouping, those that have been hit by competition, been defeated in commercial rivalryfrom the Chinese. They come to me and say that these other groups have supported the 30th September Movement, that they are communists, supported by the People's Republic of China. But with the people saying this, this is the first time ever in their whole life they have ever said a word about politics. They had never talked about politics before. They just made money, made money, made money, in business.

(Revolusi Belum Selesai, Jakarta, 2003) From the very moment that Suharto took over and began his purge, antiChinese sentiment was propagated by sections of businesses for their own purposes. As a result, racialist attacks on Chinese did take place during the violent purges of 1965-66 although the business-motivated agitation never succeeded in provoking widespread attacks on the Chinese. The ethnicity of those massacred in 1965-66 was, as the Australian historian of Indonesian Chinese, Charles Coppel wrote: “... their ethnicity was overwhelmingly Javanese and Balinese rather than Chinese. If anything the ethnic Chinese were underrepresented in the massacres which were directed against members of the Indonesian Communist Party and its affiliated organisations (in which the Chinese were also under-represented). Most killings took place in the rural

pramoedya- Racialism and Socialism

29

of Java and Bali. In these islands most of the ethnic Chinese resided in areas urban areas.

Interestingly and again pointing to a simple monetary motivation jjging behind what did happen to the Chinese-Indonesians at that time, Coppel also writes: “... in most cases violence against them took the form of destruction of property (buildings, shops, houses, motor vehicles) rather than violence against Chinese people themselves.” Assets were being destroyed.

In some w ays, the mass murders had the same depth of inhumanity as the Holocaust against the Jew ish people in Europe under the Nazis, which Toer also discusses in this book. But in Indonesia, the mass killings took place before the national revolution was finished, before Indonesian culture has been established in the same way that European culture had been by its revolutions. Establishing itself on a massive and violent denial of humanity, engaging only with those aspects of modem international culture with least humane qualities, preventing the development of a real forward movement in cultural life at the mass level beyond what was left from the days of colonial and feudal despotic rule, and crushing the cultural energy of the popular mass movements, the New' Order created circumstances where ‘humanity’ becomes a category easily quashed. In this environment, it is not surprising that demagogues - many of whom are suspected to be linked to the army - wanting to divert attention away from their own role in Indonesia’s recent decline into crisis have had some success in scapegoating ChineseIndonesians on a racialist basis and generating ugly outbreaks of anti-Chinese violence, even if rare and involving few people. Incidents of violence against Chinese took place several times during the New Order. The worst case was undoubtedly the multiple rapes - and sometimes rape and murder - of scores of Chinese w omen during the riots of May 1998. Apart from rape and murder, there were many documented cases of public stripping of Chinese women. However, such events have not re-occurred in the period since reformasi has been unfolding.

Whether it was the deep inhumanity of the mass murders of 1965, the ‘shock therapy’ killings of thousands of released petty criminals ordered by Suharto in the 1980s, massacres and torture in Aceh, south Sumatra or East

The Chinese in Indonesia

30

Timor or the brutal public stripping, rapes and murders of Chinese women in 1998, some of Toer’s concluding words in his 1960 book still ring so true:

"... we cannot let go unopposed a process that violates values of humanity. We must step forward and state that everything that violates humanity is barbaric. And because human beings embody a humanist and humane spirit, a human being without such a spirit is, at best, only half human. The other half is beast. “ 1960 and 2005

Toer’s book w'as first published in 1960. Indonesia was at a different moment in its history. In Toer’s own words from his 2002 Independence Day speech, Indonesia in the 1960s was in “the stage of the struggle to complete the revolution”. In fact, in 1960, the forces wanting to ’’complete the revolution” and head in a socialist direction were just gathering their forces. President Soekamo had announced the idea of Guided Democracy. The old parliament and the interim 1950s Constitution had been dissolved and the original 1945 Constitution was revived and a new parliament formed - both by Presidential decree. However, Soekamo and the rest of the various groups on the left were by no means ascendant. Neither Guided Democracy nor Guided Economy ever won the chance to prove themselves in practice as systems of governance and economic development as President Soekamo and the left faced constant challenge and disruption from their opponents, including the military, who wielded enormous pow'er. The whole period was simply a battlefield. In this battlefield, Toer himself was an early casualty. He was detained by the martial law authorities in 1960 after they banned this book. No doubt the political and business interests Toer attacks in his book for spreading race hatred simply as a means to get their hands on Chinese-Indonesian assets took offence. The army itself then began to make its own stand on the position of Chinese-Indonesians very clear. It supported a small group of ChineseIndonesians advocating assimilation, even to the extent of calling on Chinese to inter-marry as a way to ‘de-sinify’ themselves. They advocated changing their names. The army supported a number of organisations advocating this, the most important one being the Institute for the Development of National Unity (LPK.B), established in 1963 and headed by Ong Tjong Hai, who changed

rainoedya. Racialism and Socialism

31

mp to Kristoforus Sindhunatha and was a naval officer. LPKB figures his name ° ere prominent in helping Suharto formulate the New Order laws banning uaditional Chinese cultural practices and pressuring Chinese-Indonesians to

change their names.

Toer was a year in gaol without charge and trial until almost the nd of i960. After that he was under house-arrest and then town-arrest for another extended period. President Soekamo had been unable to prevent the promulgation of the P.P. No 10 in the face of support for it from business interests and the military. He was only able to campaign publicly for a mild form of implementation. So Soekamo was unable to prevent Toer's detention. In a sign of things to come, Toer’s case was handled by an army major who was later to serve as Suharto’s cabinet secretary and then his Vice-President. The first battle in the “stage to complete the revolution” ended in 1965, when again Toer was a casualty being imprisoned again without charge or trial, this time for fourteen years. ‘Guerilla wrar’ and skirmishes marked the politics of the period between 1974 and 1997. Then in 1997 and 1998 another big battle delivered a death blow to dictatorship, although not to all the policies and institutions that Suharto’s dictatorship had put in place. But a new battlefield was opened. There have been more skirmishes and guerrilla forays but the big battles have yet to be joined, waiting - as Toer has said - for the young leaders of today’s skirmishes to connect with the revolutionary process that was unfolding before 1965 and was suppressed. There are some stark differences between the field of battle then and now. The movement for Indonesian socialism had millions of active supporters. Indonesia’s world of ideas and political culture was inhabited by the most radical and dynamic of ideas from all the world’s previous revolutions, bourgeois and proletarian. The world itself was in the midst of a global battle, with the People’s Republic of China at the forefront of what appeared to be a serious ideological challenge to the United States. Toer’s book is also a defence of Indonesia’s right to cooperate with the PRC and reflected his admiration for the huge leaps in quality of material and cultural life that Chinese societyhad achieved in only fifteen years since the Chinese revolution. During the 1960s, the accusation was made against the Chinese of being communist ‘fifth columnists” as well as of being too clever at business. Toer’s book also polemicises against this propaganda.

32

The Chinese in Indonesia!

Today, the Communist Party of the PRC is no longer a party of any ideological challenge on the global scene and the movement for socialism in Indonesia is just regrouping. The only serious socialist party, the People’s Democratic Party (PRD), is still small, even though it played a leading role in paving the way for the overthrow' of Suharto, at the cost of having several of its members being ’disappeared’. Toer, in his late 60s at that time, soon joined the PRD, a party where the average age of the membership w as probably less than 25. In semi-retirement, he could not be an active member, but he w'as re-affirming his commitment to continuing ’’the completion of the revolution” and expressing his solidarity with the youth.

9

1

Neither had he finished speaking out on the issue of racialism. -■ Indeed, his agreement to the re-publishing of The Chinese in Indonesia is also a re-affirmation of his commitment on this issue. As a writer, he has also edited the publication Tempo Doeloe,, a collection of pre-Indonesian literature w hich includes some of the Chinese w ho pioneered the use of Malay as a modern literary language. He also edited the memoirs of Oei Tjoe Tjat, a leading member of the Chinese-Indonesian community who rose to become a minister 1 in the Soekamo government and suffered imprisonment like Toer after 1965. He has helped promote the publication of books by and about Siauw Giok Tjhan, the former head of BAPERKI, the most important progressive, prointegrationist Chinese-Indonesian community organisation until it was banned in 1965. In this regard, he remains an outspoken advocate of the need to study and publish the real history of the Chinese in Indonesia, just as he advocated in 1960.

For Toer, the struggle for the Indonesian nation, for an internationalist and humanist national culture, for Indonesian socialism, and for an end to prejudice against Chinese-Indonesians and Chinese elsewhere w'ere all elements of the struggle to complete the revolution. They were all tied together: ... every domestic uproar over race will develop to fuel the rise ofprovincialism in Indonesia, which has been eradicated so far by the Indonesian people, not only with great difficulty but also taking more than one generation. The spread ofthese non-revolutionary - in fact, counter-revolutionary - processes can eventually negate the revolution itself

amoedya, Racialism and Socialism

33

C unter-revolution did take place. Being mostly a part of the Indonesian . Chinese-Indonesians suffered the same fundamental deprivation of e counter-revolution: denial of participation in politics and in the struggle not just build, but also define, nation and society. Some joined the counter­ revolution and partnered up with the generals too.

The fall of Suharto was a major blow to this counter-revolution. There is now space for debate and for more struggle and there is a democratic agenda as a legacy from a previous twenty years of struggle against dictatorship, an agenda which has legitimised and created the ideological space for the formation of many groups campaigning for an end to anti-Chinese prejudice and discrimination. The battle on all fronts can and has already resumed in the

open. But there still is a battle. Despite the reform of the laws, there are still myriads of complaints by Chinese-Indonesians that the bureaucracy still demands that they present a Letter of Proof of Indonesian Citizenship (known as the SBKRI), a document that recent reforms have formally abolished. Harassment and payments are all associated with these documents, which are the central symbol and indeed concrete manifestation of ongoing discrimination.

In Kompas newspaper on 11 February 2004, the 67 year old Tan Joe Hok was interviewed. Tan Joe Hok had represented Indonesia in 1959 in the All England badminton finals and had won a crown for Indonesia, yet in 2004, he was still not a full citizen. He could not obtain a SBKRI. According to the new laws, he should only need to present a birth certificate to show that he or his children or grandchildren are Indonesian. However, the bureaucracy, despite the promises from the political elite in power, still demanded the SBKRI. In this interview, Tan Joe Hok’s final comments were: “It wouldn’t be hard for us to move overseas but we don’t want to do that. Because we are Indonesians. Even if it was raining gold overseas, we will remain here, in the land where Indonesian blood has been spilled.” On the same day, Kompas also printed another article on the same theme. It started with a quote from a 32 year-old Chinese-Indonesian woman living in a poor area of West Jakarta. Her husband was a labourer. “Since I was bom, married and had three children, I have never had an I.D. card or birth

34

The Chinese in Indon esi

certificate. I don’t even have a marriage certificate.” This family received no visits to register them as voters in the 2004 General Elections. The reason: they had never been able to get a SBK.R.I.

Reformasi is not a new system or program; it is the name of the contemporary, newly opened arena of struggle. This is true for Indonesian society as a whole, including Chinese-Indonesians. For Toer, the prosecution of struggle within this new arena requires continuity w ith the revolution that started at the beginning of the century, consolidated with the w inning of political independence in 1945, being completed in the 1950s and especially early 1960s, and then suppressed in 1965. Thus he ended his 2002 speech with a message to Indonesia’s youth:

“Return to the phase of completing the revolution and complete it. ” Max Lane is Lecturer in Asian Studies, School of Languages and Cultures, University of Sydney. He is also the pre-eminent translator of the works of Pramoedya Ananta Toer, including The Chinese in Indonesia.

‘Strangers who are not Foreign’ pramoedya’s Disturbing Language on the Chinese of Indonesia Sumit K. Mandal Indonesia now declines, and as long as the challenge of history’ still goes unanswered by her, she will disintegrate... The price of things rises, all becomes more difficult. Gangs terrorise. The army terrorises. All becomes terror. Soe Hok Gie diary entry, December 1959 Do you then wonder that there is turbulence amongst us? To us, it is normal, and we have become accustomed to riding the whirlwind. I understand well that to the man outside, often the picture must seem one of chaos and disorder, of coups and counter coups. Still, this turbulence is our own [.] Soekamo before the United Nations General Assembly, September 1960

[Chinese] are not voyagers from abroad landed on our shores. They have been here as long as our own ancestors. They are, in fact, Indonesians, who live and die in Indonesia also, but because of a certain political veiling, suddenly become strangers who are not foreign. Pramoedya Ananta Toer March I9601 'Soe Hok Gie, Catatan Seorang Demonstran (Jakarta: Lembaga Penelitian, Pendidikan dan Penerangan Ekonomi dan Sosial [LP3ES], 1983), p. 92; Roger Smith, ed., Southeast Asia: Documents of Political Development and Change (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1974), p. 202; Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Hoa Kiau di Indonesia (Jakarta: Bintang Press, 1960), p. 14.

36

The Chinese in Indon

Oddly enough Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s historical critique of the Indonesian nation, his 1960 publication Hoa Kian di Indonesia (henceforth Hoa Kiau) or ‘The Chinese in Indonesia’, has gone largely unnoticed by scholars.2 *The book was a response to the ruthless pogroms against Chinese Indonesians launched by the army in the years 1959-1960, the culmination of the growth of anti-Chinese politics since 1956? Scholars have typically read this work as an outright defence of the Chinese and at best it is described as “an effective piece of argumentative journalism which illustrates the enlightened view of a small group of sophisticated intellectuals”.4 And at worst, it has been seen on the slim evidence of similar ‘social analysis’ and ‘jargon’ as an indication of the author’s political alignment with the Partai Komunis Indonesia (Communist Party of Indonesia) which did consistently defend the rights of Chinese Indonesians.5 6Indeed, an important scholar of Indonesian literature says of Pramoedya’s development after 1956 that “the dream of the poet was exchanged for the action of the social fighter”? What this statement implies, as well as the view of Hoa Kiau mainly as a humanitarian defence, is the death of creativity and imagination. On the contrary, in the period of his heightened focus on non-fictional works, he produced imaginative and creative historical and social studies. Thus, Pramoedya’s growth as an author may be seen as putting the dream of the poet into the social fight. My reading of Hoa Kiau suggests that Pramoedya created a language and historical argument that went well beyond a simple defence of the Chinese in Indonesia. He dwelt precisely on the nation’s ambivalence about her ‘own’ and was unwilling to bow to the chauvinistic nationalism of the time that rested on the estrangement of the Chinese - in his eyes an intimate part of the nation. His perspective is expressed as much in this pithy contemporary solicitation for orders of the book: “Get to know Minorities of Indonesia in order to obtain :The single-word form of Hoakiau is used throughout the book except in its title. Tor the development of anti-Chinese politics see Herbert Feith, The Decline of Constitutional Democracy in Indonesia (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1962), pp. 481-87. 4G. William Skinner, “Chapter 3: The Chinese Minority” in RuthT. McVey, ed., Indonesia, Survey of World Cultures 12 (New Haven: Southeast Asia Studies, Yale University [By arrangement with Human Relations Area Files Press], 1967), p. 497. 5Savitri P. Scherer, “From Culture to Politics: The Writings of Pramoedya Ananta Toer, 1950-1965” dissertation, Australian National University, 1981, pp. 191-193. 6A. Teeuw, Modem Indonesian Literature, vol. 1, Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, Translation Series 10 (Dordrecht and Riverton: Foris Publications, 1986), p. 167.

§trangers

Who Are Not Foreign

37

which is clear about the Nation and People of Indonesia herself’.' As 8 ^Chinese politics grew in force, especially after the army became a slave

81,11 ambivalence about the place of Chinese in Indonesia gave way to their ° • al and political estrangement as ‘foreign’. Pramoedya’s perspective P • st anti-Chinese policies seemed to have had a powerful impact judging ® enthusiastic response of his readers and then the brutal action taken by the military- F°r the first time on the so’i °f independent Indonesia, he was mprisoned for more than a year without trial and under extremely adverse conditions. And the banning of Hoa Kiau soon after its publication marked the

first ever prohibition of his work. From his innovative use of Hoakiau, originally a Chinese word of recent vintage meaning ‘Overseas Chinese’, to mean ‘Chinese’ instead of the more common word Tionghoa, to other imaginative introductions into Indonesian, he creates a language that is strange in its time. While the historical and economic arguments that Pramoedya proposes each deserve full treatment, in this paper I pay attention to language. Just as necessary to an appreciation of the language are its provenance and historical context, which follow in the section below. Because of the inconclusive knowledge about significant details on Pramoedya’s life and work between 1959-1961, this section is also a chronology of sorts, beginning with the first appearance of Hoa Kiau until the end of his resulting imprisonment in 1961. It was only a few months after his release that he began editing the cultural page Lentera in the independent national daily Bintang Timur for which he has become notorious. On the whole, his development as an artist and public figure requires more analyses of short spans such as the one I propose here because the late 1950s and early 1960s were a time of great flux and Pramoedya’s personal and intellectual development went through more changes than is frequently assumed.

Background and chronology — 1959-1961

The book was a revised and expanded publication of a long epistolary essay that was serialised in Bintang Minggu, the Sunday edition of Bintang Timur. The letters addressed to “Ch. Hs-y in P” were written to counter Presidential* Bintang Minggu, March 27, 1960, p. 4. In Indonesian: Kenalilah Minorita2 Indonesia untuk dapatkan gambaran jang djelas tentang Tanah Air & Rakjat Indonesia sendiri. I have translated Tanah Air as ‘nation’ because the usual translation ‘country’ or ‘land’ does not cover the nationalist content of the word in this context.

38

The Chinese in Indonesi'

Regulation (Peraturan Presiden) No. 10 of 1959 (abbreviated as PP-10/I959, which forced all Chinese retail traders in rural areas to close down their businesses by 1 January 1960. Later, they were reproduced fully or in paj* by other dailies, no less than ten in all of Indonesia with a readership of least two million. Besides the Indonesian press, translations were distributed abroad by foreign news serv ices. Based on the obvious demand for knowledge of Chinese Indonesian history, Pramoedya produced the book version within the short space of three weeks with the help of numerous others. Ten thousand copies were printed and adapted translations into Chinese appeared in Indonesia, Burma. Cambodia and China.8 Pramoedya’s letters to “Ch. Hs-Y in P” began to appear in Bintang Minggu in November 1959.9 I estimate that these letters appeared in some twelve to sixteen weekly instalments for a four or five month span, until the end of February or the beginning of March 1960. The letters thus appeared in print during the period which witnessed the signing of PP-10/1959 by Soekamo on 16 November 1959 and the height of the domestic and international crises this measure provoked. While the measure was designed to put an end to most kinds of rural retail trade in the hands of Chinese, it w as left to local military commanders to decide if a presidential ban wfas also necessary in the interest of security.10 Only Colonel Kosasih, the military commander of West Java, in defiance of Soekamo’s wishes, imposed the presidential ban and began forced removals of Chinese traders from villages under his command. Lack of immediate compliance was dealt with ruthlessly: [The army] literally threw hundreds ofChinesefamilies into trucks and took them to hastily constructed relocation camps. Not infrequently, resistance met with harsh treatment.11 8This information is based on the colophon and ‘Perkenalan’ [Introduction], Hoa Kiau, n. p. and Hong Liu, ‘“The China Metaphor’: Indonesian Intellectuals and the PRC, 19491965,” diss., Ohio University, 1995, n. 77, p. 295. ’Scherer, “From Culture to Politics,” p. 187.1 have been able to locate only five segments of these letters which appeared in Bintang Minggu on January 17 and 31, and February 7,14 and 21,1960. 10J. A. C. Mackie, “Anti-Chinese Outbreaks in Indonesia, 1959-68,” in J. A. C. Mackie, ed., The Chinese in Indonesia: Five Essays (Honolulu: The University Press of Hawaii in association with The Australian Institute of International Affairs, 1976), pp. 89-90. "David Mozingo, Chinese Policy toward Indonesia, 1949-1967 (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1976), p. 167.

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Colonel Kosasih’s actions disrupted Soekamo’s efforts to maintain good diplomatic relations with China by applying pressure in favour of a milder PP-10/1959 in the weeks leading up to its formulation. The colonel’s actions had been so provocative that the Chinese embassy in Jakarta contravened his directive by asking the Chinese under his command to remain in their homes until Beijing found a solution to their predicament. Embassy personnel began to interv ene directly in defence of the Chinese who were being evicted. Such dramatic actions taken by a foreign power on Indonesian soil provoked a nationalist fury that forced Soekamo to become less conciliatory toward China. He backed the army when its commanders evicted the respective Chinese consuls in Selatpanjang, Sumatra and Samarinda, Kalimantan in April 1960. It was not until July 1960 in Cimahi, when Kosasih’s soldiers shot and killed two Chinese women who resisted eviction that Soekamo found the opportunity to rebuke the army leadership by transferring the colonel to a Sumatran command. What appeared to be an attempt by the army to disrupt the good relations Indonesia had enjoyed with China through the 1950s was put to an end. Formally, diplomatic relations improved only in April 1961, when the Chinese Foreign Minister visited Indonesia.12

Against this politically fraught climate, each segment of Pramoedya’s lone letters appeared in the front page and announced itself as part of a series for “Ch. Hs-Y in P”. The abbreviated name was recognisably Chinese and it would not have been hard for readers to guess that “P” stood for Peking. Indeed, anyone who had followed Pramoedya’s career and writings since 1956 knew of his admiration and fascination with China. And “Ch. Hs-Y” was none other than the Chen Xiaru, whom Pramoedya had noted in a caption to her picture in 1957 as the twenty-five year old translator from Malay into Chinese of Salah Asoehan. the novel by Abdoel Moeis published in 1928.13 Only a few months earlier, in 1956, he had been invited by the Chinese Writers’ Union to attend a commemoration of the twentieth anniversary of the death of the Chinese writer Lu Xun. It was on this trip that Pramoedya met Chen in her capacity as Indonesian language interpreter for the Writers’ Union.14 She also accompanied him in this capacity throughout his second trip to China in 1958 after attending the first Asia-Africa Writers Conference in Tashkent. Upon his i:The preceding section has been based on ibid., pp. 167-79. Pramoedya Ananta Toer, “Sedikit tentang Pengarang Tiongkok,” Mimbar Indonesia 11, 3 (January 19, 1957): 20. Her name appears in the caption as Tjen Sja Yu. 'Liu, ‘“The China Metaphor,”’ n. 32, p. 277 and n. 55, p. 285.

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The Chinese in Indon esia

return to Indonesia after his first visit, he told a reporter how impressed he was by Chen’s ability to translate Salah Asoehan, especially since she had completed her study of the language at Peking University only tw o years earlier and never had been to Indonesia.15 Friendship may have blossomed into love between Pramoedya and Chen following the weeks of intimate contact they experienced during the 1958 trip. Bahrum Rangkuti makes this claim in his fine and informative 1963 publication, the only Indonesian-language book devoted to Pramoedya’s life and work. He believes they eventually came to the realisation that “the interests of two people ought to be surrendered in the name of the w’ell-being of family and nation”.16 Then, he asserts, they carried on a remarkably active life of correspondence in which they analysed literature, culture and life’s meaning. Pramoedya’s published letters to Chen may well have grown out of such a correspondence as they constitute a serious intellectual engagement about a range of social, economic and cultural issues. And the assertion of love between the tw o remains intriguing even though unsubstantiated. Nevertheless, the language of the published letters makes the need for further evidence superfluous for it reveals an intimacy between the two. Pramoedya provoked his readers when he published his illuminations of Chinese Indonesian history and culture and addressed them familiarly to a woman in China. As they appeared in Bintang Minggu or in book form later, these letters did not shy from engaging the politics and terror of anti-Chinese policies and their exponents. On the whole, the substance of the epistolary essay is sharply critical of these policies and alternately lively and bookish in its historical analyses. There were notable differences between the newspaper serialisation and the book. Besides reaching a much wider audience, the newspaper provided a venue for the immediacy of photographs as well as timely and biting headlines that were omitted in book form. The photograph accompanying one installment carries this pithy caption:

A common suffering caused the elimination of boundaries between peoples and groups. In Surabaya

'sHsin Pao, November 17, 1956, as cited in Liu, “The China Metaphor," n. 64, p. 288. 16Bahrum Rangkuti, Pramoedya Ananta Toer dan Karja Seninja, Seri Esei dan Kritiksastra (Jakarta: Gunung Agung, 1963), p. 23.

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at the start of the Revolution, Chinese struggled shoulder to shoulder with Indonesians}'

a more studious note, photographs of a cannon and flame-carrying arrow another segment show advances in Chinese weaponry' in the premodem 10 I* On the other hand, provocative headlines such as this were aimed at those eroups fanning the flames of anti-Chinese politics: “Only a bizarre le jo not know to be thankful”.19 * 8Corresponding to the Letter Six in the jjook Pramoedya titles a revised and expanded version of the same instalment more soberly: “The contribution of Hoakiau to Indonesia’s progress”.20 While the many changes Pramoedya made in the book were intended to polish and further document his analyses, some names were omitted possibly for fear of military retaliation. Jusuf Abdullah Puar. who obliquely accused Pramoedya of obscuring the role of Chinese as agents of Beijing in Indonesia is mentioned by name in a newspaper instalment, but only as a well-known former nominee for the post of Minister of Information in the book.21 Between the Bintang Minggu instalments and the publication of Hoa Kiau Pramoedya’s letters to Chen were given considerable exposure. Although I have not determined the date of its banning, the military’s interdiction took place soon after the appearance of the book, perhaps around April 1960. From a series of articles he wrote of a two-month trip abroad, we know that he was in Bombay and Cairo some time in July and August; there may have been a trip to China, too.22 Then, a sign that the long silence of 1960 spelled trouble 'Pramoedya.Ananta Toer, "Menghadapi masalah T’hoa dgn. berani: Kedudukan sosial golongan Tionghoa diperoleh dari perkembangan sosial-historik jang amat pandjang,” Bintang Minggu, January 17, 1960, p. 2.1 was unable to see the photograph clearly as the reproduction available to me was quite poor. I8Pramoedya Ananta Toer, “Dalam masalah kependudukan setiap baji Hoakiau didjadikan problim politik,” Bintang Minggu, February' 14, 1960, p. 1. ’’Pramoedya Ananta Toer, “Hanja bangsa jang aneh tak tahu berterimakasih,” Bintang Minggu, February 7,1960, p. 1. ^Pramoedya. Hoa Kiau, p. 111. 2lPramoedya, “Menghadapi masalah T’hoa,” p. 1; Pramoedya, Hoa Kiau, p. 60. “Pramoedya .Ananta Toer, “Bingkisan dari Perdjalanan [ 1 ],” Bintang Timur, November 19,1960, p. 3; Pramoedy a Ananta Toer, “Bingkisan dari Perdjalanan [4],” Bintang Tunur, November 28,1960, p. 3. Parts 2 and 3 were unavailable to me. The trip to China in 1960 is mentioned in an interview cited in A. Teeuw, Pramoedya Ananta Tooer: De verbeelding vanIndonesie (Breda: De Geus. 1993), n. 41, p. 38, as w ell as a new' rev elation by Pramoedya of becoming very' disillusioned and deciding never again to set foot on Chinese soil when he was refused permission to visit a friend from a previous trip. I have not been able to verify this trip or the identity ofthe friend. Could it have been Chen Xiaru?

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was expressed in January7 1961 through a series of articles dealing with the life and work of Pramoedya by A. Sibarani, the caricaturist.23 While these articles were indeed about Sibarani’s personal knowledge of Pramoedya as well as his estimation of the writer in an age of internationalism, he hints at lanvJ problems surrounding Pramoedya through a critique of the rumours about the author’s opposition to Soekamo’s political programme, Guided Democracy and the terrible treason of w riting Hoa Kiau. What these articles tell us is that Pramoedya had truly hit a raw nerv e in Indonesia and the rumours of his abandonment of Guided Democracy - he and other artists had supported this programme from its inception - and Hoa Kiau became signs of his betrayal of the nation. The particulars of his treatment by the military that follow' give further evidence of how marginalised he had become, and how' alone he was in his predicament. The attack on him was not part of a larger political purge or cultural movement but as Keith Foulcher notes, “it indicated the increasingly volatile climate in which Indonesian cultural politics were now' being conducted”.24 Pramoedya was on his trip abroad in 1960 when he heard about the banning of Hoa Kiau. Upon his return, he was summoned by Penguasa Perang Tertinggi (usually abbreviated to Peperti, Supreme Battle Command) to furnish a statement. Following an interrogation by Major Sudharmono, he was not allowed to return home and held for two months in Rumah Tahanan Militer (henceforth RTM, Military Detention Centre) in Jakarta. Then, after a second interrogation by Sudharmono, he was either accused of planning an escape or creating a disturbance, and punished by being sent to Cipinang Prison. Maemunah, Pramoedya’s wife, was in an advanced stage of pregnancy and completely in the dark about his whereabouts during the early weeks of the detention. WTien she finally learned what had happened, she made the news of his detention known to his readers through a birth announcement in a newspaper. The press, including Radio Australia, learned of his detention at this time and its releases played a role in his removal from RTM to Cipinang.

23 A. Sibarani, “Pramudja A. T. jang kita kenal [I],” Bintang Timur, January 6, 1961, pp. 1-2; A. Sibarani, “Pramudja A. T. jang kita kenal [II],” Bintang Timur, January 7, 1961, pp. 1-2; A. Sibarani, “Pramudja A. T. jang kita kenal [HI],” Bintang Timur, January 14, 1961, pp. 1 and 3. 2JKeith Foulcher, Social Commitment in Literature and the Arts: The Indonesian “Institute of People's Culture" 1950-1965 (Clayton: Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University, 1986). pp. 118.

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in this prison did Pramoedya receive an arrest warrant issued by General Nasution, ironically the same man who, in 1958, sent the author a letter ppreciation for aiding the army effort to put down the rebellion in West Sumatra From the memoirs Pramoedya kept of his time in prison, we know . had been transferred to Cipinang by February 1961. He recalls his time that ne oc nne of the most bitter experiences of his life. For much of the rest of here as year he was placed in an extremely unsanitary' cell behind double doors rpll-block whose inmates were mostly psychologically disturbed. Telling in 3 much about the degree to which he had been marginalised, his passport was seized this year and when he was released, it was with traitors to the nation prisoners from the failed Permesta rebellions in Sulawesi and Sumatra. His name was mentioned in the same breath as these rebels in the following day’s newspaper. At least until early November he was under house arrest as revealed in a written interview with him conducted by K. H. Ramadhan on the subject of Kartini. For one whole year between 1960 and close to the end of 1961, Pramoedya was held in RTM, Cipinang Prison, and then placed under house arrest followed by town arrest. Throughout this time, he was held without trial and not given a chance to defend himself.25

Pramoedya’s kidnapping and prison experience are signs enough of the terror of the times, but another indicator is the silence, the absence of a polemic about Hoa Kiau, let alone a defence of the author. Newspapers were routinely closed down by military censors for publishing unacceptable articles, including Bintang Timur itself from early February 1960 for an indefinite period.26 And the language in which political problems were raised was indirect. For instance, the above mentioned three-part article by -This information is culled from a number of sources: Pramoedya Ananta Toer, “Ov er het verbod en de vemietiging van geschriften,” in Initiatiefkomitee Pramoedya, comp., Pramoedya Ananta Toer: Mens & Schrijver (Amsterdam: Manus Amici B.V., 1981), pp. 21-22; Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Nyanyi Sunyi Seorang Bisu (Jakarta: Lentera, 1995), pp. 103 and 179; Pramoedya Ananta Toer, “Saya sudah tutup buku dengan kekuasaan,” Suara Independen, August 1, 1995, p. 7; “Kartini dibunuh Belanda?: Menurut Pramoedya Ananta Tur Kartini pemula dari sedjarah modem Indonesia,’' Bintang Timur, November 4, 1961, p. 1. Although the Cipinang memoirs w ere destroyed with the rest of his library in 1965, fortunately parts of it had been published earlier: Pramoedya Ananta Toer, “Sebuah memoar: PendjaraTjipinang, Djakarta, 27 Februari Bintang Timur [Edisi Minggu], April 28, 1963, p. 2; “Sebuah memoar: Pendjara Tjipinang, 24 Februari, 1961,” Bintang Timur [Edisi Minggu], May 5, 1963, p. 3; “Sebuah memoar: Pendjara Tjipinang, 12 Maret Bintang Timur [Edisi Minggu], May 12, 1963, p. 3. ^‘BTdibreidel!: Gara2 ‘kena diperut tak kena dihati,”’Bintang Minggu, February 7,1960, p. 1.

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Sibarani was written with an awareness of Pramoedya’s unexplained absence if not the kidnapping itself, and to counter the insidious rumours that were circulating about the author. However, no mention is made of his predicament except to stress that a writer’s most ardent desire is ‘freedom for himselpp Further, besides Maemunah’s use of the birth announcement to make public Pramoedya’s detention, in another announcement on the occasion of Lebaran the feast at the end of the Muslim fasting month, she expressed thanks on behalf of the author to delegations from the cultural, arts, literary, peasant, youth and labour organisations, to individuals who personally expressed sympathies to the family and approached official agencies in the author's interest as well as to various local and foreign bodies who conveyed their sympathies.27 28 Only jn a single deft reference near the end was any mention made of her husband’s detention. Here, she thanks friends, comrades, neighbours and relatives who looked after them “the w hole time my husband has not been at home”. Pramoedya has asserted the centrality of the military’s role in carrying out terror campaigns as opposed to Soekamo because it was the former who held effective territorial control.29 And since the introduction of martial law in 1957 as a result of the rise of regional rebellions, the army’s role had suddenly expanded “not only in politics but also in the broader fields of general administration and economic management”.30 Some of the ways in w hich the growing pow er of the army impinged on Pramoedya, Hoa Kiau, and civil life in general have been illustrated in this section. I have asserted here that he became marginalised, at least in public life and politics. Privately and by informal means, Pramoedya had many supporters as we know' from Maemunah’s announcement as w'ell as the memoirs of a Chinese Indonesian who personally met with her a number of times, bearing the sympathy and gifts of the organisation BAPERKI (Badan Permusjaw-aratan Kewarganegaraan Indonesia, Consultative Body for Indonesian Citizenship).31 On the other hand, 27Sibarani, “Pramudja [III],” p. 3. ™Bintang Timur, March 29, 1961, p. 4. The announcement carries the names of his w ife and six children and is dated March 22, 1961. ’’Pramoedya Ananta Toer, “Bukan hanya buku..., popok juga dirampas [interview],” Kreasi: Sastra dan Seni [Amsterdam], no. 24 (1989-1995): p. 11. ’“Harold Crouch, The Army and Politics in Indonesia, Politics and International Relations of Southeast Asia (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1988), p. 33. ”Oei Tjoe Tat, Memoar Oei Tjoe Tat: Pembantu Presiden Soekamo (Jakarta: Hasta Mitra, 1995), pp. 83-84. This book was edited by Pramoedya Ananta Toer and Stanley Adi Prasetyo with a Foreword by Daniel S. Lev.

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, ormv demonstrated their antipathy toward the author and Hoa Kiau and the ariH? xercised to the fullest their extraordinary authority under martial law. The army took what they regarded as the ‘Chinese problem’ very seriously as we know from the existence of a restricted 160-page intelligence report produced jn 1961 that was the only substantial Indonesian-language work on Chinese Indonesians at the time other than Hoa Kiau-, oddly enough it was the latter’s counterpart. '2 But it seems also that the harsh treatment of Pramoedya by the anny may have indirect if not direct links with his marginalisation by other figures in the cultural politics of the time. In an exchange of letters in Bintang Tmmr between Pramoedya and a certain Bokor Hutahasut, a friend of the literary critic H. B. Jassin, more than three years after the appearance of Hoa Kiau, we learn of the remarkable degree to which Hoa Kiau had upset at least some intellectuals and artists.*33 *Read as an offence to the Indonesian nation and the Revolution, the book affected them viscerally; its worth as a sympathetic critique of nation and an illumination of the racist nature of PP-10/1959 was lost on them. It was as if they shared the feelings of the junior army officer who, when interrogating Pramoedya at RTM, accused him of having “sold our state to the PRC [People’s Republic of China]” by writing Hoa Kiau.3* What was it about the language of this book that upset people so much?

Language Hoa Kiau illuminates the deeper levels of significance to the crisis in Indonesia wrought by PP-10/1959. Its language may be seen as an expression of the voice of the nation talking back to the power of an encroaching state. While Pramoedya no doubt was concerned about the plight of the Chinese, the attacks on them were but signs of a larger menace: the growth of a powerful modem army and state apparatus as well as a repressive bureaucratic language. Hinting at the rising language of official nationalism, he begins his first letter to Chen Xiaru with these words: “If only [we] look at official reality (so cynical these

:Staf Umum Angkatan Darat-I. “Masalah Tionghoa” di Indonesia (Jakarta, 1961). Buchari [Bokor Hutahasut], “Surat terbuka: Apakah Bung Pram memang Revolusioner?” Bintang Timur [Edisi Minggu], November 10, 1963, p. 2; Pramoedya Ananta Toer, “Pramoedya Ananta Toer mendjawab,” Bintang Timur, November 10, 1963, p. 3; Buchari, “Surat kedua: Mengamankan Djawaban Pramoedya Ananta Toer” Bintang Timur [Edisi Minggu], November 17, 1963, pp. 2-3; Pramoedya Ananta Toer, "Djawaban Bung Pram,” Bintang Timur, November 17, 1963, p. 3. 34Pramoedya, “Over het verbod”, p. 22.

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words: official reality!), we live today in a modem age”. One can hear the distant voice and expectations of Kartini, writing also to a friend abroad, behind these words, for w hen she wrote her first letter to her Dutch pen pal, she says- “i have so desired to make an acquaintance with a modem girl”. When Kartini’s voice expresses wonderment at the dawning of the modem age, Pramoedya expresses profound disappointment and anger about the meaning of modernity in his time. Hinting at his own historically rooted vision of progress, he chides those for whom being modem meant proudly “becoming a part of this age, and viewing the ages before it as a wasted [effort] that was probably ridiculous probably even saddening too”. Pramoedya notes, w hile the modem era brought much that is good to humanity, paradoxically humanity itself is in danger so long as “there are human beings who wish not to live as human beings, but as animals”. The first paragraph of Hoa Kiau ends with these words: “Thus emerges this terror and that terror”.35

The equation of modernity not with the promise of the future but with terror sets the tone of Hoa Kiau. However, he reminds the reader that the darkness now descended on Indonesia came about “only as a result of a social system and structure that allowed opportunities for violations against humanity to happen”.36 In the following quote, he hints at who may be responsible for the present predicament as wrell as a way out:

But sometimes a people [bangsa] or a nation [nasion] produces so few leaders or even no leaders at all, just merely big shots and autocrats, to the point that animal instincts come to the fore again! Under these conditions, we can do no more than dream of a better world, and we fight for that dream until it becomes reality.37

35This section is based almost completely on Pramoedya, Hoa Kiau, p. 1. Only the reference to Kartini is quoted in Takashi Shiraishi, An Age in Motion: Popular Radicalism in Java, 1912-1926, Asia East by South series (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1990), p. 27. This letter also shows Pramoedya’s struggles with humanism in his ow n w ork in light of liberal and idealistic expressions of humanism in Indonesian literature that in the 1950s and 1960s were canonised by H. B. Jassin and A. Teeuw. MIbid., p. 1. 37Ibid„ pp. 2-3.

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Hoa Kiau. the dream is expressed in a language and history that probes the ulless and aeency-less language of bureaucracy, preventing it from becoming ^ai or natural. The construction of this dream was founded on his use of icular words as well as addressing his letters to Chen. Here, I wish tum to ^ese two aspects of Hoa Kiau. Pramoedya’s linguistic innovations grew out ofa unique appreciation of history. Hoa Kiau grew out of the historical research Pramoedya had begun since the 1950s, resulting also in his 1962 work Panggil Aku Kartini Sadja [Just Call Me Kartini] and other shorter essays. Thus, while the Hoa Kiau letters appear spontaneous and ad hoc, the language and analysis is the result of much thought concerning the nature of the modem Indonesian nation-state and its colonial past. Also, in the 1950s, he had begun research on Melayu-Tionghoa (Malay-Chinese) literature from the tum of the century, thus restoring a vital and lively ancestor of modem Indonesian and a genre dismissed by the scholars Jassin and Teeuw.38 As Dutch lost relevance with the downfall of the colonial power, Pramoedya observes how MelayuTionehoa, “this mixed-bag language which is strange, satisfying and plastic” beaan to “influence ‘official’ Indonesian language”.39 Besides contributing significantly to the birth of a national language, Malay-speaking Chinese communities, the author notes at some length, were important in the making of Indonesian culture.40

Against the climate of terror and the bureaucratic death involving Chinese Indonesians that seemed to have gripped the minds of many, he had to find a new and strange language to convey his ow'n perspective. In this regard his choice of the w ord Hoakiau is revealing. Although it w as in some use at the time, its absence from every major dictionary of the period suggests that as an Indonesian word it was of recent vintage.41 *Pramoedya * indicates his awareness of the word’s original meaning, ‘Overseas Chinese', and knew of its origins in the language of the Chinese state in the early part of this century: As China 3sFoulcher, Social Commitment in Literature, pp. 119-20. ’’Pramoedya, Hoa Kiau, p. 131. ‘Plastic’ is used here in its former meaning in Indonesian and English: a favorable flexibility, as opposed to artificialness as it is understood today. * Pramoedya, Hoa Kiau. pp. 127-131. 4lSee the list compiled from contemporary sources of words that did not appear in leading Indonesian dictionaries of the time, in A. Ed. Schmidgall Tellings, IndonesianEnglish Supplemental Word-List to Existing Dictionaries (Jakarta: Lembaga Administrasi Negara, 1964).

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pursued a foreign policy that courted Chinese populations long established overseas - ‘discovering’ the Chinese abroad so to speak - the term Hoakiau ‘Sojourning Chinese’ was coined.42 So why does he deliberately use the word to mean ‘Chinese’?43 Hoakiau, though in use at the time, was less common than Tionghoa and semantically devoid of ‘Chineseness’ in comparison to the latter or Cina Its sound still had an element of strangeness to Indonesian ears. It was also least used in derogatory terms, hence one said ‘Chinaman’ in the following ways, dasar Tionghoa or dasar Cina, but not dasar Hoakiau. Similarly, one spoke of Chinese descent as keturunan Tionghoa or keturunan Cina, but not keturunan Hoa Kiau-, the last is a strange category that is conceptual in some respects and cannot regenerate.44 Pramoedya’s choice of Hoakiau then, was deliberately intended to make his readers rethink the meaning and sound of ‘Chinese’. Against the neat definition of Chinese that was constructed by the state and which gave definition to anti-Chinese actions, Pramoedya suggested anew' that the strangeness of the Chinese was not so neatly defined, and even partly contained within ‘us’ Indonesians. For him Hoakiau “are native Indonesians with Chinese customs and norms”.45

Pramoedya’s central focus in his book is an exploration of the dimensions of kepribadiaan, incompletely translated as the ‘self1 of the nasion. So he claims: “Revolution is not uncivilized killing, it contains a noble charge, but all the more so it means composing the self’.46 The latter is an innovative

4:Pramoedya, Hoa Kiau, pp. 18 and 146; Wang Gungwu, “The Origins of Hua-Ch’iao,” in Wang Gungw u, Community and Nation: Selected Essays on Southeast Asia and the Chinese, Southeast Asia publications series, no. 23 (Sydney : Asian Studies Association of Australia, 1992), pp. 1-10. 45See Pramoedya, “Over het verbod,” p. 21. It is translated as “Chinese” also in Skinner, “Chapter 3: The Chinese,” p. 497; Pramoedya Ananta Toer, La vie n est pas une Loire nocturne, transl. Henri Chambert-Loir and Denys Lombard, Connaissance de l’Orient, 61 [Serie indonesienne], p. 12. "My thanks to Benedict Anderson for his insights into the usage of Hoakiau around 1960. It is worth noting too that the word is unknow n to Indonesians raised in the 1970s and after. 45Pramoedya, Hoa Kiau, p. 151. "Ibid., p. 102. In Indonesian: Revolusi bukanlah pembunuhan biadab, dia mengandung amanat mulia, tetapi lebih2 dia berarti penjusunan diri. I have translated amanat as “charge” and penjusunan as “composing” for lack of better alternatives, they could also mean “message” and “ordering” respectively.

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of an Enelish word to critique, rethink and expand the older notion of nation Common use around 1960: Bangsa. Nasion allows Pramoedya to provide

alternative and more inclusive vision of what constitutes Indonesia. It is 80 aling of the lack of development in the conceptualisation of the modem Indonesian nation that nasional (national) in things pertaining to the nation like revolusi nasional (national revolution), perpustakaan nasional (national library) and s0 on was *n use’ but not nasion.41 And since the latter part of the 1950s the term pengusaha nasional (national businessmen) came to apply only to •native’ Indonesians who, in another significant invention of that era, came to be regarded as ‘economically weaker’ in comparison to ‘foreign’ businessmen; this is the language in which the text of PP-10/1959 is constructed.48 In the text, owners who were asing (foreign) and rural businesses of a ‘foreign character’ (bersifat asing) were to be transferred to national businessmen. The economic nationalism of this language first emerged in relation to the foreign ownership of businesses in Dutch hands. The nationalisation in 1957 of the businesses of the former coloniser fit nicely with the struggle for national independence and the foreigner in question was named. On the other hand, PP-10/1959, which may be seen as a more advanced phase of economic nationalism, described the ‘foreign’ without giving it a name, though it was marked ‘Chinese’ in insidious ways. By law, PP-10/1959 applied to those who had not opted to become Indonesian citizens, but in fact, it was applied for the most part to everyone considered ‘Chinese’. Leaving this group unnamed however, was an indication of the ambivalence about the nation. And it is here that the character and tone of language in Hoa Kiau becomes a powerful and evocative vehicle for rubbing the history of Chinese Indonesians against the grain. When unnamed, this foreign category was estranged and mistreated. Pramoedya was aware that he was living in times when there was a process at work, by economic, political and cultural means that was ‘making’ the Chinese.49 His struggle in Hoa Kiau was to find a language to counter this process of making Chinese foreign and taking their voice away in more than simple legalistic ways. He had to come up with a language that provided room* 10 4 See Schmidgall Tellings, Indonesian-English Supplemental Word-List. ’’Mackie, “Anti-Chinese Outbreaks,” p. 84; Peraturan Presiden Republik Indonesia No. 10 Tahun 1959 [tentang larangan bagi usaha perdagangan ketjil dan etjeran jang bersifat asing diluar ibukota daerah swatanra tingkat I dan II serta karesidenan], Penerbitan chusus 81 (Jakarta: Departement Penerangan Republik Indonesia, 1959), pp. 3-11. ’’Pramoedya, Hoa Kiau, p. 14.

50

The Chinese in Indonesia®

for a historical reading of the nation in which Chinese were strangers who were not foreign. His exploration of the nation's kepribadiaan was nowher better captured that in the construction of the epistolary essay around a Chinese woman in China. Against the xenophobic climate of the times, Pramoedya makes a metaphorical gesture to Chen Xiaru that is highly charged politically and sexually.

Take my outstretched hand. We will notforget anything in this our lives, and we will pass our jottings to our children and grandchildren, to history.50 There is never an explicit reference to a real or imagined sexual intimacy betw een the two besides the chatty intimacy in the language of the Hoa Kiau letters. Pramoedya does, however, subtly eroticise the relationship when he speaks of ‘our children’ and the ‘history' produced by their union. This metaphor of union serves well also for the history of Chinese Indonesians. And Pramoedya thereby suggests as he does in numerous ways throughout the text, that the union of Chinese with the Indonesian nation is one so intimate that an attempt to estrange the former is injurious to national identity.51

Pramoedya himself makes the choice of w'riting to Chen seem like a mere coincidence. We think of him sitting at his typewriter, burdened by PP-10/1959, and asking himself “Who can I speak with?” So he says to Chen: “I must speak, and it is really coincidental that it is you that I chose”.52 Letterwriting is a private, even intimate activity, and indeed he hints at this at a few junctures. So when he constructs his letters for a national daily with her in mind, it is a meaningful act, it is a means of identifying personal solidarities w ith public ones. There is an intimacy as well as the camaraderie of international solidarity between them: “You know my position; and it is not I alone who hold

50Ibid., p. 188. The first line of the original Indonesian Terimalah djabatan tanganku can be rendered “Accept my handshake” which does not quite convey the poetic image of international - and perhaps romantic - solidarity intended in the text. 51For the interesting link between national boundaries and sexualities see Andrew Parker, Mary Russo, Doris Summer, and Patricia Yeager, eds., Nationalisms and Sexualities (New York and London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 1-18. 52Pramoedya, Hoa Kiau, p. 189.

§trangers

Who Are Not Foreign

51

a position such as this”.53 By writing to her, he displayed openly his isolation Indonesia - there were not Indonesians he could write to, perhaps because anti Chinese xenophobia had become so deep-rooted. Every time her name pears “Hs-y,” at the start of a letter, at a pause or transition in the text, it is ^minder of his camaraderie and intimacy with a Chinese woman far away. But it was also a way of speaking to Indonesians. Writing to Chen was like writing to an outsider about all the most intimate affairs of one’s own house. The letters presented a dialogue between Pramoedya and Chen, like a drama Indonesians reading these letters in newspapers were like a vast audience scattered throughout the land. Besides being an admission of his isolation durine this xenophobic time, he also meant to provoke his readership.

There is something deeply personal that he conveys about his desire to write about the Chinese and how it is connected to his craft. There is also a courage that comes out of his belief that no power is able stop anyone, not just a writer, from expressing his deepest feelings.54 It is worthwhile to look in this instance at a substantial excerpt from the beginning of Letter Three written late in 1959. shortly before the 1 January 1960 deadline for the closure of Chinese retail shops in the countryside: On this night which is enveloped by the atmosphere of Christmas and the coming of the New Year, my heart feels truly moved to be able to speak with my own soul - a soul that for some time recently has been upset by the agitation about the Hoakiau problem. There is not a force on this earth that can stop a person from speaking with his own soul. As it happens, I am a writer, and so I will try to write down my feelings, my thoughts, my knowledge about this Hoakiau problem. Possibly other people will ask, why does this problem attract and disturb my soul so much. That I shall not

’’Ibid., p. 188. Mln Pramoedya, Nyanyi Sunyi, he restates an existentialist faith in the inviolability of the inner self, even after Suharto’s regime had done everything in its power to punish, isolate and silence him: “What can one do, experience remains the right of the person who experiences to do w hat they wish w ith it themselves, and there is no force that can confiscate it” (p. ix); “And w hen the asset of communication is confiscated, [...] who can confiscate the right to have a dialogue w’ith oneself?” (p. 6).

52

The Chinese in Indonesi

deny! First of all, because my feeling of humanism is offended, second because I prefer being friends with the peoples of all countries, and third because I too may could not deny if it were said that it is possible I have Chinese blood flowing in me. And Hs-y, there is nothing more precious in this life than friendship, because it gives our life so much greater breadth. It is only enmity that narrows life.55

When Pramoedya rather flirtatiously says “I prefer being friends with the peoples of all countries", once again, he rubs against the grain of the polarised international solidarities of the time. At the same time he drowns the many critics of his publicly stated fondness for China by unabashedly admitting that he found so much to admire in that country and its people.56 The dialogue with an outsider was a means of illuminating the centrality of Chineseness in Indonesia. By placing the conversation and comparison on the scale of the historically formed nation-states of Indonesia and China, he was able to show how' familiar in fact the Chinese were to the Indonesian nation. Cast in the language of psychoanalytic theory, it was a means of recognising the stranger, the Chinese, as part of the self, the nation.57 Engaging as Pramoedya does with the political, historical and cultural body of the nation, he had to create a language that was able to illuminate anew’ the familiarity of Chinese to Indonesia. This meant taking on an increasingly strong bureaucratic complacency that was cast in revolutionary rhetoric. A bureaucratic-revolutionary language had assumed the task of continuing the Indonesian revolution - as Soekamo urged, thereby defining the substance of nationalism and modernity around 1960. This bureaucratic language had set about making ‘natural' the foreignness of Chinese that had been asserted in political life for less than a decade. And so it is at this ‘cynical’ language that "Pramoedya, Hoa Kiau, p. 37. See Scherer, “From Culture to Politics,” p. 193 where she believes the author’s reference to Chinese blood is a statement of fact and not a hint of a tantalizing possibility which is indeed intended. He is poking fun and playing with the concept of the nation, know ing full w ell that the nation’s blood and guts - so to speak - is both a concept as well as a reality. "Pramoedya, Hoa Kiau, p. 37. See Liu, “The China Metaphor,” n. 66, pp. 288-89 for reference to a letter appearing in the newspaper Abadi that was critical of Pramoedya’s visits to China. ' See Julia Kristeva. Strangers to Ourselves (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991).

§tranger s

Who Are Not Foreign

_jva1 launches his very first criticisms in an attempt to create ms own njamoeuy* a a national space and modernity, sense 01 « Condus’°n re than 100,000 Chinese left Indonesia during 1960-1961 as result of pp 10/1959 and typically ended up experiencing hardship because of problems that emerged on the one hand, from the political intrigues of the Indonesian and Chinese states, and on the other, because of the rise of terror within Indonesia’s own boundaries. Pramoedya frequently emphasises that his principal reason for writing Hoa Kiau was to point to out that nothing short of an economic programme as opposed to a mere shift in personnel would improve the lot of‘native’ Indonesian businessmen. PP-10/1959 was a bad policy in his eyes because it only switched one class of businessmen, the Chinese traders, with another, the ‘native’ businessmen.58 However, as we have seen, the book certainly does not only provide an economic counter argument.

One of the problems of the 1960s was the defensive, party-based responses and attacks that created highly polarised groups, and in some ways were responsible for the rise of the ‘Chinese problem’. It was a time when people were compelled to organise culturally and politically along the schisms that had been created in public life. And the moment the PKI or Soekamo entered the fray to defend the Chinese, they inevitably accepted the terms of the debate - the existence of a reified notion of alien Chinese. Pramoedya did not accept these terms. He started afresh by historicising Chineseness. being sensitive both to the internal national terrain and external political changes, principally the rise of China as a w orld power. However, he was targeted because he had taken on a far bigger challenge, ‘Indonesia’, and in his historical critique, transgressed the boundaries created by the rhetoric of Soekamo or any political party of his day. In linking himself intimately with Chen. Pramoedya overturns the purist self-love of Indonesian nationalism by flaunting a dangerous miscegenistic flirtation. He does the same in suggesting that he too cannot be certain of not possessing Chinese blood and hence cannot promote antiChineseness. To combat the saliency, embodiment and naturalness of "Pramoedya. “Over het verbod,” p. 21.

5^

The Chinese in Indones

Indonesian racial purity, he proposes a miscegenistic reading, and put his owq body on the line. Thus he provoked those who fanned anti-Chinese politiCs Implicitly, he asked them: can you be sure not to have any Chinese blood9 in

power that he dangerously transgresses by asserting that Chinese blood flows through the Indonesian body. Sumit Mandal is an historian at the Institute for Malaysian and International Studies (IKMAS) at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. This essay was first presented at the Association for Asian Studies 48th annual meeting Honolulu, Hawaii, 11-14 April 1996. It first emerged in publishedform when translated into Indonesian by Stanley and used as the Introduction to the 1998 republication of Hoakiau di Indonesia by Garba Budaya in Jakarta. The author expresses his gratitude to Ben Abel, Benedict Anderson, Alex Bardsley, Caroline Sy Hau, Julie Shackford-Bradley andJames Siegelfor their assistance and encouragement.

SECTION THREE THE CHINESE IN INDONESIA

Letter One

Limited and Universal Humanism Hs-y, If only we look at the official reality (so cynical these words: official reality!), we live today in a modem age. Many people feel proud that they are part of this modem era and look back on past eras as strange, lost times, perhaps even tragic, pathetic times. Yes, and I, too, must admit that this modem age has contributed much to humanity. But even today, humanity itself remains under threat, as long as and while ever there are human beings who prefer io live as beasts rather than as human beings. And the strange thing is that it is human beings themselves - the only force that can actually defend a humane civilisation - who often forget that they are human beings. The task of developing humanity is often betrayed by human beings themselves. Thus emerges this terror and that terror. You and 1 and everybody know that this type of phenomenon occurs because the prevailing social system and structure provide the opportunity for such violations against humanity. In my paper before the Peace Conference in Bandung, 25-31 January 1960, with the theme ‘Cultural Cooperation to Consolidate World Peace’, I wrote: There is a dogma among statesmen: If you want a place in history or at least to achieve contemporary’ popularity, there are two courses you can follow. You can destroy your superiors or eliminate some group or minority in society.

And you, too, should be able to find examples of what I mean, either in local or world history, especially in the history of all those pointless and confused feudal wars. But I am fortunate in that humanity has been included as one of the principles of the [Indonesian] State - humanity is one of the five principles: Pancasila1! The recent disbanding of the Constituent Assembly

1 Literally ‘Five Pillars’ those five being: belief in a Supreme Being, nationalism, humanitarianism. social justice and consultative democracy; Pancasila is the philosophical basis of the Republic of Indonesia stated by Soekamo in 1945.

r

J 60

The Chinese in Indonesi loneSia

because of its failure to understand Pancasila confirms for me once aga«J that the social system and structure that prevail in Indonesia are not capable of giving humanity the primary position it should have. But be careful here: this does not mean that the struggle for humanity has stoppe(i in Indonesia. If the struggle for humanity arrives at some finishing pojnt then that will signal the end of the history of humanity itself on this earth On this beloved Indonesian earth. In the struggle to defend humanity nothing should be feared, because to be cowed by an enemy of humanity is the same as accepting death itself, a death without honour, a pointless death. Hs-y, from what I have w'ritten so far. I hope that it will be clear to you w'hat my starting point is, what my framew'ork is, and what my basic reasoning is when I analyse the issue of the Chinese in Indonesia, especially in relation to PP 102 - yes, an official product of the nation in 1959! (What a cynical term: official product!) For me, no matter what the situation, no matter what difficulty the national economy may be experiencing, there is no excuse for people turning into barbarians. Humanity cannot be bought with monev, and so we cannot just put it away into our pockets because our stomachs are empty or there is no rice in the storehouse. Humanity must be guarded no matter how' bad the social, economic, or political situation may be. The deterioration of a humane culture into some kind of rotten social intercourse is also a sign of shallowness of character, not only as a nation but at the individual level as well. And a nation that can so easily abandon humanity can easily lose its way in the course of its historical development.

Hs-y, Indonesia is a country where a majority of the population is Muslim. I think it is w'orth mentioning the opinion of the second most important person in Islam, namely A1 Imam Ali: All creatures are the servants of God. And the servants of God who are the most beloved of God are those who make a positive contribution towards others who are His creatures. And who was A1 Imam Ali? None other than the Caliph to the Prophet Muhammad, may peace be upon him, and the second most important Muslim. He was so highly esteemed that the Prophet is said to have decreed that to look 2 A commonly used abbreviation for Presidential Regulation No. 10/1959, issued on 16 November 1959, which restricted foreign (i.e., Chinese) retailers from engaging in retail

business in Indonesian rural areas as of 1 January 1960

Letter

One

61

the face of Ali is a form of worship itself and that whomsoever disturbs '^r^n he also disturbs the Prophet himself A'1*

Hs-y, how beautiful the world w ould be if all the good teachings of ood leaders are actually carried out. But sometimes a nation produces so few' leaders or perhaps even no leaders at all, just merely big shots and autocrats, to the point ^at best’a' instincts come to the fore again! Under such conditions, we can do no more than dream of a better world and we fight for that dream until it becomes a reality. About Limited Humanity

Hs-y, I have tried to explain my outlook on humankind and humanity. It reminds me of an acquaintance w ho used to visit my house, although I have not seen him for some time now. Whenever the discussion turned to humankind and humanity, he would start to complain. “Abstract! Nonsense! Unproductive! Hot creative! This kind of talk will not produce a single cent!” he would say. Ah yes, if everything could be measured in money, how easy it would be to organise human beings as if they were nothing more than commodities. This kind of dangerous thinking must be destroyed, removed, and defeated from the outset. So he has never come to my home again.

But in defending humanity, there is another aspect that is no less important: What do we all actually mean by the word ‘humanity’? Ways of viewing humanity are sometimes very different, even contradictory, even though human beings are the same everywhere. They feel pain if it is inflicted, they die if they are killed, and they shed tears and have a nervous system. We are the same! Just as A1 Imam Ali said. But the attitude a people displays towards humanity can reveal w hat stage of development in their own humanity that they have reached.

In their book about Albert Schweitzer, Charles R. Joy and Melvin Arnold wrote of how' Schweitzer came across certain tribes in Lambarene, in the heart of Africa that did not understand that people from other tribes experienced pain if a tree branch fell on them. Such tribes only knew1 that members of their own tribe felt pain if such a thing befell them. It is a phenomenon similar to when ants on a trail continue their march even though others of their kind right next to them are being squashed under the boot of somebody. So, Hs-y, in such cases w'e are dealing with humanity (or is it animality?) that is not yet universal, a tribal humanity, a humanity of the group. In the world of commerce and business, w'e come across the term ‘Limited’ or ‘Ltd’. This is a kind of limited humanity.

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The Chinese in Ind

This limited humanity has a long and varied history in h, evolution. Indonesian cultural anthropologists have provided lots of clear Unian lUm-i.. ,1 . prevailed ____ :i.j ______ ___ ___ • _ .•at that time was 1 ric ofa *ty that among .1those societies still ’,,,edtype. This was no different from the kind ot humanity that C harf,, R Joy M Melvin Arnold wrote about among one or more of the tribes ofthese Lambarene Valley in Africa. If

the period WC fo’*ow t*ie ^ate r^e Jew*s^ people, we eventually come t0 first time *^aZI dominance in Germany. It was in this period that for the out in a Was a systematic and planned destruction of the Jews, carried bible c rdance with the concept of racial superiority as outlined in the Nazi

later ex exposed teachin

Hitler, Mein Kampf The doctrine of racial superiority was &S bankrupt. empty and false because another race of people was ^e'n§ capable of evil and inhumanity. The other contradiction in the

German

^*tler was in the socialism that he created, a socialism based on a nat'°nalism. which itself was based on prejudice and dogma.

and a hurt^ b°th understand that socialism is the legitimate child of humanity

distributio SOc’ety or humanism, a concept that stresses a just and equal on profits g"1 l^e circulation of goods in society, abandoning the emphasis such justice Ut *ts v^s’on °f h/wi/et/humanity, that is, of Nazi nationalism, or groups h Was to on^ ^or German citizens, even though other peoples socialism Of contributed to German life. This was the contradiction of the known as \i ^’^er: nationalism combined with socialism a la Germany and ^ism.

Limited

. anity as the Source of Racial Discrimination

The racial diSe. . . I of Hitler ab trirn’nation carried out by the Nazis was a result of the teachings Aryan race ’ rac’al superiority and the superiority of the German race, the elements of k- Nordic race. Hitler resorted to the use of race as one of the been successf* teachm§s because, before Bismarck, the German states had not three-quarters'4’ ^or§’n8 3 nation. Even Bismarck was able to gather only Hitler s Self German people under a single banner (R.C.K.. Ensor, Herr unite the div'n ,Sc^osure in Mein Kampf). And so he had to use a racial theory to were wider t| German people. But the consequences of using such teachings short the predicted: racial discrimination, oppression and murder, in VI°lati’°n of humanity itself. These consequences were so great as to

Let,er

One

61

state power that brought into being a new mentality that ran counter to cre3te a sense For example, theft by a German from a German was treated 3,1 C°m ’ serious crime, with heavier penalties, than theft from a non-German, 3s 3,nl a Jew (J- Walter Jones, The Nazi Conception ofLaw).

The persecution of the Jews in Germany also produced another idea on how to achieve racial purity: eugenics. This theory was more a joke than anything based on serious science. Hitler’s total power resulted in the domestication, or the voluntary domestication, of scholars and scientists. It was only the most courageous of them who, if they were lucky, were able to flee the country; otherwise, they ended up in the death camps. Why were these attempts at racial purity such a joke? Because the reality is that some kind of perfection in body never guarantees perfection of spirit and that even a good soul cannot guarantee that the souls it gives birth to will be as good. The laws of biological descent cannot be controlled by the parties involved, let alone if such efforts are attempted over just one generation. Furthermore, there is the w hole question of sociological factors and their development, contacts with foreign countries, public opinion, and so on. In short, any such theories based on race in this modem era are nothing more than some nightmare dreamed up in the middle of the day. Discrimination and Imperialism

In the history of humankind, marked by its limited humanity, there has been much discrimination. This discrimination is definitely a negative phenomenon in the human psyche. The Jews experienced injustice in the form of both racial and religious discrimination. In certain periods, the gypsies of Europe also experienced such discrimination. But all forms of discrimination - political, biological, religious, social and economic - are the natural children of imperialism. Imperialism itself is a manifestation of humanity unable to behave and think in accordance with its own humanity. Discrimination today is still rampant in all places. In those countries oppressed by colonialism, the indigenous inhabitants - the legitimate descendants of their own ancestors - are killed and stepped upon and not acknowledged to have any rights. This has been the history' of contact between the West and the Afro-Asian peoples for the last four centuries. This has also been the sad story of the Americas since the time they w'ere discovered by Columbus. In South Africa and over the whole continent of Australia, the indigenous people have been destroyed. A colonialised people is synonymous with every kind of discrimination!

68

The Chinese in Indon

Every kind of imperialism, whether local or international, alw divides society into two groups, oppressor and oppressed. If you cannot these two groupings, then it means that imperialism has not yet gotten a hold The oppression is justified through discrimination in every arena. Hs-y, both of our peoples have just emerged from the colonial prison from twentieth-century imperialism. It is not right that we ourselves spreads other sections of society the very' same disease which we have rejected as an enemy of humanity. This is especially the case when we need cooperation mutual respect and tolerance if we are to defend the national freedom that we have won and for which we have paid such a high price. For this we need competent and wise leaders who have a broad understanding of history, social development and international relations. Good relations between peoples will be endangered if some crossboy or crossgirl3 somehow ends up ruling a state and, as I said in the speech at the Peace Conference in Bandung:

Every disorder in a country' provides opportunities for crossboys or crossgirls who have also somehow come into power. Then we have the possibility’ of an international alliance of crossboys and crossgirls. Hs-y, this is not what we need at this time in our history. We. all of us, need more cooperation and mutual understanding. It is no coincidence that Indonesia itself has been the host of the Asia-Africa Conference, which passed a resolution calling for peaceful coexistence between different social systems. Such coexistence must be more than just some label pinned to foreign policy; it must be the spirit of all political activities, domestic and international. I think that every sane mind that has succeeded in shaking itself free of imperial and colonial aspirations will recognise this. We have all rejected colonialism and imperialism, no matter how beautiful a form they may take! And so, too, must we reject every kind of discrimination, no matter how shiny its packaging!

Universal Humanity and the Chinese Question Hs-y, there is a lot we can discuss in relation to this question. What is the situation of the Chinese in Indonesia at the moment? What is the uproar know n 3 An English-language term used in Indonesia in the 1960s to refer to delinquent youths, perhaps best translated as ‘punks’.

!

Le.«er °"c

69

pp jo issue? What motivated the introduction of this regulation? Is it as a lot of empty noise? A fight over textile commissions? A struggle for i^luence? A way to improve the national economy? Or just some political

1 tn advance the career of some individual? And if the latter is the case, nto'e ° real basis is there for such a person to carry out such moves? Can it all what tified by science and humanity, historical and sociological development? be jus We must be ready to face all these issues with courage, supported by our onscience. We must not hide behind any prejudices. W’e must face these new • ues as our own problems, as part of our own life. And if it turns out that there is no justification for any of these developments? Then we must have the courage to reject them no matter what the consequences. If we do not have the courage to face these issues in our own lives, then I am afraid. Hs-y, that we will end up eternally running and fall into the trap of limited humanity, where all are pitted against all. Of course, Indonesia has, in fact, made speedy progress in humanitarian affairs. By ‘Indonesia’, I mean the Indonesian people. It is, of course, natural that the Indonesian people should be able to make such progress. Throughout their history they have always been a welcoming people, respecting all foreign peoples as long as there were no unpopular elements manipulating the good intentions of the people. With these advances, you would expect that the officials and big shots of the country - I hesitate to use the term ‘leaders' - would reflect the attitude to be found in the hearts of the people, an attitude that has abandoned limited humanity and developed to the level of universal humanism.

1 think that the inclusion of humanity as a principle in the Pancasila was not the result of some pencak-silat4 manoeuvre but the result of long and deep thinking. I truly believe that this principle, upon which the state has been founded, will never be betrayed. There will be no messing around with its format so that it turns into limited humanity, like the sick nationalistic socialism of the Nazis in Germany. I need to convince you of this because an unhealthy nationalism, any such nationalism, is based on incomplete thinking, on hypocrisy. Such nationalism will be like a swamp that kills off the spiritual development of any citizen who lives there, no matter w hat other wealth might be found there. ' A Southeast Asian martial art with its roots in the culture of the Malay World.

70

The Chinese in Indo

nesia

J

People should not be afraid when it comes to ensuring that humanity the place it deserves. Such a fear would cause the destruction of everyth^ including our most secret, glorious hopes. An understanding of humani cannot be crushed by a stoomwals5 of any dimension. And as regards incomplete thinking and hypocrisy, I want to qUo^ again from my paper at the Peace Conference. Forgive me if I am boring y0 by quoting from my own writings. Well, what can I say? That paper is ven, important to me in the current social, economic and political situation, national and international. So please forgive me. I argued that hypocrisy is an enemy of the development of culture and thus, of civilisation. Hypocrisy originatesfrom not taking a thought through to its conclusion. The origin of the word comes from hypo, meaning ‘half, and kritik, meaning ‘thought'.

Hypocrisy can stem from an inability’ to take a thought through to its conclusion, or this can happen because that effort is blocked by some hidden obstacle! This hypocrisy can arise in or give rise to different forms:

A contradiction between what is said and what is done... In this category’ we can alsofind deceits carried out in the international arena. Some countriesformally adopt the principle of peaceful coexistence, but only at the level of international relations. So it becomes a kind of propaganda stunt at the national level, while domestically, oppression and the dispossession of livelihood still occur... For example, in many Asian countries today, the Chinese are being harassed and blamed for damaging the local economies. Nobody’ wants to discuss these developments from a historical or sociological point of view. And there is an extra complication resulting from these antiChinese emotions being mixed up with anticommunist sentiments. In the end, there is no way to get out ofthis complication... Any thoughts that are not taken to their conclusion will result in actions that reflect that lack of resolution. There will be chaos, and the younger Steamroller.

71

generations will be misled in a way that prevents them from being able to give humanity- the highest position of respect.

Chinese question in Indonesia is the legacy of a very long history, longer *^“e . Christian era itself. It is stupid to think this issue can somehow be t*ian e(j by using the sentiments of the bourgeoisie to gain advantages by xes°... tjje Chinese from their lives and livelihoods. As children of the C ^tieth century, bound by the principles of science and learning, we must **|ve the Chinese question through serious negotiations without abandoning ^principles of humanity. pp 10 is now being implemented. The press, which does not really w what it wants, is already beating the gong and trumpeting all the crimes that have ever been carried out by the Chinese, without ever looking at the good things the positive and constructive things, the useful things [that the Chinese have done] for Indonesia. PP 10 is being implemented. But as a nation with a stronn sense of dignity, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has offered unlimited assistance, if it is so desired by Indonesia. The PRC, along with the Soviet Union, has offered such assistance. And what is the press saying about this? Just speculation that the offer is motivated to get people to forget the behaviour of the Chinese. But the people will not forget. The elimination of illiteracy has proceeded very quickly in Indonesia. Hs-y, a year ago I wrote to you that we would sweep away any trouble-making Chinese in Indonesia. You must not misunderstand. What I was referring to were individuals, trouble-making elements, and not to a whole racial group comprising a foreign minority that, in fact, represents a relatively large number of people.

It is also true that I have praised regulations in India and Burma that prevent foreigners from seeking a livelihood in those countries. I think everybody would agree with this while humankind’s thinking remains confined by abstract nationalism and perhaps even by a diseased nationalism. Now, international relations have developed w ith such closeness, as is reflected in the offers of assistance made by the PRC and the Soviet Union. And specifically in Indonesia now, we face a large number of foreign people who cannot be returned to their countries so easily. More importantly, the Chinese in Indonesia have remained aliens because of a lack of teaching and information from those who should have been providing this, whether officially or unofficially. They are not voyagers from abroad landed on our shores. They have been here as long as our own ancestors. They are, in fact, Indonesians, who live

72

The Chinese in Indonesi

and die in Indonesia, also, but because of a certain political veiling, suddenly become strangers who are not foreign. They become a group unto themselves occupying a middle position in society, at least a majority of them. This is a historical and sociological development, and not the result of the conscious will of the Chinese. They have filled a vacuum that has occurred in the system in the social structure. Let us discuss this question of the Chinese in accordance with reality I will try to ensure that the discussion does not fall into the trap of limited humanity, w ith all its resulting shallowness. Nor should it take some easy but irresponsible path.

To return to limited humanity is to return to the Stone Age, even though such stones might be precious ones!

Letter Two

About Digging up Crimes that are not There Hs-y,

In this letter 1 want to relate to you all the crimes that have been dug up and attributed to the Chinese. Of course I do not mean to try to say that the Chinese are a section of humanity that is free of sins. 1 think that life itself is a challenge for every person as to how to act. And every act, every' deed, is always open to beinti a mistake. I myself cannot accept it when people attribute the mistake made by an individual from a specific race or group to the group as a whole. This is not right and never has been. If a Chinese breaks the law, criminal or civil, then take him to court and put him on trial in the proper manner. If it is proven he is a traitor, then punish him as a traitor. And if it is proven he has sown chaos in the economy, then treat him as an economic criminal, as a thief. Usually anti-Chinese feelings in Indonesia occur as a result of racialism. Because somebody is Chinese and not Indonesian, so he or she is hated. And, of course, it has not been the people who have harboured such sentiments. In the midst of their hard work, the people have had no need to develop feelings of antipathy towards other peoples so long as there have not been other destructive elements manipulating the honesty of the people. Very well then, let me analyse racialism as the first category of attack on the Chinese, of efforts to inflame antipathy.

Racialism Racialism is an outlook that rejects people from another race. This is its broad meaning. Racialism emerges or can emerge when there is a section of people who have a different physiology from what generally exists in a society. The minority' that exhibits this difference must also be unable to defend itself. Forgive me if I quote again from my paper from Bandung:

... there is a new fashion in Southeast Asia with the slogan: Because you have slant eyes, I have rights over you! This house is my house, you have no rights to it at all! Of course, those suffering the oppression will protest, as it is the right of every’ person to defend

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himself: But master, you with power, I have obtained this through hard work and after much difficulty’. And the representative of the stronger section of society will decide: I am the strong one here, I am the bigfish, you are just the sardine. So it is my right to swallow you. Come on my sweet, let me swallow you! It is your fault for having slant eyes! If the minority is strong, then society will lose its racial lusts. Racialism always reflects cowardice in society. There are many aspects to racialism. For example, Hs-y, here in Indonesia there are many myths about the role of blood in human evolution. Foreign people are thought to have completely different blood than local people. Of course, this has no scientific basis. But this myth continues to be used as a weapon, keeping alive the animal spirit of hatred and rejection of peoples w ho are not liked. Blood, an ordinary aspect of life and something that can be studied under a microscope, is considered to contain amazing secret powers. Of course this is not true. Such beliefs are possible because society has not yet properly developed a modem character: it has not yet recognised science as one of its key elements.

So, Hs-y, the [North American Plains] Indians used to believe that the human soul is located in the feet. This originated from their experiences: if a person or a horse had an injured foot, it would mean that person w ould end up dead, unable to flee from the dangers of the prairie. Many ethnic groups in Indonesia still believe that the human soul resides in blood. Does this mean that if a person loses two litres of his blood, he also loses two litres of his soul? The Javanese also used to believe that in order to determine w hether A w as the child of B, who had died, some blood should be taken from A and smeared on the bones of B. If the bones absorbed the blood ofA, then it confirmed paternity. I have yet to hear of any scientific investigation confirming this. Perhaps one day a university laboratory' somewhere will investigate it. Perhaps. Perhaps not.

And so, Hs-y, blood keeps its secrets even until today. Or perhaps some people maintain these beliefs, which they themselves do not actually believe in, in order to gain some benefit from them.

For many primitive societies, blood is used in various terrible ceremonies. But these secrets of the blood have been rejected totally by scientific development since around the seventeenth century, when blood

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fusions with animals started to take place. This happened in England France. Finally, the so-called secrets w'ere ended by the Czech researcher 8,1 tv who discovered the four different blood types among humans in 1907. J began to carry' out blood transfusions between humans. An Indonesian racialist, who a priori rejects the Chinese as an enemy home, sometimes may fall back upon differentiating people on the basis of whether they are pure or non-pure Indonesians. With the secret of blood exposed as false, they fall back on other physical traits. Because Chinese are not pure Indonesian, they must be rejected as devils and fiends. But can the difference between pure and non-pure Indonesian really be used as a measure? This kind of thinking leads people astray and narrow's the world. Are there any people whose blood is free from the presence of the blood of other people? jqo. According to anthropologists, the inhabitants of Indonesia, those called •original Indonesians’, are, in fact, themselves from outside. The ancestors of the inhabitants today moved down from Asia, through Southeast Asia: Cambodia, Annam, Vietnam, Burma, the Philippines and Indonesia. These peoples came in two waves. The first was that of the Paleo-Mongoloids, and the second, the Neo-Mongoloids. They were part of the Mongol race. They were from the same race as the Chinese. So originally, Indonesians and Chinese were from the same race, the Mongols. This conclusion was also confirmed by the research of Sudjojono in his book published during the revolution. In that book he provided evidence that both Indonesian and Chinese children can have a blue birthmark, the mongoolse vlek [Mongol mark], on their buttocks. So is there any basis for claims of purity of racial origins that can differentiate between Chinese and Indonesians? Anthropologists have clearly explained now that the two peoples come from the Mongol race. Oh, I understand that the racialists will say that there are differences between Chinese and Indonesians. They will say that Chinese have slant eyes and fairer skin.

In his book Handbook of Sociology-, W illiam F. Ogbum explained that such physical differences may occur w hen a group of humans splits off from the original group and moves to live in another region. The environment in their new home will result in the development of new physical and spiritual characteristics. Such physical differences among people originating from the same race occur because of the influence of the natural environment. So, once again, the whole idea of differentiating races on the basis of pure and non-pure collapses. Taking into account the investigations of the anthropologists, I challenge all racialists in Indonesia: Can they show that they themselves are 100% racially pure? Can they show that they have 100% pure blood, untainted

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by blood from any other peoples? I think there is not a single Indonesian Jj Chinese who can prove that they are of such pure blood. Is there not one dro^ or cell of blood of another people flowing in their bodies? It is very clear that. both at an individual level and at an ethnic group level, Indonesians exhibbiological features similar to those of the Chinese. They are all of the same line of descent! This cannot be denied. So, are such people considered not to be pure Indonesians? Must those who have been here for centuries, develops real traditions, be classified as foreigners or as new Indonesian citizens? J

Actually, talking about new Indonesian citizens reminds me of a speech by Buyung Saleh1 at the 1959 Lekra Congress. He said that every Indonesian citizen, whether of foreign or indigenous descent, is a new citizen Everyone became a new citizen on 17 August 1945. Buyung Saleh has a way of speaking that makes you feel like he is just chatting. But what he said was quite serious, no matter from what angle we look at it. With this new citizenship that began on 17 August 1945, it is not at all appropriate to seek out differences based on w'hat is pure and non-pure or indigenous and nonindigenous. This perspective is also relevant to the question of Indonesian and Chinese citizenship (that is, the issue of citizenship of the People’s Republic of China for overseas Chinese). As I said in my first letter, the Chinese here have become aliens because of a political partition. Just look at the SunatjoChou Agreement and Law No. 3/1946 about Citizenship and Residence of the Republic of Indonesia.2 It is not at all definite that Chinese choose citizenship of the PRC out of a high degree of consciousness on the question. There are many issues about which they do not understand, and many of them just follow the guidance given by those they consider to have some political understanding. So some reject Indonesian citizenship or actively opt for PRC citizenship. The Chinese in Indonesia do not have a strong political tradition because the Dutch suppressed any process of emancipation. So it is very hard to assert that the Chinese have rejected Indonesian citizenship and opted for PRC citizenship out of some kind of political consciousness! And even if such a choice did reflect a conscious political choice, is this a crime? I will not try to answer this in this letter as it is outside its scope. 1 Buyung Saleh w as an Indonesian trade union leader and writer, also imprisoned after 1965. 2 Law No. 3/1946 granted citizenship to all Chinese in Indonesia provided that they did not specifically reject it. However, Chinese law' in the PRC only recognised dual citizenship, i.e., overseas Chinese could keep their Chinese citizenship regardless. In 1954, Indonesian Foreign Minister Sunarjo signed an agreement with Chinese Premier and Foreign Minister Chou En-lai whereby the PRC w ould give up its claim on Chinese in Indonesia w ho took up Indonesian citizenship any time before 1962. The Suharto regime cancelled this agreement in 1969, making tens of thousands of Chinese stateless.

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j4s-y, I cannot accept any anti-Chinese sentiment based upon ’alistn There are no secrets of the blood. And if political arguments are 13 nted. 1 cannot accept them either, as I have argued above. Yet, the joists look for still other justifications, in the end still racialist, to justify spread their anti-Chinese sentiments.

Racialism has never been a strong argument for suppression. Why? j4S y what in fact is ‘race’? Is not ‘race’ just a word, a word produced by scientific endeavour to categorise the inhabitants of the world using hypothetical and abstract categories according to the specific features of a neople? Is not ‘race’just a term invented by scholars rather than some kind of natural category? It was Freiherr von Eickstedt3 who grouped human beings according to such features as colour and texture of hair, skin colour, physical measurements, and sometimes using the index cephalicus (weight of the brain). Did he ever guess that his work would be used later by some people to further their own vested interests or those of some group? Von Eickstedt never predicted that his work would become the basis of a theory' to divide humankind against itself. And the motive for some people to do this is always self-interest. This has always been the case throughout human history. So where does this thing, race, come from? Not from nature! It came from the desire of the Western peoples to understand better the nonEuropean peoples, their customs and civilisations. This scientific work was led by Rousseau, Johann Forster, and Voltaire. That w'as how the science of race or peoples (ethnology) began. Based on this knowledge of the Indian and Chinese peoples, the West was able to carry out an even more intensive form of colonisation. The same fate befell Indonesia and the other countries of Asia and Africa. This occurred in an era when such superiority in science and learning, in intellectual activities, w'as used to seek victims elsewhere. Today, among the progressive peoples of the world, w e do not w ant to tum any people into victims. We need and w ant friendship and understanding betw een peoples. But even now' in this liberal era, learning and scholarship, themselves free of any racist blemish, are still being used to segregate people by imperialism and colonialism. Both the peoples of China and Indonesia are waging a struggle against these hated phenomena.

Very well then, now' these racialists sometimes do not use the race argument. Perhaps this is progress. Now they bring forward another accusation: The Chinese are a threat to the Indonesian economy! The interests of eighty3 Freiherr von Eickstedt (1892-1965) was a German anthropologist, largely forgotten today, who specialised in racial theories based on his work in the Andaman Islands.

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five million Indonesians (this figure is actually a product of magic as there has been no census yet) will not be sacrificed for the interests of a small foreign minority! This is the kind of argument used by people looking for a stick to beat a dog. Why? The Indonesian people are burdened with a level of tax perhaps greater than that of any other people, perhaps more even than those people who are still colonised. The tax burden of the people under the Republic of Indonesia is much heavier now than during the period of the Dutch East Indies. The Chinese, who were here even before the Dutch, cannot therefore be blamed for this.

But why is it only now that people are agitating about the Chinese in Indonesia? And if it were true that the Chinese were the root cause of difficulties of the Indonesian economy, why is no one asking why? And if it were true, is this not because the social system provides such a space for the Chinese, for anybody, to do damage to the economy? Why is it not the system, specifically the economic system, which is being attacked, but rather just a foreign minority who is? Why is a system not developed where neither Chinese nor Indonesians can take advantage over others no matter what position they have in the structure, whether they have no position or whether they are right at the top? That way the whole Indonesian people could benefit. This is indeed a difficult task. And it is not just an intellectually creative task but one that needs hard work as well. I think that the current big shots and officials, who only know how to order people around, are not capable of doing this. If they did try to carry out such a task, it would mean facing the people directly and working for and with the people, and not the other way around. And do these officials and big shots have sufficient knowledge and familiarity with the people? Well, let the racialists answer this question themselves because, in fact, they will not be able to give any answer. So what is the secret of the origins of all this controversy around the Chinese? And what is the real purpose of Operation Prosperity4 [and PP 10]? These questions must be answered, especially as this whole hubbub has nothing to do with any government program to solve the problem of the people's need for food and clothing. The freezing of Chinese capital will not mean that one more pair of underpants will be available to the people or that their capacity to buy will increase. The freezing of this capital will only mean that the poor will become poorer. Even the most insensitive economist will admit that the Indonesian economy must be a guided economy and based upon cooperatives, but is this synonymous with expelling the Chinese from their arena of livelihood? Is it a responsible action to throw the livelihood 4 Operation Prosperity was a government program at that time for rural production and prosperity.

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and homes of an entire group into chaos and force them to move to some new area just like that? There are those who say that the Chinese must be forced out of the villages so that they can be replaced by Indonesian traders. Such an argument only exposes the stupidity of those promoting it. First, you do not become a merchant in just one or two days. You need knowledge of all the goods traded in your region. The individual traits the preparedness to work hard, to provide whatever serv ice is needed no matter how small - do not just fall from the sky like a meteor. These all require time. If such a change were implemented, commerce in the villages would come to a standstill. And if they think, as is often the case, that the Indonesian people can be treated as guinea pigs, then it is they who are the aliens, that is, they are alien from the Indonesian people. There are those who try to hide the emptiness in their heads with the argument: We are only banning them from trading in the villages. They have to be gathered together in the residency’ towns so they can trade there. But everybody knows that, in the kind of liberal economy that we have now, trade is determined by supply and demand. It is impossible that in some residency there is already trade amounting to X and then all of a sudden it must sustain 3 or 4 times X. Yes, of course, you can use force as long as you wield power in your right hand and wield a stick in your right hand. But are we not humans and not cattle? Is it perhaps a crime that we are human?

In any case, the argument of the racialists that the Chinese are the enemy of the national economy and their role must be ended is full of contradictions. If I think about this, their argument seems even more incomprehensible. The thing is that the Indonesian economy is still a liberal economy. Commerce is still carried out in the private sector. A merchant is still a merchant, no matter whether he is Indonesian, Chinese or Arab. Does it make sense to argue that Indonesians should seize these positions just to become themselves enemies of the national economy? Does it mean that if an Indonesian takes over this role that his crimes will be less or that he should be forgiven or that we should turn a blind eye to them? Of course not! To defend such an approach is to join the ranks of the racialists and fascists! So what lies behind this whole hubbub about the Chinese? Be patient. We will discuss this in the letter about demography and economy.

The Indonesian People Are an Immigrant People, Not an Indigenous People Hs-y, the racialists, ofcourse, maintain their line that Chinese are not Indonesians either racially or politically. Well, we can kind of understand this because.

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The Chinese in Indonesia

of course, the Chinese come from outside Indonesia. From China, they say. Very true. But can they defend scientifically the claim that they themselves are indigenous? Do they dare say that as human beings, they are really different from the Chinese and from other humans? There is even a religious belief that all humans come from Adam, or even further, that all human beings, be they round-eyed or slant-eyed, come from God. Do the racialists not believe in religion? I think they have gone mad perhaps, if they have decided to go against their religion. Hs-y, perhaps they want to go so far as to say that the Chinese are not descendants of Adam and it is only the racialists that are descended from Adam. Can they answer the question: Was Adam then an Indonesian? Or did Adam live in Indonesia? I think there is no scholar who can prove this! And if they do not believe the anthropological research that they are descendants of people who migrated here, why do they not claim that they are the descendants of the prehistoric humans who lived here? In fact, who were these prehistoric humans who lived here? Are they just like the stones collected in the museums? Von Koenigswald discovered the remains of Megantropus Palaeojavanicus and proved that he was a human with a protruding jaw' who lived 600,000 years ago in Sangit. Then E. Dubois discovered the 400,000 year old remains of a human ape in the Bengawan Solo area. That human was still an ape! Or will the racialists claim to be the descendants of Homo Soloensis or Homo Wajakensis, who lived in a later period? The historians say that these humans disappeared completely from the face of the earth! They say that there is no relationship between them and the inhabitants of Indonesia today. So, do the racialists claim they are the descendants of some surv iving Pithecanthropus Erectusl Oh, I think they are truly bizarre and sick!

Hs-y, we will not accept the arguments of the racialists, whether they claim to be descendants of Pithecanthropus Erectus or of the Indonesian Adam, with or w ithout his citizenship certificate. So they will have to accept the fact that they are an immigrant people and descended from the same origins as the Chinese, those slant-eyed ones. As I explained above, the ancestors of Indonesians originated in Asia. From the same place as the Chinese or the Burmese or Thais. Based on the biological similarities, this cannot be denied. It is the same in the arena of culture, w here there are also similarities. In a recent article in the Nhan

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Dan newspaper in Hanoi, the Indonesian Ambassador to Vietnam, Sunaijo, commented on shared antecedents that Indonesians have with the peoples of Burma. Vietnam and Thailand:

... according to the analysis of historians and ethnologists, the Indonesian and Vietnamese people have the same origins. In Vietnam, as well as in Indonesia, there have been found similar items from the Stone Age: stone axes, tools madefrom bones, cooking pots, and other items made from stones. There are also many similarities in the customs and traditions of the two peoples. This proves that there have been centuries of historical contact (Antara, 25 June 1959).

The real indigenous inhabitants of Indonesia were pushed aside by the new waves of immigrants. They either were physically wiped out. or they lost any original cultural characteristics and were absorbed into the new population. The Chinese, who arrived later, entered a society that was already historically and ethnologically stable and formed. These Chinese became an integrated part of society. This situation lasted for centuries before the arrival of the Western invaders. There is no historical evidence of any crimes or disturbances caused by the Chinese. If we follow social developments through from a primitive society to that of a national society, then we arrive at the stage of national development we have now reached. But it is not enough to look at this from a political perspective alone. We must take note of the progressive thinking, the increasingly progressive thinking, which the new society has produced. The movement of the Chinese southwards to Indonesia was motivated by the same factor that motivated the earlier migrations from Burma and Thailand: the desire for a better life. If you like, you can also view these two migrations, the earlier and the later ones, as the migration of expelled peoples. They left their countries, where they had resided for so long, because they were not prepared to become the victims of the social systems that prevailed in their countries.

And for how long have the Chinese been coming to Indonesia? Since before the birth of Christ and since before the birth of Muhammad. Most clearly since before the birth of Indonesian nationalism.

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Once civilisation provided the means to keep records, it became possible to see how for centuries the Chinese have come here in migration after migration. Some came to reside, others to trade. Up until the arrival of the Dutch East Indies Company [VOC, from the Dutch Vereenigde OostIndische Compagnie], the presence of the Chinese caused no trouble. These continuous small migrations left their biological mark among many of the Indonesian peoples: Menadonese, Dayak, people from Palembang. and the inhabitants all along the Java coast, as well as those in Banjar, Pontianak, and other places. It was only with the arrival of the VOC that the presence of the Chinese became an issue or was made into an issue. The colonisers wanted to make use of the strengths of the Chinese to consolidate their own position on Indonesian soil. In a deliberate and systematic way. the Dutch brought new labourers from China, either by buying slaves in Hong Kong, Canton or Macau (people whom they called ‘pig's children’), or by shanghaiing and kidnapping them, as told in the diary of Bontekoe (Kisah Pelayaran Nahkoda Bontekoe, translated into Malay by A.F. von Dewall). The kidnapping was necessary because the Chinese refused to sign a trade agreement with the Dutch. There w'ere also those Chinese who fled the social system that provided no place for them. Others were forced to flee as a result of clan wars, as is described by Kao Yun-Ian in Annals of a Provincial Town. We know that the Chinese did not come here for a picnic or on some happy excursion; they came to work hard. From that point of view, the suffering they experienced was not so different from that which was experienced by Indonesians themselves. But it cannot be denied that history provides no evidence that the Chinese came here with any economic or political agenda. It has never been proven that the fact that the majority’ of the immigrants w ere traders w'as part of some attempt to achieve the economic colonisation of the local peoples. Rather, this social reality was the result of a long process.

Not before, during, or after the Dutch arrival has there ever been any evidence of the Chinese engaging in political activities aimed at conquering Indonesia. The only example of a Chinese attack on Indonesia was the expedition sent by Kublai Khan. But Kublai Khan was not an emperor of China in the w ay that many people imagine. He was a Mongol king w'ho had conquered and occupied China. The fact that the Chinese have never been an enemy of the Indonesian people has been outlined by many writers, both

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from the West and East. Excerpts from the magazine Sin Tjun rather clear picture: In There is No Asia (1954), Dwight Cooke wrote: 20 million Chinese outside of China represents a huge mass ofpeople ready- to be anybody’s friends, no less significant than any other people ofAsia.

In Hoakiau. F. Veldhuysen wrote: ifpeople ask what do the Chinese live from in Indonesia, they will answer: from anything or everything! .frujJie-fUylclhuysen] quoted the famous saying from Helffeirchjfi German economist): If there were no -Ghtn&iefpeople would have to create them.

Prof. Ch. Robequain, from the University of Paris, held the view that the Chinese contribution to manners in the Malay’ world has been underestimated, that they’ have played an important role in the economy, and that without them the region would be without its yeast.

The fact that the Chinese issue has been under consideration by people for such a long time should make us all think. But the thing is not just to rave on not knowing what we really want. Neither is it right to launch some movement against the Chinese, especially given that they are in such a weak position, being a minority, without the political strength to resist, and open to every attack. So, Hs-y, there are no Indonesians able to prove that they are the original Indonesians. Especially the Chinese. So then the new accusations started. The Chinese and PP 10/1959

The racialists, with all their old arguments exhausted, renewed their attacks from a political standpoint. Haven’t all these Chinese decided to take PRC citizenship and not Indonesian? Is that not a reason to see them as aliens and justification for our action to run them out of the areas where they earn their livelihood? At this point we return to the original question: Are we human beings or beasts? How would these racialists feel if, because of some twist of fate, they themselves had been Chinese? I cannot accept their policy. As part of a nation that has raised the level of its humanity by defeating colonialism, I feel I have

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the right to demand that we maintain this level of humanity we have achieved because of the revolution. We do not want to fall back into ways that we have left behind and have fought against. As an illustration, I would like to tell you a little about the example of Cuba, which has just won its independence and is firmly defending the dignity it w on through its revolution, including that of the Chinese who live there. There are around thirty thousand Chinese in Cuba. Major Guevara,5 the chairperson of the Cuban delegation that visited Indonesia, explained that the Chinese in Cuba had become part of the Cuban people and had been absorbed among the seven million Cubans.

He acknowledged there were those who remained as foreigners, as well as those who supported the old regime. But that was the result of the individual decisions of those people and was not representative of the Chinese as a whole.

Guevara went on to explain: The Cuban government does not implement discrimination against them as a group. We have no different policies towards them as people of Chinese descent, and we consider them as Cubans. Even though they still go by Chinese names, they struggle as Cubans. (Republik, 4 August 1959) So Cuba is Cuba. What about Indonesia? In the Indonesian Medium-Sized Merchants Union Working Conference, the former Minister Rachmat Muljomiseno explained that within the framework of guided democracy there was a place for private enterprise, but:

... / have issued an instruction to end all activities by aliens at the District and Village levels by the end of 1959. (Antara, 15 May 1959)

Nobody would object, including the Chinese, if Rachmat Muljomiseno6 had implemented his policy as a true leader and not just as some thoughtless 5 The South American rev olutionary Ernesto ‘Che’ Guev ara (1928-67) headed a Cuban delegation that made a world tour only months after they had overturned the dictatorship in 1959. The world tour included Indonesia, w here Guevara made the comments recorded here. 6 Rachmat Muljomiseno w as Minister of Trade in the early 1960s.

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bureaucratic issuer of instructions. Anybody can issue instructions! And in this case, we are dealing with the lives of people, a lot of people indeed. And what happened then? The instructions were implemented with no preparations, without any ability to show' that the policy would be implemented in a w ay that respected the dignity of people or that it w'as in accord w ith intellectual and leadership values. I

In the midst of all kinds of activity by the nascent Indonesian bourgeoisie, as they demanded special laws to legalise the status of national enterprises, there came the warning by the Grobogan provincial parliament aaainst racially discriminative policies. At the same time that Ismail Hasan, a representative of the Islamic youth, reminded people of the importance of good relations betw een the people of Indonesia and the PRC and an arts delegation prepared to visit the PRC, a truncheon hovered over the heads of all Chinese in Indonesia ready to crack down on them at any moment. Just because for some reason or other they were considered as aliens. Muljomiseno said that the role of the small-scale retailer would be taken over by cooperatives. The Indonesian Cooperatives Council w'ould have a target of replacing 15% of the activity of alien capital in the villages. But how would the total trading of these retail merchants be replaced? According to government figures, it amounts now' to three billion rupiah7 (Antara, 27 July 1959). So is it necessary that not only the small foreign traders suffer this calamity, but a similar fate also befall the Indonesian people, who now face a sudden vacuum in petty trade because of this government decision?

The Chinese themselves, of course, have the right to state their opinion on this, even though the racialists will surely try to corrupt that right. Do those about to be executed not have the right to some last words? So a statement was issued by the Bandung CHTH [Chinese Association], pleading, in the name of humanity, the spirit of Bandung and Indonesian-PRC friendship, that the government reconsider its decision. Ang Tjay Tek, Chairperson of the Bandung CHTH, explained:

... the majority ofsmall merchants offoreign nationality' in the villages are PRC citizens who have lived in Indonesia for generations; who live simply, at a level hardly distinguishable from how the Indonesian

At 1959 prices.

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people live; and they represent the main channel for distribution of basic goods, especially for the village people. The CHTH chairperson guaranteed that the Chinese would obey all government regulations and help in the development of the national economy. But, he said, tens of thousands of families would suffer as a result of the regulation issued by the Minister of Trade. It was not easy to shift to larger towns at the provincial and residency level. Some towns had closed-door policies; others had rules banning foreigners from taking work. Many towns would be turned into centres of large-scale unemployment. Furthermore, the ministerial regulation had been issued too quickly, and nobody had time to collect their thoughts (Antara, August 1959). How' many individuals, enterprises and families must suffer this catastrophe because of the instructions issued by His Excellency Rachmat Muljomiseno?

In West Java there are 9,095 retail outlets, of which 2,300 are outside large towns (Antara, idem). In the Malang residency there are 695 kiosks (with 4,500 families) that will be hit by the regulation. In Pasuruan there are 230 kiosks (1,400 families); in Probolinggo, 240 kiosks (with 1,500 families); and in Lumajang. 220 kiosks (with 1,300 families) (Republik, 7 August 1959). These are just some examples. If w'e look at the total picture, using official statistics, we get the following. As at the end of July [1959], the official statistics show there are 114,875 foreign merchants in the w hole country. There are 1,326 wholesalers, 26,859 medium-sized merchants, and 86,690 small peddler merchants. It should be noted that this data is not complete as a result of the security situation in Sulawesi and Sumatra. Of these 114,875 foreign traders, 109.466 are Chinese. The majority of these Chinese traders are peddler merchants, namely, 83,783. There are 24,991 medium-sized merchants, and 692 are big traders. They are spread out in the following regions: East Java: 26,388; East Sumatra: 14,627; Jakarta Metropolitan Area: 13,927; West Sumatra: 891 (497 peddler merchants; 360 medium-sized merchants and 34 wholesalers) (PIA, 24 August 1959J

If we assume that each trader supports four people [making up a family of five], then the total number of Chinese affected by this regulation is 5 x 109,466 =

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547.330 people, so more than half a million! 1 have included the wholesaler and medium-sized merchant Chinese in this calculation because the sense of solidarity among the whole community will mean that this will have an impact on all Chinese. So, at least half a million will feel the cane come down on their heads! Who is responsible for this? The racialists? They, in fact, need to see real victims. Half a million people! Half a million! Listen, Hs-y: Half a million! Does that figure not say something? Have the humanitarian instincts of the racialists been completely ruined? Half a million people whose lives will be thrown into chaos! Half a million!

Do you know what I see in my mind's eye, Hs-y? 1 see a town, and at the edge of this town are grandfathers and grandmothers, children, pregnant women, young men and women dreaming about their future, school children - and all of them no longer know what is going to happen to them. The source of water has dried up - life-giving water! It is as if they are just waiting for death to arrive, depending on the availability of water in the house, which tomorrow or the next day will surely dry up. Perhaps shocked by the impact of the instructions from His Excellency Rachmat Muljomiseno, the Ministry of Trade issued a corrective regulation aimed at softening the impact of the original regulation. After Muljomiseno had lost his position as Minister, they issued an order to their inspectors in the regions on the issue of the expulsion of foreign kiosks and foreign (PRC) people who live outside provincial and residency capitals. They announced that the instructions were a correction to the instructions of Muljomiseno. The key points of the corrective instructions were: 1.

The closure of a shop owned by a foreign national does not mean that the individual person must leave the village or place. Such a person has the right to provide his labour for activities in that area outside of trading activities, as long as there is no contradiction with regulations concerning the status of foreign nationals.

2.

In order to promote the development of cooperatives, people involved in kiosks and shops owned by foreign nationals can be employed as staff in cooperatives, and their capital may be lent to cooperatives (but not to individuals).

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3.

The instructions shall not apply to enterprises trading in services (diensverlenende bedrijven}, which can continue their activities.

These corrective instructions do appear to contain aspects that lighten the burden. But is this really the case? Developments would prove one way or the other. The reaction of the world press, from Rangoon, Cambodia, Singapore and Germany, assessed the instructions, with or without the correction, as an anti-Chinese policy. I think there is not much need to interpret again this assessment. Or perhaps it is enough just to read a few lines from a letter sent by the Federation of Chinese Associations in Surabaya to the Junior Minister for Trade requesting that the Muljomiseno regulation be reconsidered so that “the approximately 10,000 small Chinese traders in East Java will not fall into unemployment and destitution”. Indonesia already suffers from so much unemployment, w hich grows at the end of every school year. Perhaps the racialists will come out with another fanatical argument: Let them suffer; after all, they are only foreigners. If that is the case, then they are really at the same level as those tribes in the Lambarene Valley, with their limited humanity, about which Schweitzer w rote. Perhaps they would still hold the line and say: So what? We admit w e have a limited humanity; the Chinese, too, have never shown any sense of universal humanism. Very w ell then, let us close the discussion on humanity here and shift to the economic side of things.

Is it not the case that due to the instructions of Muljomiseno, three billion rupiah will change from being productive to purely consumptive capital? Will not this mean that the amount of money in circulation will increase dramatically but without an increase in the production of services? Will this not, in fact, create more damage to the economic life of the people? Three billion! You cannot even print that much in a w'eek! The crucial issue is that Indonesia is developing a guided economy as a replacement for a liberal [free market] economy. That we are shifting to a guided economy does not mean that we should be making enemies of the Chinese, who have become merchants and traders as a result of there being a free market economy. They did not create this free market economy and neither did we. It is merely a product of past human history. Our enemy is the free market economy, not the Chinese. And in a guided economy, the energy and capital of the Chinese can be of service. Their experience and

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capabilities can be useful for the development of a healthy national economy. jt iS their right to choose PRC citizenship. And if that means they are going to be viewed as foreign nationals, then we should treat them as foreign nationals and not like cattle that can be herded here and there into corrals. People with dignity show' it in their actions; they do not get it by begging for it from other countries. Foreigners? Very well then, look upon them as foreigners. But Indonesia must develop using every bit of strength and energy that can be found in its society. It certainly should not be destroying such strengths and energies. The racialists have no grounds to say this; all they want to do is to harass a minority that cannot defend itself. All Peoples Can Commit Crimes

Here and there, the racialists still try to justify the animal lusts that dwell in them: The Chinese must be attacked; they survive by their economic crimes, from moneylending to counterfeiting! It is so easy to accuse. Such accusations might be proven if they were made against specific individuals, but not when they are levelled against a whole group. Some say: They have a group attitude that is unacceptable to us! Hs-y, let me tell you another story. Before the arrival of the VOC, the Chinese had been absorbed by Indonesian society. But as the colonialists began to understand that there was a continuing, spontaneous migration of Chinese to Indonesia (no need for kidnapping or slavery), the colonialists began to fear the growing number of Chinese. They felt threatened. So the VOC introduced all kinds of regulations to limit these migrations. But not only that, the regulations w'ere used to bring in money for the colonialists as well. Money for the colonialists, disaster for the Chinese! There could be no other outcome. When it comes to money, it is rare for people to be able to separate themselves from cruelty. The greedier the person, the more cruel they are; these two traits almost always go together. Since then, the Chinese have been treated like a rubbish bin into which every kind of filth has been thrown: insults, humiliations, degradation, agitation, torture, murder. They were never in a position to resist. They had no army! They w'ere just peaceful people not after anything else but a bowl of rice. No matter how they were treated, they would accept it. Many of the Chinese were not able to comply with the Dutch regulations and so had their property and money confiscated. They were thrown into jail and later sent to Ceylon or South Africa. The strange thing was that none of them were ever sent back to China. So the motive was clearly to torment them.

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These new regulations slowed down the process of integrating the new' Chinese arrivals into Indonesian society. These included the pass regulations of 1848 that applied until 1920s. The situation was made worse when the Dutch brought to Indonesia a European practice forced upon the Jews: all the Chinese were forced to live in the same place, called Pecinan [Chinese quarter]. The Chinese became a segregated group in society. It was this policy that forced most Chinese to become traders. Previously, as with the rest of the Indonesian people, they had sought a livelihood as farmers, labourers and craftsmen, working alongside local people. At the same time, the colonial-imperialistic mentality that was dominant among the colonisers also affected the Chinese: How to maximise profit, no matter w hat that meant for the customer. The only constraint on their lusts was that which stemmed from free competition. The policies of the Dutch colonialists tow ards the Chinese caused them to adopt asocial behaviour, that is, they caused the Chinese to show the absence or a w'eak sense of responsibility to society as a whole.

This situation meant that they were even more open to accusations from the colonisers. It w'as as if everybody w'ho lived during the Dutch period had the right to judge as well as punish the Chinese. This tactic enabled the Dutch to direct the attention of the people aw ay from themselves as colonisers. The fact that they w ere not wiped out altogether is an epic story of its own. The main accusation levelled against them was that they were moneylenders, that they lived off interest, and that they sold goods on instalment w ith interest. But the commercial policy of the Dutch banned them from any other activities where' become farmers or civil servants^

Do they deserve these accusations? Hs-y, 1 do not think so. In the liberal-imperialist system, w hich is also still joined to the pre-existing feudal system, every body has the right to gobble up everybody else as long as there is no law banning some specific activity. In any case, things such as moneylending and usury have been around a long time and certainly are not synonymous with the Chinese. There are quite a few old inscriptions left to us in Indonesian history that talk about debts and w'hich 8 The Chinese were subject to various law s regulating their right to travel and their places of residency. These discriminatory laws w ere not lifted until 1919, and not 1920 as stated.

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involve elements of usury (see Dr. J.G. de Casparis, Selected Inscriptions from the 7th to the 9th Century AD). There are also records of hodemerij, regulations about moneylending among the seagoing traders of the Islamic era, which are the reverse of the kind of insurance we have today.

Hs-y, their forced isolation from the broader society naturally created a sense of shared fate among them, created a new mentality, a group mentality, the mentality of a minority, which originated from their being put in a position of alienation which forced them to confront society as something external and alien.

The Chinese in Indonesia are victims of history. That is all. But we should not look at them only from a negative standpoint. They have also contributed a lot to the progress of Indonesian society, and this I will show in further letters. Perhaps someone will say: But this is a question of foreigners. Hs-y, as I have already said, the Chinese have been turned into foreigners by new developments, political and judicial, which have not really been properly understood, either by scholars or politicians. This is the question of the rise of nationalism and its impact on minorities. This is why Operation Prosperity appears as a kind of immature, or improperly digested and poorly understood, extension of the [nationalist] spirit. I want eventually to get to this issue also, assuming no roadblock appears along this rather narrow path.

But even today in this modem era, we hear statements from high officials, such as those by the lawyer Mr. Alwi from the Immigration Department, who announced that PRC citizens banned from trade will be relocated to ghettos'. Does he know' what a ghetto is and yet still uses the term? Then he should throw' away his law degree! Yes, Hs-y, a law degree is not real proof of being a scholar; it is just a sign, nothing more, that he has graduated from some school somew here.

Letter Three The Expulsion of the Chinese and Its Reality Hs-y, On this night which is enveloped by the atmosphere of Christmas and the coming of the New Year, my heart feels truly moved to be able to speak with my own soul - a soul that for some time recently has been upset by the agitation about the Hoakiau problem. There is not a force on this earth that can stop a person from speaking with his own soul. As it happens, I am a writer, and so I will try to w rite down my feelings, my thoughts, my know ledge about this Hoakiau problem. Possibly other people will ask, why does this problem attract and disturb my soul so much. That I shall not deny! First of all, because my feeling of humanism is offended, second because 1 prefer being friends with the peoples of all countries, and third because 1 could not deny if it were said that it is possible 1 also have Chinese blood flowing in me. And Hs-y. there is nothing more precious in this life than friendship, because it gives our life so much greater space. It is only enmity that narrows life.

To be honest, 1 admire the toughness, the industriousness, the honesty and the revolutionary character of the people of China. The people of Indonesia, outside of its bourgeoisie, can learn much from the people of China about how to develop the country. There has never been such a rapid and giant development of a country as that experienced by the PRC, which has changed the face of the earth and humankind through its revolution! That is the PRC! There is much that can be learned from the PRC. Yet there are still those in Indonesia w ho only wish to view the PRC as something evil, usually based on their own fantasies. They try to influence public opinion with their fantasy that everything from the PRC is evil. This is clearly the thinking of people who have lost the plot. Good things can be found everywhere, and this is also true of evil. And if we would like to be viewed as somew hat pious, we

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could take up the words of the well-known Protestant, Pascal', w ho wrote in his memoirs:

It is dangerous if human beings are always being told that they are like animals and are not shown their nobility. It is also dangerous if human beings are only ever shown their nobility and never the depths of degradation they can reach. And it is worse still if they' are left in ignorance about both these things.

I do not mean to moralise but it truly pains me to see the actions of this group of people who wish to see only the weaknesses of the PRC, and they are probably just talking nonsense anyway. Then they bang their drums, rattle their cans, shout and cry out, and do all kinds of acrobatics in order to cover up their own crimes by shouting out the crimes of others, which are probably just their own fantasies anyway. Now they shout: Fnernies of the econnmyLAnd the latest thing we hear them roar is something currently the/fashion in the free world: Fifth column!

I ? ? J

Let me give an explanation of what lies behind all this din. The Big .Myth About the Fifth Column

The big myth that the Chinese in Indonesia constitute a fifth column, as I have mentioned in earlier letters, comes from the worry of the colonisers that the Indonesian people would be more sympathetic to the Chinese than to themselves. They needed to position the Chinese in such a way that they would be seen in their w orst light. Before the arrival of the VOC. there had never been any tensions in relations between the local people and the Chinese. In the earlier period, people did not use the term ‘fifth column’ because that arose only at the beginning of World War II. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Chinese were referred to as ‘the undesirables' (D.G.E. Hall, A History- of Southeast Asia). This term French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal (1623-62) w as actually a Jansenist, a member of a Roman Catholic sect.

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often changed. Sometimes there was no need for any term; the sentiment was manifested in deeds: beatings, humiliation, oppression, murder. And the final term, the one most used, the one providing the greatest challenge in the modem world is ‘fifth column’.

The hostile sentiment towards ‘the undesirables’ first arose in Java, or more specifically, in Batavia. It arose among the colonial officials, of course, and not among the people. [Dutch Governor General] J.P. Coen brought them here, forcibly of course, sending an armada to kidnap Chinese living along the coast. They were brought to Batavia because of their skills as craftsmen, because^of their industriousness and enterprise. Hs-y, this need to be emphasised: They were not brought to ftatavia to become merchants! There were Chinese already in Batavia before fhose brought out by Coen, but they were farmers, growing pepper, sugar, traaing in tea, and, most common of all. working as craftsmen. >

As the colonialists began to realise that the traditional, long-term migration was continuing, they grew afraid of the growing number of Chinese. Under the pretext of defending public order, they began to persecute the Chinese. This included violence against those looking for work, many of whom would die before they found any work. But there was one thing that must be noted about many of these Chinese, in particular those kidnapped and brought to Indonesia. They were coastal people, far from the centres of feudalism. They were people who w ere free and independent, or half-free and independent. They w ere not serfs. So even though they were used as forced labour, they were not the types to lose their initiative just like that. Before, during, and after Coen’s kidnapping, because of their enterprise, some in the Chinese community were able to become rich. They traded in agricultural produce (pepper, tea and silk), but they thrived especially as traders of export goods, in both the traditional trade with China as well as the trade with Europe. But, Hs-y, wherever corruption prevails, as it did in the time of Coen, and w herever the love of money dominates, then viciousness is sure to make its presence felt. And so it was at the beginning of the eighteenth century. This was the way the corrupt agents of colonialism went after money: extortion was committed against the Chinese, whether or not they had papers. They were harassed in almost every way imaginable. These officials helped generate a general anti-Chinese sentiment. They were exiled, killed, tortured and shot in

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order to squeeze money out of them, even from the most empty of pockets I say ‘empty pockets’ because the Chinese have also had to deal with the myth that they are all rich. This is not true. But it has to be admitted that no matter how empty the Chinese pockets might have been, they were not quite as empty as the pockets of the local people. You need to understand the social structure at the time. It was like a pyramid. At the top were the Dutch, who ruled over and terrorised all those who were under them. Immediately under them were the nobility, who, in their turn, also oppressed and terrorised the people. So the people bore the weight of tw0 layers of oppression. The position of the people was virtually that of slaves. According to Western observers who wrote about Banten in the sixteenth century, almost all work was done by slaves. We can draw the conclusion that work itself was a degrading activity, that of slaves.

Beside the pyramid stood the merchants: Chinese, locals, Portuguese, Indians. Arabs, British and most especially, Dutch. All of them also exploited the people. So there was a true international exploitation. Hs-y, I have not included the merchants in the pyramid because they were not under the terror of either the nobility or the Dutch. They cooperated with everybody - the nobility, the Dutch and the people. And w'hy did the colonialists want to get rid of the Chinese? The first reason was that there were more Chinese than there were Dutch. And the Dutch found that they could only use the nobility as instruments of colonisation. History had shown that they had not been able to use the Chinese for this purpose! Second, the long and rich culture of the Chinese meant that they were in a position to stand as strong as the colonising w hites. (So it was racial discrimination that gave rise to political discrimination, but also taking the form of economic discrimination!) Third, the Dutch needed to defend white domination on a global scale. So Dutch soldiers and sailors agitated the slaves, the ordinary people, to attack the Chinese, something that happened when anti-Chinese feeling reached its zenith in the eighteenth century. Behind the soldiers and sailors stood Governor General Valckenier, w'ho also ordered the execution of all Chinese prisoners. But the Chinese could not stand by in the face of this barbarity. They fought back and. outside of the towns, formed armed brigades. In Batavia, the Chinese w ere killed en masse - babies, men, women, grandmothers, widows, young

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men. young women. At least ten thousand people were killed! That is howunproductive history can be. if a country has a Governor General!2

The bloodbath unleashed by Governor General Valckenier created a new name, the name of a river, Kali Angke. In the Fukien dialect, this means Red River. And do not assume that the local people remained silent throughout all this. Though they had the social status of slaves, or even just animals, they were in fact still human beings. And, as human beings, they could not let the noble nature of humanity be violated. Perhaps also because they had not forgotten the rebellions by Surapati3 and Pieter Eberfeld4, or perhaps they could see that the barbaric actions of the colonisers would one day be directed at them, the people also rose up and supported the Chinese. Fighting broke out everywhere, eventually spreading to Semarang and Surakarta. In Surakarta, the Pakubuwono5 joined in and were inspired also to rise up against the colonisers. The important thing here is that the Indonesian people helped this resistance. (See also Dr. Prijono, Sedikit tentang Sejarah Asia Timur Raya dan Sejarah Tanah Jawa).

Hs-y, you have, no doubt heard the name Multatuli6, have you not? Even though he has hardly ever been mentioned in the school texts used here in Indonesia? Multatuli was once accused of unfairly depicting the Javanese (Multatuli, Ideen, Vierde B undeI), with the words: This is in miniature the roaring of the dissatisfiedfool who s in adversity’ and accuses and curses the world, as if the Japanese and Chinese are responsible for his misfortune. '■ In 1740, Dutch fears of a coup by the economically more powerful Chinese led them to massacre the Chinese in Batavia and introduce restrictions on Chinese residence. At least 5,000 Chinese were killed. 3 Surapati was a Balinese slave in Batavia who led a bandit gang and later a rebellion against the Dutch in the late seventeenth century. Having established an independent kingdom in Java, he was killed in a military campaign w aged against him jointly by the VOC and tw o other Javanese kingdoms. 1 Pieter Eberfeld was a Eurasian who led a rebellion by Chinese plantation workers against the Dutch in 1721. He and others w ere later executed. 5 The Pakubuw ono were the royal family of Surakarta, the present-day city of Solo. 6 Multatuli was the pseudonym of Eduard Douwes Dekker (1820-87), a Dutch writer w hose experiences in Java working for the Dutch colonial serv ice made him a critic of the colonial administration and inspired his novel Max Havelaar.

r

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The Chinese in Indonesia

As vague as these words might be. they reveal some kind of general fear of the Chinese, and the Japanese as well. (I think there is a new fear of the Japanese now, but in the context of imperialist cooperation.) They are being put in a difficult position, targeted for provocation. This fear is very general, and I think those in power also only have a very general perception of the Chinese. We can forgive Multatuli for hardly mentioning the Chinese at all in his descriptions of life in Banten. The Chinese had very little presence in Banten at that time. Banten had to be destroyed as a harbour and entrepot. So the Dutch dragged the Chinese away from Banten and to Batavia. Banten collapsed and Batavia grew as a port. It would not have been so easy to move the Chinese from Banten to Batavia if Banten itself had not been in such tumult as a result of the fighting between Sultan Ageng and Sultan Haji (1683)7, not to mention w ave after wave of Dutch blockades of Banten. The Dutch knew w'ell how to use funds and forces. Banten collapsed in the end because it became starved of all its funds andforces. I do not mean to say that the people of Banten were no longer productive and that there was no longer any pepper being produced. No! But with the people more or less in the position of slaves, w'e cannot really expect them to be optimally productive. But the Chinese in Banten were not slaves; they were free people. Their fortunes did not depend on their loyalty to a master but upon their ow n efforts. Hs-y, it was the colonialists, afraid that the Chinese might take their place, who first planted the anti-Chinese cliches. Even though the Chinese never did anything to deserve being targeted, these cliches were later taken up by other non-Chinese bourgeois. But the ordinary people did not take up these anti-Chinese sentiments. They had nothing to gain, and neither would they gain anything if the anti-Chinese elements gained a victory. This was proven by history. The people actually helped the rebellion of the Chinese. The people also preferred to sell their produce to the Chinese rather than to white people. This was proven in 1655. The Dutch seized 4,000 sacks of pepper from a Chinese ship on the Musi River, and then the people joined w ith Chinese to w'reak revenge on the Dutch. Forty-tw o Dutch were killed and twenty people captured (Dr. de Graaf, Geschiedenis van Indonesia). De Graaf also produced some other facts that the people of South Borneo also preferred 7 This refers to the struggle between the last sovereign ruler of Banten, Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa, and the man supported by the Dutch, Sultan Haji. Sultan Ageng was captured by the Dutch in 1683 and signed an agreement with them that basically ended Banten’s existence as an independent sultanate.

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to sell their pepper to the Chinese. In an expedition aimed at conquering the area and expanding the Spanish territories to Maluku, the Chinese sailors also rebelled, killing the commander and causing the whole mission to fail.

Anti-Chinese sentiment was systematically generated by those in power. It then spread to the bourgeoisie, that is, the non-Chinese capitalists. Then politicians took them over, thinking that these sentiments were popular sentiments, and they then used them to justify some of their actions, as the basis to get support from some elements in society or to protect and expand their own capital and power. In a speech in November 1959, Njoto8 gave the name of the Dutch right-wing social democrat, Jef Last, as the person who first used the term ‘fifth column’. It was Last who said that the Chinese, including Indonesians of Chinese descent, were a fifth column. This idea was then swallowed, digested and reproduced again by Dzulkifli Hafas, the editor of Nusantara newspaper, who spread it to the public still using the same term: ‘Fifth Column!’ p • But, Hs-y, if Jef Last was really honest, could he really say that he loves the Indonesian people so much that he needs to give us such a warning about coming dangers? Are these dangers real? Not just a fantasy? Why is Jef Last making these statements? If he is not speaking to the Indonesian people - and I do not think that is possible - then to whom is he speaking?

Is he not actually speaking for Dutch interests? Is he not really interested in using his influence in such a way as to encourage the Indonesian government to take action against the Chinese and thereby throw the Indonesian economy into chaos? Yes, it is chaos that occurs in many places as a result of PP 10. I do not know. And do not forget, the term ‘fifth column’ is always used to link the Chinese to the PRC! The depiction of the Chinese as a fifth column is also a tactic of the anticommunist movement. And the anticommunist movement also operates on an international level. Everything is linked together in such a way that it can have an impact before any government can break out of these links. So we hear, for example, from Kyodo News that 8 Njoto was one of the central leaders of the Indonesian Communist Party. He was murdered by the Indonesian army in 1965.

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the former Japanese Prime Minister, Shigeru Yoshida, complained after his trip around Southeast Asia that anticommunist sentiment was strong in all the neutral countries except Indonesia. Before that, we heard a report from the PIa in Bonn that the Indonesian ambassador to West Germany, Mr. Zairin Sain, who had been a former advisor to the head of the Dutch delegation at the U.N. in 1946, had made a statement about the Chinese traders in Indonesia:

... [they] were typical representatives of reactionary capitalism. The Chinese in Indonesia have such a great influence on trade and commerce that their manipulations were a grave danger to economic stability in Indonesia. Meanwhile the PIA published a report from AFP [Agence France Presse] from Manila, that:

The Philippines Government was startled to hear that more than 600 Chinese residents in the Philippines had been naturalised in 1946. Hs-y, these three reports were published one after the other in the third week of December 1959. In just one week! I have just brought these reports to your notice, not all the others. But it should be clear how the international anti-Chinese and anticommunist movements are intertwined, including in the press. In order that you can better understand the international efforts to destabilise the Southeast Asian economies, especially that of Indonesia, I have prepared a chronicle of some of the recent incidents affecting the Chinese here.

Anti-Chinese sentiments were systematically developed by the Dutch. This happened even during the revolution, when Dutch spies further agitated anti-Chinese sentiments, resulting in the mass killings in Tangerang in 19469.1 say that this was the w ork of spies because action against the Chinese 9 28 May 1946, Indonesian republican forces withdrew* from the Tangerang area, and Dutch colonial forces entered. A Chinese member of the colonial forces lowered the republican flag and raised the Dutch flag, provoking anti-Chinese actions from the local population that lasted for days. Hundreds of Chinese homes were damaged and more than a hundred Chinese w ere killed.

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during the revolution only made more enemies for the revolution. And the revolution needed friends in order to be able to defeat its enemies. It is idiocy to make enemies of people who are not enemies before the real enemy is defeated. And. even until now, the Chinese are not the enemy of the Indonesian people, even though they appear as the enemy of the Indonesian bourgeoisie and other non-Chinese bourgeoisie. In this war among the bourgeoisie, big and small, they are prepared to resort to the lowest tactics, including dragging the people into their war. Hs-y, do not think that the Indonesian people are so easily confused, even though they may often remain silent.

The 1945 August Revolution proved that the Indonesian people would fight to defend themselves and their country at any time, whenever necessary. It is only those who have become somewhat unbalanced or cannot recognise their own weaknesses who are most thrilled with all the din about the Chinese. The people are not joining in any of this. Meanwhile, the progressive forces understand that the improvement of economic conditions does not come from simply changing the economic actors but from transforming the basis of the national economy. This needs to be in accordance with the challenges of the times and to provide justice to all Indonesian citizens, that is, it needs to be a socialist economic system. What can we say; a high official dealing with the Chinese situation has now issued a statement articulating negative facts about the Chinese. He has concentrated on the illegal acts of individuals and made it look like all Chinese in Indonesia are a bunch of evil bastards. This statement has emboldened both the domestic and foreign press, connected as they are to the interests of the international anti-Chinese and anticommunist movements. The pressure put on the Chinese sometimes gets out of control; sometimes their accusers refer to them again as economic saboteurs, forgetting to refer to them as the fifth column. Sometimes they are described as an evil group and then made even more evil because of their loyalty to the PRC. They are the target of all sorts of attacks; they are placed in the dock and charged with being both official and unofficial enemies of humanity. But none of this propaganda ever actually gets to the important question: What economic system is best for Indonesia? And then how should

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it be implemented? What are its stages? How should it be regulated, and what needs to be done during the period of transition? Both the local and foreign press, working together with the international anticommunist movement, are completely silent about all these issues.

Choosing PRC Citizenship is Not a Crime

Hs-y, nationalism is something new in Asia. Especially in Indonesia. Previously, nationality was not a factor in relations betw een the inhabitants of Indonesia. They related to each other as human being to human being; they mixed as members of one family. The rise of nationalism put barriers between the peoples of Asia, making them aliens to each other. By using the word ‘alien', I mean this in a formal way. Now we are entering such a new period. So this has caused a kind of awkwardness betw een us, but this is not a reason for enmity between us. In the meantime, let us examine the fuel that is used to inflame anti-Chinese feelings. There is the example of the Poh An Tui10. This is used as an argument against the Chinese. It w;as even mentioned by Subandrio11 in his letter to Chen Yi12. Let us put this under the light so w'e can see things clearly. Where now are the members of Poh An Tui? Now, after the victory of Indonesian nationalism, which citizenship should they choose? Indonesia, PRC or Taiwan? If they become Indonesians, how' is that possible? Who made the rules that turned them into Indonesian citizens?

Obviously it w as not Taiwan, nor was it the PRC. If we w ant to make something of the Poh An Tui incident, then let us investigate it properly so that we can actually leam something and not just use it to agitate. Nobody w ill gain any legitimate benefit simply from agitation. Why has there been no effort to collect real evidence about this event? It is precisely because there is no clear 10 The Poh An Tui w as a militia formed by the Dutch from Chinese residents to fight the independence movement. 30 September 1945, 200 members of the Poh An Tui, fully armed by the Dutch, attacked the town of Panipahan, forcing the withdraw al of a small contingent of Republican naval personal. This is referred to as the Poh An Tui Incident or the Panipahan Incident. 11 Subandrio was Foreign Minister in the Soekamo government. He was arrested in 1966 and tried before a military tribunal set up by Suharto and sentenced to death. He remained in prison until after the fall of Suharto. 12 Chen Yi was Foreign Minister in the PRC. The letter referred to here is discussed in greater detail in the Letter Five.

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evidence about Poh An Tui that it is possible to use this incident to inflame hatred against the Chinese. People from East Sumatra and Medan in particular, can tell you now what happened to the members of the Poh An Tui. There are a number of w riters and journalists who were citizens in East Sumatra who know what really befell those Poh An Tui people. Now, in the midst of the campaign of hate against the Chinese, they are nowhere to be heard. Perhaps they are just trying to protect themselves or the positions that they hold, positions which they do not fully deserve or which they do not deserve at all.

1 think it might be important. Hs-y, to relate how there is a very large number of stateless Chinese in Jambi [Sumatra] who are sympathisers of the Kuomintang in Taiwan. There were just a few score Chinese in Jambi who chose PRC citizenship. The newspaper Fikiran Raky at in Palembang reported on 22 August 1959 that these stateless Chinese had also been involved in the regional revolts of 1957 and the beginning of 195813. Some fled overseas, but some also helped supply the rebels. So I wonder, Hs-y, how we relate to these stateless Chinese if we do not know to whom they are loyal. Does being without nationality mean they have no loyalty to any country? Is it going too far then, to draw the provisional or even final conclusion that such people indeed have no sense of loyalty and in fact, are people who cannot be trusted? Why is it not these people who are taken issue with first? Why is it that those with Chinese citizenship, who have made that clear choice for a specific country - and a friendly country at that - are held responsible for all the crimes of the liberal economy, which itself is a legacy of history? I really do not understand the whole din around the so-called Chinese question. Junior Minister for Information Maladi announced, for example, that the Indonesian government w ould not be changing the rules regarding foreign nationals (from the PRC) in Indonesia. Antara reported him saying this in Surabaya in October 1959. Such a statement is not oriented towards strengthening the system of a guided economy, which all the people of Indonesia support, or aimed at improving its implementation. It is only making an issue of w hether somebody is a foreigner, whether he is or is not a native of Indonesia! No matter how you look at such a statement, it always comes back to the question of the nationality of an individual and not really to the question of what is best for the national

13 The regional revolts of 1957 and 1958 were led by rightist military officers in Sumatra and Sulawesi. They eventually attempted to establish an alternative government of Indonesia with backing from the United States and Australia.

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economy. Nobody seems to be looking at this issue, despite the fact that the din about the Chinese question is crashing on our ears every' day. Hs-y, given that this is an issue of unresolved nationality, I cannot support the demonstrations that the PRC has organised - at least according to press reports, if they are true - to respond to the anti-Chinese actions in Indonesia. If we cannot support one irrational act, then surely we cannot also support another such act. I think that responding to one irrational act with another is not just unproductive. And I have to admit also that here the new spirit of the revolution is sometimes being suffocated by an older spirit. There seems sometimes to be a kind of indigestion, where people cannot understand w hat flow's from our independence and what is actually a legacy of the colonial era. People cannot understand, or do not want to understand, that China after 1949 is not the China of previous eras and that Indonesia after 1945 is also not the Indonesia of before. We are often confronted with confusions, whether deliberate or not, I do not know. This is caused by the older spirit not being able to comprehend the issues of independence.

Perhaps there will be those who accuse me of being anti-national because of these views. [North Sumatra Governor] Kumala Pontas, for example, has accused all those who try to prevent the implementation of PP 10 of treason. Any such person is welcome to bring me before any tribunal to investigate whether I am anti-national or not. Perhaps because I am not burdened by any position, it is easier for me to be objective about this issue. It is only my desire to protect the good relations between Indonesia and the PRC, and even more so. the internal social, economic and political development of Indonesia, that I reject all these confusions spread by others. And so I am forced to put forw ard these ideas. But wait. I have still not finished speaking. For the first time since 1950. there have been attempts at the international level to calm the anti-Chinese sentiments. Where? In Peking itself. It w as the journalist Mh. Tabrani w ho raised the issue directly w ith Chou En-lai! Tabrani went to China in 1952 to attend the May Day celebrations. Tabrani asked Chou En-lai: What is the Chinese policy towards all the Chinese who live overseas in the many Southeast Asian countries? Are they’ prepared to become citizens of the countries

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where they now live, or are they’ to be used as part ofa Chinese plan for expansion in Asia?

1 quote this very undiplomatic question to a diplomat from a book by the journalist and member of the Indian National Congress, Raja Hutheesing, who is also author of The Great Peace (according to the translation of Iskandar Situmorang). Hutheesing came to Indonesia a few years ago at the invitation ofthe Indonesian government. I do not know why he was here. I do know that in his book he wrote about his visit to China, but in the usual style of an Indian intellectual: with pretensions to be the champion of Asian culture, unwilling to acknowledge the achievements of other Asian nations. As if he were some kind of detective out to catch a burglar, he expressed his suspicions about everything he saw and heard while he was there. These suspicions were just the polite form of what otherw ise emerged as an explicit statement: Every body lies in the PRC. I do not know how the Indonesian press reported Tabrani’s question. I do not have any documentation. But Chou did reply, as noted in Hutheesing’s book. Chou replied at the time, and subsequently, he also sent a written reply. Chou replied in writing like this: In my opinion, because we all are from nations that have sufferedforeign colonisation or are still suffering this, we must be able to understand each other. So Mr Tabrani and the Indonesian delegation must be able to understand that the Chinese nation, which has awoken after such a long period of oppression, has great sympathy for all the peoples of the world who suffer colonisation, most especially the people ofAsia. We cannot deny that in the feudal era our ancestors launched aggression against our neighbours such as Korea and Vietnam. These were crimes of the feudal era, crimes of the feudal government of China. We admit all this. We have now expelled the colonisers and overthrown the feudal rulers. Today's people’s democracy will never repeat such aggression. I am sure that the Indonesian delegation has already experienced here in Peking how happy the Chinese

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people have been to welcome you. I am sure you will find the same thing ifyou visit other areas. The new China rejects all aggression towards other countries. Finally, I should just say’ that the former colonisers now spread stories about China, saying that China is preparing to start aggressive action against other countries. Their aim is to break any unity among us. Can you really believe their stories? Their purpose is to create conflict and suspicion among us so as to make their own aggression easier. Let all the peaceloving countries of the world unite and plant deep in our thoughts an old, well-known saying: Beware ofthe pickpocket! Hs-y, it is a pity that Chou did not say anything about citizenship in his reply. But in the book by Raja Hutheesing, book there are some notes on how Chou answ ered at the time.

The issue ofcitizenship is a new issue. Several Southeast Asian countries have now formulated citizenship laws. We are very pleased to start discussions of this question. We understand that now the people have won their independence they may be suspicious ofanything foreign. But we must always trust in the facts.

Of course, just as with Raja Hutheesing, there will be many sceptical Indonesians who will say: Ah, that is just the public line. Hs-y, the question now' is whether or not China will be able to rebut these sceptics with deeds.

I am not competent to intervene on this issue. But, oh, how many people there are on this earth that have such pretences. At the beginning of 1957,1 gave a lecture on China. There was one person who attended, a sceptic and critic who claimed also to be a philosopher. But he went to sleep in order to show howr unimportant he thought the lecture was. Of course, I am not going to claim that the talk was especially important. But whether or not it w'as important is not worth debating now. The key thing is to understand that nations are now awakening. The amazing thing was that the sleeping person suddenly announced his views the next day over the radio: My lecture was

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like a hymn! No different than the bulletins issued by the PRC embassy! My goodness! It appears that a sleeping philosopher can also develop opinions, and they were broadcast on government radio, no less. Then it turned out that this critic, sceptic, and philosopher was no more than a teacher at a Kuomintang school. He only realised that he had been a teacher of KMT cadres after the Indonesian government banned KMT activities. Perhaps he should be called the father of the new KMT. Or maybe the grandfather of the new KMT in Indonesia. What a tragic story of a radio philosopher with no philosophy! In 1952, a professor from the University of Indonesia, himself of foreign descent, whispered to me, “Vigilance. Pram! The Chinese are a danger standing right there at the door!” And, at the beginning of 1956, a military officer warned me, of course in his capacity as an individual. “The Chinese are a threat already inside our home. If the chance should arise...”

How mixed up is all this! Are the Chinese here so politically conscious [i.e., with a political agenda of their ow n] that they themselves cause all these whispering attacks? I do not think that their consciousness is that high. If we read the book about Lie Kim Hok (1853-1912)14 by Tio le Soei, with all its historical background, we can see that their political consciousness is very shallow, although it must be acknowledged that they do have some politics. During the struggle against the Dutch, there were very few Chinese among the ‘politicians in the making’. Colonel Amir Mahmud, the Bandung KMKB War Commander, told a gathering of Indonesian citizens of foreign descent that the Indonesian state does not recognise terms such as ‘genuine native’ and ‘non-native’.

In the period of the struggle for Indonesian independence, besides native Indonesian names, we also find names that indicate foreign descent, such as Liem Koen Hian and Douwes Dekker.

Is it really the case, though, that political consciousness among Indonesian Chinese is so shallow? It might be useful in this respect to quote from a report 14 Lie Kim Hok was a Chinese writer and journalist who wrote in Malay and whose w ritings led to the founding of the Chinese Association in Batavia in 1900.

by ran Jhg Kie when he was editor of Kengpo. This report was published in the

Recently I asked several inhabitants of Benteng whether they’ thought of one day' returning to China; without exception they’ said No. I asked them who Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Tse-tung were. They didn’t know. One of them explained. We here only know how to befarmers; we don t know anything about the news. We never heard it.

They did know, however, that the Father of the State is President Soekamo. And one of the fanners said wistfully, I've heard the name of President Soekarno, but I have never seen his face. When I asked what it meant to become an Indonesian citizen, one of them replied, We are one with the Indonesian people. Where else could we live? In other places we would be abandoned and neglected. For such simple people, the passive system of attaining citizenship was most appropriate. Nor need we worry about their being used by Red China as a fifth column. Hs-y, if you read closely, there are several strange things to be found in these paragraphs. Let me explain a little. Benteng is another name for Tangerang, which is a town midway between two regions. The name ‘benteng’ [fort] originated from its history. It was there that the Dutch East Indies Company built a fort on the Cisadene River, w'hich forms the border between Banten and Batavia. The fort was used as the base for fending off military forces or bandit gangs from Banten. One of the reasons that there w’ere many Chinese in Tangerang is that many of them were exiles fleeing the conflict betw een the Dutch and Banten during the period when the Dutch were chasing the Chinese out of Banten. Some would also have been exiles from the Valckenier Incident. This is my suspicion anyway. If I am right, then it is certain that no matter how isolated a community situation they might find themselves in, they would have heard many stories warning them to be vigilant and careful.

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Second, there is no way that the Chinese living there would have forgotten the 1946 Tangerang Incident. They would be very careful in what they said. Third, it is impossible”that none of them would have heard of Chiang Kai-shek or Mao Tse-tung, even though most of them are illiterate. The fact that Jakarta is not far away and not a difficult journey means that news certainly would have reached them quite quickly, even if only by word of mouth. Fourth, the statement by one of them that they had "‘heard the name of Soekamo” is also a bit odd. Soekamo’s name was not something new for Indonesians. It was around even before the Japanese occupation. This especially would have been the case in Tangerang. At the height of political and military activity, on 9 December 1945, Bung Kamo [i.e., Soekamo], Bung Hatta15, the attorney general, the cabinet secretary, and several other officials of the Republic passed through Tangerang on their way to Banten. Thousands of people came out to welcome the official entourage. In Tangerang itself, thousands also gathered. The president and vice-president both spoke to the masses to thank the people of Tangerang and to urge them to keep up the struggle for country, people, and religion. I do not think that we can accept so easily Tan Eng-kie’s report. The other funny element was when he mentioned the fifth column, saying that no such thing existed among the Chinese of Benteng. But it is clear that he does think such a fifth column exists; yes, it is just a part of his fantasy world. Tan Eng-kie has deliberately linked the issue of the fifth column with Indonesian citizenship. Once again we find an example of the slippery combination of truth, half-truth and no truth at all with the fantasy of someone. A whole people have to suffer the consequences of this fantasising by a small group of people. One of the grating things, too, is that the fifth column issue is always mentioned in relation to Red China. Why is it never raised in relation to other countries - Taiwan for example? Of course not. the whole mythology of the PRC Chinese fifth column is part of the cliche that it must be the fault of the communists, the communists are rotten, and communism itself is a manifestation of evil. Such kinds of assertions are the product of unbalanced minds. As I have said to you earlier: Good can be found everywhere, and the same applies to rotten things.

15 Mohammad Hatta (1902-80) was an Indonesian political leader and Vice President until he resigned in 1956 after a dispute with Soekamo. After Soekamo’s fall, he returned to government as an advisor to Suharto.

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Hatta also contributed an article, on the economy, of course, to the same journal, entitled ‘Facets of Indonesia’s Economy’. He also mentioned the Chinese, but very cautiously and without using the term ‘fifth column’. But still his approach gives us indigestion:

The Indonesian was poor in the midst of overflowing wealth. Those with money- were the foreigners who nded the country; they had authority, capital and their technical skill. Next to the Dutch, the best off were the Chinese, who were their chief helpers in business and administration, and formed, as it were^cijniddly class. So Hatta has very carefully positioned the Chinese as helpers to the Dutch in commerce and government! It is very sad that it is indeed a former vicepresident who is speaking like this. Hs-y, I say sad because it is a statement that reveals that Hatta does not understand much about the history of his own country.

Syahrir16 also wrote for the same magazine about ‘Problems the Country Faces’. He does not mention the Chinese even once. So you can see, Hs-y, why I might feel frustrated that none of our political commanders have given any time to study the Chinese question scientifically. I myself find it strange that none of them seem interested in studying such a serious issue. Because of this lack of attention and study, it is very easy for the Chinese to be turned into scapegoats by anybody and everybody. The lack of clarity in the position of these politicians has made it easier for the Chinese to become easy prey for political wheelers and dealers, which is what is happening today. In this Christmas atmosphere, I pray that little by little, the officials, the power-wielders, and, not least, the leaders of the people will set aside some of their time to study the history of minorities in Indonesia, as well as study more about their own people. Maybe this way, in the very near future, we might reach a situation where not a single person or group ends up a victim of some outrageous political scenario. Such acts are truly shallow, violating the 16 Sutan Syahrir (1909-66) was a leader of the moderate, pro-Western Indonesian Socialist Party (PSI) and served as Indonesia’s first Prime Minister, 1945-7.

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most elementary principles of humanity. It is a basic right of any Chinese to choose PRC citizenship, whether actively or passively. At the very least, they are giving their loyalty to a country. It means we know who they are; they are not some rootless group in society. We must respect the citizenship that people choose for themselves. If we develop antipathy for some foreign group for one reason or another, then the solution must be found by following decent methods, respecting elementary principles. Has the tumult around the Chinese respected such principles? The facts tell the story here, Hs-y. PRC citizenship is not a crime.

It is Not Wisdom to Expel People From Their Livelihood There is an agreement to buy surplus agricultural products from the United States! And there is no news whether the case of certain elements in Singapore falsifying the quality of PRC rice destined for Singapore is going to court. At least I have not heard any such news. The whole commotion around the Chinese issue has developed through very unique, though very systematically organised, incidents. A,/*^^*'^*6'*** \

Responding to this, one official in the PRC embassy here explained that Chinese capital in Indonesia was not foreign capital but, rather, domestic capital. It was impossible for any profits to be transferred out of the country, fforwas it ever likely that the capital itself would leave Indonesia. The very next day, Rahmat Muljomiseno, Minister of Trade at the time, rejected this statement, saying that domestic Chinese capital could not be considered domestic capital but mustbejjewed as foreign capital. Meanwhile, this domestic capital th^Tmustbe considered foreign capital still /Cannot be, transferred out oftfie country, meaning to the homeland of the foreign person concerned. Rahmat Muljomiseno even issued a warning against the spreading of confusion on the issue. Perhaps, Hs-y, Rahmat Muljomiseno hopes that his policies will provide some benefit to the people. I do not know. Only his own conscience can answer that question. But it is clear that his politics are wrong or he is one of those politicians who does not understand politics. Somebody who understands this issue and is honestly working to advance the economy of the people would be looking for ways to strengthen the economic capacity of the people. This means expanding domestic capital, capital in the hands of the people. Rahmat could have issued a statement reaffirming the statement by

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the PRC embassy that Chinese domestic capital was indeed domestic and not foreign capital. If someone like Asaat17 came out with an explicit statement urging discrimination in commerce on the grounds of foreign citizenship, then we would not be so startled. We know he is just an economic adventurer out to seek whatever money he can. But when a senior official, a minister, can make such an error - for some other purpose or, indeed, just by mistake - we cannot avoid feeling some suspicion. Whose voice is this? But meanwhile, anti-Chinese sentiment spreads further through all the trade and commerce channels. Let me tell you.

There has been a lot of talk about guided economy as part of a guided democracy. Even now' it is not clear who is supposed to guide the economy. If it is the national bourgeoisie, it will be just like going from the duck pen into the chicken coop. The Indonesian bourgeoisie was poised and ready to make use of Minister Rahmat Muljomiseno’s decree of 14 May 1959. It appears that they w ere prepared for the decision because they held their ow n conference in Puncak (in Puncak!) on 11-13 May and urged the government to listen to their wishes. As bait, the conference stated that they accepted neither a liberal nor totalitarian system. Then this national bourgeoisie-in-the-making demanded laws to regulate who would be national businesses. You can see their lust to control the national economy. It was just one day later that Rahmat returned to the podium with a little philosophy: We must seek the road to adjusting to a guided economy and tofinding the national character together. But he gave no explanation as to what constituted a guided economy or a national character. Still, based on this little bit of philosophy, he did promise this rather spoiled national bourgeoisie that there would be a place for private endeavour in the framework of a guided economy. Guided economy seems a very' vague concept w'hen it comes to setting out its relationship to the national bourgeoisie. From that time onwards, the attacks on the Chinese began, especially the attacks on the Chinese retailers in the villages. Their capital adds up to 3 billion [rupiah], says one. No, it is 2.3 billion, says the Indonesian Cooperatives Movement, and comprises 16% of all the foreign capital invested in Indonesia. More strident voices: Dangerous capital! Subandrio, in an interview with Antara at the end of July 1959, stated: 17Asaat was a prominent businessman in the 1950s who also served as a cabinet minister.

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So long as our state does not have mastery over the national economy, foreign capital is a threat. And aid in the form of credit from overseas is better than allowing foreign capital to invest in Indonesia.

So Subandrio thinks that foreign capital is dangerous, but he does not oppose it if the Indonesian national economy has become strong. The problem is located elsewhere. If we talk about a strong national economy, whose economy is it that needs to be strong? That of the national bourgeoisie? Of the people? Of the government? Certainly I do not have the right to present an answer to these complicated economic questions. But if the idea is that the strength of the national economy is to be measured by the strength of the national bourgeoisie, I do not agree! In the meantime, at the Fifth Congress of the Metropolitan Jakarta branch of the Indonesian Central Labour Organisation (SOBSI) on 26 July 1959 - that is to say, in the midst of the first round of the Chinese question hubbub - the following data was released: Large-scale foreign capital (which does have the right to transfer money out of the country) repatriated profits (either legally or illegally) to the value of approximately 15 billion rupiah! And that is not all! To this 15 billion from the earth and the sweat of Indonesian workers and fanners must be added all the profits that foreign capital makes from its privileged rights over the foreign exchange earned by exports from our oil fields. Hs-y, our budget is in deficit every year by 2.6 billion rupiah! How' ironic!

Let us compare all this with the Chinese capital in the villages. Three billion. Or 2.3 billion according to the Indonesian Cooperatives Council. And this is capital in circulation! Besides this stands the 15 billion being exported out of Indonesia by big foreign capital! What a joke! You can imagine for yourself how these statistics dance like Satan. And in the midst of this dance of statistics there are those w ho draw the conclusion: Because of all this, the Chinese peddler capital in the villages is a big danger! A danger to the security of the Indonesian national economy! How funny! Everybody knows that this 3 or 2.3 billion will not leave Indonesia. But the larger amount, the 15 billion that does flee Indonesia, is not seen as a danger to the national economy.

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As a correction to all these facts, the racialists, or should we say the itchy-fingered bourgeoisie, then launched a new theory: It is not the Chinese capital that is dangerous, but the Chinese themselves! Their capital is fine; I will take it, too, if you give it to me. But the whole attack on the Chinese could actually result in Indonesia losing capital if their human rights were fully acknowledged and they were allowed to take any property that they have lawfully earned here back to their homeland. I say human rights because they must be recognised formally as foreign citizens. And as foreign citizens, they have carried out their responsibilities to the state. If their rights were recognised, then Indonesia, so poor in capital, would only become poorer.

Then there may be another official who confronts this wfiole issue in grand style with the statement: We can get the capital we need from Japan. In that case, there is no need to talk about foreign capital being a danger. Very well, perhaps that is okay as regards their funds, but what about actual forces'! Perhaps this imaginary official would also answ'er: No matter; w'e can import them from Japan also! In that case. Japan would gain what they were not able to win through World War II. They could launch an offensive into Indonesia w ithout arms. In the midst of the holiness of Christmas Eve, I pray that our political commanders of the day be given the courage they need to face up to the issues of the day; that they do not procrastinate or hide from these problems while at the same time making certain groups scapegoats in society. May they have enough strength of character so they do not end up bequeathing all these troubles and others to their grandchildren. I have tried to explain this question. Can you understand what I am getting at? It is on this basis that I am prepared to state clearly that the expulsion of the Chinese from their arena of livelihood without the preparation worthy of the actions of humans towards other humans is unfair, unjust and lowers our national dignity. And if I speak about the human rights of the Chinese, wfiether they are acknowledged or not, the facts, too. speak out on this. For example, there is this report from Antara, mid-June 1959, from Surabaya:

The Customs Service banned 200 Chinese youth leaving to return to the PRC on 9 June from taking mattresses on board their ship. About 150 new thick

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mattresses that were being taken by the youths to China and which they stated were their property were bannedfrom being put on board. It was ordered that the mattresses be returned to free circulation. This is just one example. There are many other examples, many officially recognised. (Just look at all the regulations that are being reported by the press.) Meanwhile Junior Information Minister Maladi announced to Antara that Indonesia would not be altering any of its regulations towards foreigners. Full stop, no commas.

So five hundred thousand people, the families of shopkeepers and traders, are being expelled without anyone knowing how they will look after themselves. There are not even plans to help them put rice on their tables. Needed: Understanding, Not Uproar

Naturally all the hate campaigning against the Chinese only ever presents the victims as being bad. Why must it be just from one angle? Well, actually, the reason is clear. The hate campaigners are afraid to see the positive side of their victims, the good side. That, too, is why these campaigners only ever present their own good side and never admit their own limitations and failures. I cannot agree with that kind of approach. In this discussion of the whole fifth column myth, we can see who constitutes the real fifth column. If we do not want to use that term, then we can say it another way: they are the layer of compradors to big foreign capital, both that which is already here as well as that which will be entering later. The free and active foreign policy of Indonesia is a great achievement. Yet even the most glorious inventions depend in the end on the morals and skills of those implementing them. Such has been the case throughout history.

Hs-y, a sane mind cannot defend the agitation against the Chinese. The longer this letter has grown, the more I understand why I cannot accept this kind of policy. 1 cannot adopt any other position. When suddenly one group in society is subjected to this kind of agitation, then surely other groups will soon also become targets. Our national potential will be undermined as a result. Such is always the case! History has shown us that this is what happens.

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One round after another of finding scapegoats until finally common sense itself becomes the scapegoat. I know, too, that these campaigns will not make the Indonesian people smarter, but only more confused. Nobody will be allowed to advance, except insofar as they are encouraged to hate more people. People will just get dizzy, caught up in a never-ending devil’s circle, whether or not there is even a devil around.

This is why I will try to present another side of the Chinese in Indonesia.

Letter Four The Social Position of the Chinese is the Result of a Long Process of Social Historical Development

Hs-y,

My guess was right. There has been a reaction already. Somebody has stated something to the effect that Pramoedya says that the Chinese did not ask to be made a middle class. So does he think we Indonesians appointed them^Tluh? Or, on the other hand, is Pramoedya hiding the fact that he is actually speaking for Peking? Finding a way to position hundreds of thousands of Chinese in the villages of Indonesia? These comments do not really represent any kind of counter argument; they are more just a few confused and bitter writings. However, they do touch on two issues that I need to discuss. The first is the issue of the social position of the Chinese in Indonesia, and the second is the demographics of the Chinese population here. In this letter I want to take up the particular subject of the relatively good social position of the Chinese. Hs-y, forgive me if this letter of mine to you also ends up being read by the person who responded in the ways I mentioned above. He is a rather well known person and was at one time, I think, a candidate for the position of cabinet minister from one of the political parties. He was a rather important person at that time, when the political game was at a particular point. But I do not think there is any need for either us to heed his name. Before I begin, can you just note that when I use the term ‘merchant middleman', this does not refer to the same phenomenon that is denoted by this term in Europe, nor perhaps in China either (see Dr. Liem Twan Djie, Die Distribuerende Tusschenhandel der Chineezen op Java). ‘Merchant middleman' in Indonesia has a special meaning. I will be discussing the soci°' position of the Chinese in this letter and deal more w ith this issue w'hei

/

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about economics later. So if 1 mention ’merchant middleman’, I hope y0Ucan be patient and wait for a fuller explanation later on. The First Social System: Not Yet Any Trade?

The very' early Indonesian societies were not familiar with trade as we know it today. These were totally agrarian societies, developed to a high level with sophisticated irrigation systems. They w'ere not peoples given to travelling but rather, they tended to stay put in one spot. These were very homogeneous societies because they were geographically isolated and faced so many dangers from outside. This social system is often referred to as ’primitive communism’. Everybody worked for everybody. Everybody was cared for and looked after by everybody. Nobody had more than another, so these societies produced no kings, such leaders, and elders. There was no trade or commerce as such in these societies because everybody produced about the same amount and production belonged to all. That there was some exchange between people in the interior and on the coast makes sense, of course. But we cannot really call this trade, as there was still no pricing or other mechanism to determine value. There was just the exchange of needed goods, w ith no supply and demand mechanism operating, as is required for real commerce to take place.

We can still find a fewr such societies in the interior of Kalimantan, although we need note that they have experienced some degeneration, some backward movement, or little progress. Not every generation can successfully build on its traditions so that some kind of change, backwards or forwards, is always likely to occur. There can be small changes, too, if such a society starts to have contact with the outside world. For example, the needs of certain tribes to obtain salt, beads or mirrors from the Dayaks started some primitive trade. This opened up the possibility for all kinds of deceit and exploitation by the more advanced traders. That is why, Hs-y, you can find some kings in Kalimantan who started as traders, such as Sultan Hamid or [Rajah James] Brooke in North Kalimantan. The First Transformations: Social Differentiation, Primitive Commerce

This social system changed once Hindus arrived, bringing feudalism with them.

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Feudalism, providing the pillars of Hinduism, is characterised by two ^ey features: concentration of force (requiring the development of militarism) anCj concentration of power (requiring the development of a rigid social hierarchy). These two elements work together. The concentration of power is impossible without the concentration of force. And all this is impossible without oppressing and exploiting the people, their labour, wealth and lives. Such a system requires a great deal of money. There is some remaining evidence of this reported in the slim book by Prijono, Sedikit tentang Sedjarah Asia Tirnoer Raya, where he explains how Sultan Agung Mataram (1613-1645)' could mobilise two hundred thousand soldiers in half a day. And if it costs 50 rupiah per day in the currency today [ 1960] to maintain each soldier, then that would cost at least one million rupiah. Where did they get such amounts? From stealing from and exploiting the labour, wealth and lives of the people, of course.

Hs-y, as feudal Hinduism spread through Indonesia, there began to emerge kingdoms headed by all-powerful kings. The social system changed to a feudal system, in accordance with Hindu teachings and the Hindu caste system. But, in essence, there were just two layers. In one were the king and feudal officials who held all the power in their hands. In the other were the people. The people suffered every kind of treatment at the hands of those wielding power.

This was the first period in Indonesian history where the people were turned into workhorses. The people were forced to serve the upper classes and no longer served the general interests of their community, as was the case in the previous social system. The upper layer lived in luxury as the people grew thinner under the weight of oppression and exploitation. All that was good and in abundance was placed at the feet of the king. These tw o layers were as far apart as earth and sky. Of course the question arises as to why these societies were willing to accept feudalism. It does not make sense that they should just accept the new system brought in with Hinduism. On this issue. I cannot agree with 1 Sultan Agung Mataram ruled the Javanese kingdom/sultanate of Mataram from 161346. For much of his rule, he w as at w ar conquering East Java and is often referred to as an example of a very autocratic, militaristic ruler.

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the vast majority of historians who state that Hinduism entered Indonesia without any wars. Of course there were wars, given that this w as a case of two opposing societies coming into contact. The earlier societies, where everybody worked for everybody, rejected the new system. They rebelled Nevertheless, why then did the new system flourish? The new system triumphed and w'as able to dismantle the old system because the old system did not have the advantage of a concentration of force. They surrendered to a new system with all its overwhelming power. Or remnants of the older system fled and found a safe haven in some isolated area. However, wherever the new system triumphed, there emerged new kings. And the people had to swear their loyalty to these new' rulers because the king was considered god on earth With the entry of Hinduism, which created the feudal system, there emerged social differentiation between those engaged in crafts, in military affairs, and so on. Needs grew' for a variety of materials. Trade of a kind began with other regions. This trade w'as still primitive and was not yet based on any strong tradition. Why?

Hs-y, you can imagine how almost everybody in the Indonesian agrarian society was a farmer and lived simply. In such a situation, trade could not flourish. Such a society could not produce a layer of people who made their livelihood from trade. This was very different from the caste society in India. In Indonesian agrarian society, the needs of the people were very simple, and so trade never grew' beyond very stunted levels. You can still see this kind of primitive commerce today among Indonesian farmers. They take their produce into the towns to exchange for some basic needs such as salted fish, salt and some simple clothes. Then they do not come back for another three to six months. This kind of atmosphere does not encourage a strong tradition of trading.

Even so, every society is challenged by a change of era. Over a few centuries, Hinduism, supported by feudalism, planted deep roots throughout Indonesia. As the feudal civilisation reached higher levels, so, too, did its needs grow. Again, large social differentiation emerged. Every group in society had to have a productive function of its own. And the bourgeoisie emerged. There was a reasonable development of trade, although a strong and consolidated tradition had still not developed. History shows, in fact. Hs-y, that during this period there was a busy trade between the islands. Traders w'ere travelling

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throughout Nusantara2 in their sailing ships, some even travelling as far as China. According to the records of the Sung Dynasty in the ninth century, traders from Java and Sriwijaya [South Sumatra] went before the emperor and presented goods from Indonesia. We know, too, that at that time there were kingdoms in Indonesia that were hostile towards each other. These were Sriwijaya and Dharmawangsa in Java. These two kingdoms each wanted mastery over the seas because of the importance of trade in guaranteeing the prosperity of their kingdoms. It is no surprise that competition emerged among traders from the indigenous people themselves. Trade in Indonesia during this time became increasingly busy. Arabs, Indochinese, Filipinos and Chinese were all frequently visiting Indonesia. The trade had taken on an international character. We can see this, too, from reports from China that trading posts had been opened up in Canton and in other towns. It is not clear w hether some of these trading posts were in Indonesia or in other Chinese towns. But we can still see that trade was already flourishing in Indonesia. It was in this period that the rather primitive Indonesian trade first entered the international realm. I want to tell how this rather weak trading tradition entered the realm of international trade very quickly. We need to understand wrhy we find no strong merchants developing in Indonesia. Indonesian Trade Enters the Realm of International Trade There are no historical records of how' international trade first reached Indonesia. Archaeological remains indicate, however, that there was trading contact as early as the first century AD. But it flourished only a few centuries after Hinduism had planted feudalism in Indonesia. The second chapter in this story began w hen the outside w orld started to seek out the spices of Indonesia. Hs-y, it is truly amazing, almost unbelievable, that it would be these spices of Indonesia that w ould change the history of humankind.

But did this international trade in spices give rise overnight to large-scale spice merchants? Not at all. The process began very slowly in the beginning, sometimes grow ing big quickly if there was a particular order from

2 'Nusantara' comes from nusa, meaning ‘islands’, and antara, meaning ‘betw een’, and since early times has referred to the islands between China and India, i.e., what is now called the Indonesian archipelago.

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one king or another. I do not think this is my area of expertise actually. This is something the scholars should work on. In any case, let me make an attempt Hs-y, though feudalism originally came from India, you must not think the situation in Indonesia was the same as that which prevailed in India at this time. To understand the state of feudal society in India and how it allowed for the development of a strong merchant class, it is worth quoting from Ramkrishna Mukerjee in his book The Rise and Fall of the East India Company. ... the Bhakti movement, probably led by the artisans and traders, was spreading over India. This movement, with its opposition to the caste system, was affecting the social and ideological stability’ of the village community system. And this was also the time when the Indian mercantile class was making itselffelt in Indian society, and Royalty' had also become interested in commercial pursuits, especially in foreign trade.

This stable Indian bourgeoisie then encountered wandering English traders, staned to work together, and so did the colonisation begin. How strange human history' is. It was different or somewhat different in Indonesia. The kings could directly decree that the people gather together to produce. The officials who gathered this produce were in a position to give birth to a bourgeoisie. But the process was very slow because it was hard for them to get rid of their feudal mentality.

The foreign traders who came to Indonesia usually had to deal with the king, seeking an audience and presenting gifts. If these gifts were accepted, it was only then that barter might take place. In the book of Tung Hsi Yang K’au (published in 1618), according to Dr. Liem Twan Djie, there are some reports about "Ha-kang’ or "Hsia-chiang’, the Chinese term for Banten: When the Chinese ship approached, an official would board the ship to seek an explanation. The captain of the junk would give a gift of a basket of Chinese

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oranges and two small umbrellas. The official would then present these to the king, and then when the ships entered the river they would present more fruits and silk to the king.

That was how trade was carried out: through the king. But why was it that the traders were willing to always deal through the king? It may have been that the foreign traders hoped to obtain the goods more cheaply in this way. They would also feel safer from attack by pirates, with more protection. But is it true to say that these kings actually had some conscious policy of managing their economies? If they did have a conscious policy, why did they not protect and encourage the development of local merchants? This is not very clear to me. But the reality still is that trade flourished and became international. It had not, though, reached the levels it would during the period of the Dutch East Indies Company. The demand for spices had not yet found a definite form. All the reports indicate that it was in this period (960-1279) that there was stable trade between China and Indonesia. Hs-y, I have talked a little above about how the still weak local merchants faced the much stronger international traders. There is no denying that there is always competition in commerce. In this fierce international competition, it is no surprise that the weaker Indonesian traders were marginalised. The reports from the Sung Dynasty show' that most of the trade was carried out by Chinese traders in their junks and that there were only a few native Indonesian traders. Yes, just a few. And, in the end, the Chinese dominated the whole trade. The more Chinese traders arrived in Indonesia, the less reasons there were for local traders to travel abroad. In the end, they concentrated in the ports, becoming w-holesalers to the foreign traders. But here, too, in the end. they lost their positions. The Chinese merchants stationed their own people in the ports to gather the goods they needed, thereby cutting out the middlemen and making the goods cheaper. So what happened to the local traders who had been gathering the produce up until then? Of course, again they came under great pressure and, in the end, they lost the initiative and returned to being ordinary people! This is one of the explanations as to why almost all trade is controlled by the Chinese, even up till today. What is the reason that the local traders lost out in the international competition? To

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understand this we need to look again at the nature of commerce in Indonesia in the preceding period. Let me try to explain. The Marginalisation of Local Traders in International Trade

I have mentioned above that the Indonesian merchant class was different from that which developed in India during the Hindu period. Natural factors had not encouraged the development of a strong commercial tradition; almost all layers of society lived from farming. And, Hs-y, there are other factors that I think are easy to understand. The Chinese traders and other traders from outside Indonesia had already developed a strong commercial tradition, and when they arrived, they faced a weak local trading class that had fallen behind the times. What was the reason? There was no other reason than that their perahu boats could not compete with the Chinese junks, which had a far greater cargo capacity. Shipbuilding techniques were far behind those of China. There was not yet a tradition of building large ships. Sailing was done in small boats. This was the reason for the defeat of the Indonesian Hindu feudalists, who did not keep up with the advances of the times. They were more at home sitting on their thrones and enjoying the comforts they obtained by squeezing the people, without thinking at all about their own trading world. So it is no surprise that there were many wars among these kings, each trying to gain control over ports where trade flourished, yielding rich tariffs from the foreign merchants. They fought these wars so that they could continue to enjoy their comforts without advancing their own trade. And what then was the fate of any local traders? There is insufficient evidence to clarify whether there were any native traders at that time, people who lived solely from trade. Perhaps there were. But they would have been very' small in number. There is no real clarity on this question. In the book Calon Arang, w as written at the end of the Majapahit era, there is reference to a rich widow' from the village of Girah. But it does not say whether she was a merchant or not. In the book Pranacitra, which tells of the period of Sultan Agung, there is mention of Pranacitra’s father, who was a merchant who traded as far aw ay as Malacca, Aceh and Pahang. So there were those who participated in international trade. But then it is not clear whether Pranacitra’s father was a native or migrant to Indonesia. Pranacitra was described as somebody different from everybody else, more handsome

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and beautiful so that all the women fell madly in love with him. Unfortunately, we may have to take heed of some very annoying anthropological evidence. While there is little anthropological information available at this time, there are two reports that need noting. The report by the director Rempo Urip states that it was unusual to be chased by a beautiful Indonesian woman. And an AFP report from Singapore, reporting the views of two women w ho had been touring Asia, comments that Asian men are not driven by the same desire as European men to conquer women. Given that Pranacitra was described as extraordinarily beautiful and handsome and that he had extraordinary abilities in subduing women. I am forced to conclude that it is doubtful that he was a native inhabitant. •—

Even following these roundabout trails of evidence, we still cannot come to any real conclusions about the existence of a native trading class that derived its livelihood primarily from trade. There are scenes in Pranacitra that describe busy markets. But this is not enough to convince me that there were people whose livelihood was based solely on trading. This is important and interesting. The division betw een professionalism and amateurism in trading is also the division between having real skills and expertise and trading just as a sideline hobby. Our knowledge about this can help us answer the question: Why is it the Chinese who carry out almost all trade in all sectors in Indonesia?

I should stop here and apologise that I am unable to present any data from outside Java. Since the arrival of Hindu feudalism. Java has remained a feudal society, especially as regards its upper social layers. It was this concentration of power and strength that has meant that Java has left more historical evidence than the other islands. If w-e talk about the history of the region before the arrival of the East India Company, the history of Indonesia is essentially the history of Java. Perhaps in ten years time there will have been more research and more historical evidence discovered. Hs-y, let us return to the question of w hether there was a middle class deriving a livelihood from trade. I must conclude that even if there were such people, they did not occupy an influential or powerful position in this absolute feudal society. The reason is that the richness of the earth and nature meant that the population developed only minimal wants. They did not demand a level of commerce similar to that of countries where the conditions of nature and earth are poorer.

/

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The Coming of Islam did not Change the Social System

The arrival of Islam in Indonesia, being brought by foreign traders and by very few Indonesians themselves, did not change the feudal structure of society That continued. The reason was that those spreading the new religion did so by finding a compromise with Hindu feudalism. It would take up too much space to set out all the dates here that relate to this. In short, I ask you to recall the history of Islam during and since Majapahit. Those spreading the religion were given lands or territories to rule, becoming new feudalists themselves. Their descendants spread to other areas, with the area they controlled gradually becoming smaller. In the end, their positions were as landlords (see Babad Tanah Jawa). The Hindu feudal system remained in place throughout the period of the development of Islam and was even continued under the Dutch colonisation. Consciousness about this compromise and resistance to it onlydeveloped at the end of the last century and the beginning of this century. The place where the resistance began was Minangkabau, under the leadership of Hamka’s father? The Chinese filled a Gap in the Prevailing Social System

Nobody gave the Chinese the social position they now occupy. Certajnly the Indonesian people dftThot give them their current position. The article by Hatta, saying that the Chinese were the primary helpers of the Dutch in commerce and government, is utter nonsense if we view the issue as being about the role of a w'hole group and not just that of individuals. If we look just at individual cases, there have been many Indonesians who have betrayed their nation. Can we use that fact to argue that the Indonesian people constitute a nation of traitors to their own country? This kind of equation is not just. In fact, it is completely off the mark. And it is an even more ridiculous line of thought that argues that the Chinese have obtained their current position as a result of services provided by Peking, as has been argued by that candidate Minister for Information whom I mentioned to you earlier.

Hs-y, the entry of Chinese trading goods into Indonesia during the Sung Dynasty (960-1279) marked the beginning of international trade 5 Hamka’s father was Dr. Abdul Karim Amrullah, founder in 1925 of the Muhammidiyah pus welfare and educational organisation in the Minangkabau area of Sumatra.

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reaching Indonesia. These goods were of great value (J.C. van Leur, Eenige beschouwingen betreffende den Ouden Aziatischen Handel). They included silk, brass goods, lacquer ware and copper (kuningan) goods, paper, medicines, sugar and expensive craft items. It was these goods that were exchanged for spices, timber and wooden products, gold, jewels, medicinal herbs and various exotic goods. As the trade in these goods grew or started to grow, there was indeed the need for an intermediary group. They were needed either as gobetweens, as people who gathered up the goods, or as people who immersed themselves in the commerce in these goods. So a question arises: Did the Indonesian people respond to historical developments represented by the emergence of real commercial life and give birth to an indigenous class of traders? Of course, it is only historical evidence that can answer this question. And what does historical evidence say? The picture is still not clear.

If this is all just about trade, then can that really explain how the Chinese obtained their social position and how they have been able to retain that position right up until today? This question answers the earlier question. When the historical challenge emerged and real commercial life started to grow, the Indonesian people did not hear the call of history; they did not respond. Since the very emergence of this commerce, it has been the Chinese who have taken the initiative. Hs-y, there is another issue that must be clarified as regards the trading connection between China and Indonesia, namely, the sailing schedule between the two countries. This schedule very much depended on the season. The steam engine did not yet exist, so everything depended on the winds. As a result, there was time for business while people waited for the next chance to set sail. What was this time used for? For the feudalists, for lazing around of course. But the traders could not just waste their time like that. They used it to expand their commercial activities, seeking out new goods that had not received much attention beforehand, for speculation, and so on. But do not forget that there were adventurers who arrived here as well. They left their counties just because they did not like the situation or the atmosphere there. And sometimes it seemed so long for the winds to change to take them back to their countries! Hs-y, sea communications at that time were very dependent on the winds - what van Leur referred to as 'trade winds’. The winds changed

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direction every six months. The Chinese junks arrived in Java on December and had to wait until May before they could set sail for home. Among those waiting for May were those who engaged in speculation and lost all their capital. Perhaps there were those, too, w ho used the time to look around Java fell in love with the country, and decided to reside here. There were, no doubt those who became bound by love - not something difficult at all. And, as free persons, they would have been in a position to buy a slave, or two or three' And then they would multiply. All these things surely took place. And there certainly were those who decided to stay in Java specifically to help develop their business, opening trading posts, stabilising prices, and gathering and storing produce and other goods in demand. In those times, it was relatively easy to do this. There was no nationalism, no Immigration Service, although there were a customs sen ice and a head tax on foreigners. After the overthrow of the Sung Dynasty and the rise of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), Chinese trade with the world expanded rapidly. Of course, this was due to the rise in prosperity inside the country. Betw een 1405 and 1433 many expeditions were sent overseas. One of these w ent to Java and was led by a man called Cheng Ho.4 He was best known by the names Sam Po Kong or Sam Po Twa Lang among the Chinese on Java, and by the name Dampo Awang among the Javanese. (See also T.K.S., ‘Facts and Fancies About Sam Po Kong’, Djawa Post, 9 August 1958). Ma Huan, who had accompanied Cheng Ho in 1413, wrote a report about the countries they visited entitled Ying Yai Sheng Lan (Report on the Ocean s Shores). From this report we discover that there were already many Chinese from Fukien and Canton in the port of Tuban. Tse-tsun, or Gresik, which began as a bare stretch of coast, was transformed by the Chinese into a prosperous commercial centre. And so many Chinese, w ith their different communities, moved there.

So. Hs-y, that is how the Chinese filled a gap left by the feudal social system, which valued only the service to the king as a means of livelihood. There was no PRC then, no East Indies Company, and no East Indies. That former candidate Minister for Information was not around either. Other centres of trade were Sunda Kelapa - Jakarta today - and Ha-kang (Hsia-chiang) or Banten. 4 Cheng Ho (Zheng He) was the great eunuch admiral ofthe Ming Dynasty w ho commanded the Chinese fleet from 1405-1433 during China’s brief period of exploration.

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Willem Lodewijcksz. a junior officer to Comelis de Houtman, who popped anchor in Banten on 23 June 1596, wrote about the Chinese:

The Chinese live in Bantam in quarters of their own in an area which is surrounded by a strong palisade and has a swamp to its left. They have the nicest houses there are in town. They are a subtle people who work very hard to make money and to put goodfood on the table... This was quoted in a report published by G.P. Rouffaer and J.W. Ijzerman in their book De eerste Schipwaart der Nederlanders naar Oost-Indie onder C. de Houtman. According to this book, the Chinese lived in their own district behind a town wall. They traded at stalls alongside Portuguese, Arabs, Turks, Malays and Bengalis in the Banten market. There is no mention of local people. Perhaps because there were not yet any local people who lived from trade.

It is clear from these reports that the Chinese lived in the best houses even before Willem Lodewijcksz wrote his report. This fact underscores the weakness of the feudal social system in meeting the historical challenge of the time, in recognising there was a new factor in life, namely, international trade. This new situation required the emergence of a national middle class. Because there was no local initiative to meet this demand, a gap developed in the system that was naturally filled by foreigners who had long been traders, indeed, who. in fact, lived from trading. And since that time, trade fell into the hands of the Chinese. People complaining about the Chinese domination of trade are in fact complaining about the weaknesses of their ow n ancestors. The Sudden Change with the Coming of the White Traders

The social position of the Chinese suddenly grew' even stronger as international trade grew or, rather, as trade with Europe developed. The spices of Indonesia w ere changing the face of the earth. A new continent had been discovered because of those spices. And, in Indonesia, the trading fleets took on a military' character, too, as the once normal trade in spices was transformed into a vicious, antagonistic, political and military struggle betw een the white nations. This struggle simply raised the price of spices, delivering more profits to the local spice wholesalers and merchants, namely the foreigners from China who

r

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had long been active in this sector. Hs-y, I say ‘the foreigners from China’ because it appears that other traders from Portugal, Goa, Bengal, Malaya and perhaps native traders were all defeated by the Chinese. Perhaps it is because of this that people now fault the Chinese! But at that time there was no guided economy. The feudalists, who controlled the economy, still took no interest in developing international trade, preferring to lazily take whatever wealth came to them. So trade then was very liberal and vicious too! There were no rules governing commerce. It was a battlefield that was often bloody.

The ships of the white traders brought many more goods, because their ships were much larger than the Chinese junks. The Chinese junks could not compete and were pushed aside. Slowly the junks disappeared from international trade. The oceans began to be dominated by the white traders. Trade between Indonesia and China w as also dominated by the w hite traders. The Chinese traders who were residing in Indonesia had even less reason to travel back and forth. And the intense competition between the white traders also meant that their profits w'ere going up healthily without them having to look for more trade. All this developed in accordance with historical necessity.

From all this, I refute the accusation that the Chinese obtained their social position because of white colonialism and imperialism. This is absolutely untrue and unproven. They had filled a gap created by the social system that existed even before the arrival of the East Indies Company. Besides that, there had never been any ban on native Indonesians becoming traders! Even today there is no ban on Indonesians entering commerce! The Chinese also proved their toughness and superiority in trade after the arrival of the w hite trading armadas. The number of Chinese traders grew; while the other foreign traders faded awray or just closed up shop. The Chinese position also changed after the arrival of the white trading armadas. According to Dr. Liem Twan Djie, their position changed from being the intermediaries between merchants from China and local residents to being the intermediaries between the East Indies Company and local residents. Imports from Europe, India and Japan began to replace imports from China. The Chinese junks were no longer visiting Indonesia when, in 1717, Governor General van Swol reduced the price of tea by one third. So by 1723, the

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Netherlands Indies government then had to issue a decree ordering the resumption of trade with China. This w as carried out by Governor General Zwaerdecroon. Trade w ith China resumed and continued until the nineteenth century'. However, it was never as important as in the earlier period. And, in the meantime, the Chinese residing in Indonesia were able to stabilise their position. The Social Position of the Chinese was not a Gift from the Dutch

As part of the hate campaign against the Chinese, some people so readily make the accusation that the social position that the Chinese enjoy was a gift from the Dutch. Hatta has even w ritten that they were the primary helpers of the Dutch in commerce and government. History can answer this despicable accusation. Hs-y, perhaps you remember these words of Sun Yat-sen in his book San Min Chu I [Three Principles of the People]: People generally become more quickly aware and rebel when they suffer political oppression, while they often develop no awareness at all when they are suffering only economic oppression.

The Netherlands Indies government implemented these two kinds of oppression against the Chinese as well as against the native inhabitants. The Indonesian people rebelled again and again when they became aware of the political oppression. This was not the situation with the Chinese. In their struggle to obtain a better social position, they were not able to avoid the political oppression of the Dutch. At the same time, they had almost no political rights and had developed only a shallow' political consciousness. Nationalism developed in China only three centuries after the awakening in Europe. The Dutch oppression of the Chinese can be seen in a number of important events: 1.

In 1740. Governor General Valckenier organised the slaughter of all the approximately 10.000 Chinese in Batavia.

2.

An area on the west bank of the Citarum River was designated as the residential area for Chinese. The area was chosen because it w'as within Dutch cannon range.

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3.

In 1764, Governor General van der Parra banned the Chinese from living or trading in the Priangan area.

4.

After the demise of the East Indies Company on December 31,1799 the Batavian Republic (Bataafsche Republiek) confiscated much Chinese property. Any Chinese considered to have an unacceptable political attitude to the East Indies Company was targeted. Officials made the arbitrary decision as to what constituted an unacceptable attitude.

5.

In 1804, Chinese and other non-Christians were banned from directly purchasing imported goods from Europe. America or Africa.

6.

Pass Regulations, requiring all subjects to hold internal passports if they wished to move around, were used to extort money, in particular from the Chinese. Local rulers as well as officials carried out the extortion. These pass regulations also greatly hampered trading activities by restricting mobility. In this regard, I cannot help but remember Multatuli’s Saidja and Adinda, which tells of how Saidjah’s father was bankrupted because he could not pay for his pass! This weapon could kill the Chinese, as it did Saidjah’s father. The issuance of these passes was also made as difficult as possible.

7.

In 1835 the Netherlands Indies government introduced residential regulations forcing the Chinese to live in specific areas. This policy was modelled on the ghetto example in Western Europe. In the regulations alone, perhaps, some people may not think that there was anything particularly unjust. But the reality was much different. For example, in the book Het Recht to wonen en reizen in Ned.Indie by W. Brokx, which was also quoted by Dr. Liem Twan Djie, it is explained how officials used these regulations to seize the property' of Chinese and to deprive them of their livelihood without any hearings or scope for any kind of negotiations. This was just an arbitrary exercise of power. It is true that in 1866, the regulation was relaxed so that Chinese were allowed to reside in other areas but not to trade there. And then, in 1879, their position as traders was further solidified when an Agrarian Law was promulgated banning them from becoming farmers.

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Serious Impact from the Residential Regulations The combined effect of the residential laws, the pass laws, and then the Agrarian Law was the extinction of the Chinese retail trade. The amazing thing was that the Indonesian people themselves did not begin such a tradition themselves at that time. There were no Netherlands Indies government regulations that constrained native Indonesians from becoming retail traders. What is the underlying reason that no indigenous retail traders emerged?

Currently, with PP 10 banning Chinese from trading in the villages, another opportunity is being created for indigenous Indonesians to become retailers in the villages. Will this challenge be taken up? A foreign professor in one of our universities has told his students, “If I were an Indonesian, I would go to a village and become a shopkeeper!” An August 1959 Antara report quoted the First Deputy Chairperson of the East Java Commerce and Enterprise Association as urging all youths who were unable to further their studies to choose to work in the village retail sector. He said that this sector promised much better prospects than working as a clerk or a similar position in an office. And what has been the response to these calls? Dead silence. Hs-y, we knowr that these policies of the Netherlands Indies government were motivated by the idea that they would win sympathy from the Indonesian people, who would feel protected from Chinese exploitation. I say ‘exploitation’ because this is the term used in the hate campaigns now: It is a term that w'as used by the colonial authorities but not at all by the people themselves. This is the motive that has been put forward by the colonial rulers, both white-skinned and brown, since then until today. This was a policy to redirect hatred away from colonialism and imperialism towards another defenceless target, namely, the Chinese.

The residential regulations separated the Chinese from the Indonesian people, making it more difficult for assimilation and integration. They negated those Chinese who had already become Indonesians. This was a policy to create disunity and differences among the people, especially given that there had not yet been any emergence of nationalism. This w as part of a long-term strategy to create contradictions in the future, not only as an obstacle to the development of a healthy nationalism, but also in order to set different sections of society against each other, to fight each other. This was all meant to prevent

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nationalism, which inevitably would emerge to bury Dutch colonialism and imperialism. The social contradictions created by this population policy would to some extent or other, help the Dutch deal with any emerging nationalism in the future.

The concentration of the Chinese in particular areas was also designed to make it easier for the Dutch to keep surveillance over them and to carry out any acts of extermination, as they had done in 1740. This could be done directly or by provoking popular sentiments by slandering the Chinese especially if religion were used. Perhaps there will be those who deny that the Dutch would think like that. But then we must remember that after the 1740 massacre, the Chinese were forced to move to the western bank of the Ciliwung River where they were specifically within Dutch cannon range! And then we saw in my earlier letter how the Dutch systematically worked to cultivate antiChinese feelings. Besides all this, the Agrarian Law, which appeared to be there to protect the people, offered no protection at all. The people still endured all kinds of forced labour. The law was instituted more to ensure the separation of the two peoples so that both could be exploited without causing them to unite. This law was issued when the Dutch were fighting the Acehnese and did not want to see another front open up against them. The Chinese traders were also causing problems for the Dutch army in Aceh. They had been able to get goods through the Dutch blockade and were, no doubt, also providing weapons to the Acehnese patriots.

The separation instituted through the residential - or ghetto - regulations was a newr element in Chinese-Indonesian relations. First, the Dutch did succeed in creating this separation. Second, the Chinese began to exist in a permanent state of fear, fearing threats that could come from outside their ghetto, whether from the Dutch or from the people if they had been stirred up. And that danger could at any time become a reality. They had to create a community of their own, creating a group mentality and identity and a sense of group solidarity. The mentality and character created by these specific circumstances among the Chinese in Indonesia would make them different from the Chinese in mainland China, especially w ith the people in the PRC. This specific situation would leave a deep and determining mark even until today.

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There is another aspect of the Agrarian Law that you should be aware of. Hs-y. Slowly but surely the Chinese small farmers, tied to farming by their love for the land, were forced to marry Indonesian women; if they wanted to be able to continue to farm their land, they had to do so under the [Indonesian] names of their wives. This has produced a new complication. Season after season, these Chinese small farmers have spread their descendants to every corner of the land, up into the mountains, and to the most isolated villages. It became a necessity for the majority of the Chinese, namely small farmers, to take an Indonesian wife. 1 say 'the majority’ because in the beginning, most Chinese were not traders or shopkeepers. R. A. Kartini5: The Biggest Criminals are the Capitalist-Imperialists

The spread of racial, political, social and economic discrimination in the eighteenth century was an international phenomenon with its roots in imperialism, colonialism, and especially capitalism. Human history is now marked by shameful humiliations because of this. New, excessively national sentiments and various forms of chauvinism (each instance of chauvinism backed by its own philosophical justification) have emerged. But this history has also given rise to challenges, including from within capitalism, imperialism and colonialism. The Renaissance and the Enlightenment are proof that humanity must return to itself and not be bound by various dubious myths. At the end of the nineteenth century, when Indonesia was still living under the law of the jungle, there appeared Kartini - an incomparable jewel in Indonesian history. There has never been another like her in Indonesian history or in the world. This extraordinary woman, who had been able to develop her understanding to the extent that she became the first socialist in Indonesia, relentlessly attacked all myths. That Kartini is still seen only as a pioneer of the emancipation of women is a result of lazy research. Kartini is also the mother of the national movement, of the Indonesian national awakening. Her social and political views were not only critical and sharp but also human in accordance with the character of the Indonesian people through the ages.

5 Kartini (1879-1905) was the daughter of a Javanese regent. She established the first native-run school for girls, and her letters, published posthumously, won recognition as being very enlightened and progressive on the situation of women, especially in the criticism of polygamy and child marriage. Kartini is one of the first Javanese writers sympathetic to socialist ideas.

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People who know Kartini only as an advocate for women may laugh at me for exaggerating her role. Perhaps they will attack me for connecting her with politics.

In order that people are not misled on this, I would like to explain what readings became the basis for the social and political outlook of Kartini. First of all, she read Multatuli, the Dutch writer, who so valiantly fought for the rights of deJavaan [the Javanese], including Kartini herself, and who also fought valiantly against the evils of colonialism, imperialism and their agents. Then she also read the American woman writer Beecher Stowe, whose book Uncle Tom s Cabin was written in defence of the American Negro. She became one of the forces behind the Civil War, the United States Revolution that ended negro slavery. (See also R. Nieuwenhuys, ‘Kartini’s Vorming’, Nieuwsgier, 24 April 1952). Also influencing her social and political views were the w ritings of F. August Bebel. a leader of German social democracy and the author of Die Frau und der Sozialismus, or Women and Socialism. She also read Bertha von Suttner, w'inner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1905, who w rote the world famous book Die Waffen Nieder and the Jewish writer Israel Zangwill, w ho w'rote about life in the ghettos of East London, including Dreamers of the Ghetto. Of course Kartini read all these in Dutch translations. So. as a socialist, she was among the most advanced of individuals at that time. Dark pow er w as running amok on most continents, and, as one of the first Indonesian women, she stood straight and firm and rejected and gave no solace to the barbaric law of the jungle that w'as spreading. Among the letters that Kartini received were some unpublished letters that point to her socialist outlook. One responded to an inquiry Kartini had made by writing, “It is a great pity, but Marx has not yet been translated into Dutch! You will have to wait!” Kartini died w ithout reading Marx.

Hs-y, why I am mentioning Kartini here? Because while she was alive, she always refused to be drawn into the hate campaigns against the Chinese, that trap set by the capitalist-colonialist-imperialist powers. Rather, she courageously defied these powers. In one of her articles in De Hollaandsche Lelie, published in the centre of colonialism and imperialism, she spoke nobly:

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I am in great sympathy with the goals of the socialists, and I think it would be only too correct if, at meetings to form police detachments, it should be announced that the real criminals are not to be found in the villages, but in the Heeren and Keizersgracht... The Heeren and Keizersgracht are where Hollands big capitalists lived!

But it seems that many of our politicians, not to mention the press, do not possess the nobility of mind that Kartini had and do not have the social outlook that can place issues in their own country and in their correct context. Too many of them are so backward compared to Kartini, a young woman who died young, who had no political party to support her, and with no band of supporters. But she w ill always stand at the head of Indonesian history. She never viewed the Chinese as the source of the poverty of the Indonesian people. She identified another source: imperialism-colonialism-capitalism. This is still the issue today. The poverty endured by the Indonesian people today, with or w ithout PP 10, is still the result of imperialism-colonialism-capitalism. As in Kartini’s day, this power still remains based outside Indonesia but w ith its tentacles throughout Indonesia.

It is a shameful fact that among the eight parliamentary factions that are supporting PP 10 are the three major parties, the PNI6, Masyumi7, and NU8. They are supporting and defending the attempts of the government to end the retail shop activity of foreigners and shift it all into the hands of the Indonesians. But history w ill continue its march. What is right and 6 The PNI (Indonesian National Party) was a secular nationalist party that had left and right wings. At the time of writing, the right wing w as dominant; by 1964, the left wing had become the majority. With the exception of the left-w ing of the PNI, all the parties w ere opposed to the PKI and the leftw ards orientation of Soekamo after 1959. 7 Masyumi was a conservative, right-wing party whose leadership was drawn from the middle-class trading families of the urban centres. 8 The NU (Nahdatul Ulama) was a conservative, right-wing Islamic party; whose leadership was drawn from the rural middle-class, including religious teachers and landowners. The NU propagated a less Middle Eastern form of Islam, retaining more local Javanese beliefs.

r

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what is wrong will be revealed by history. But in the meantime, let us not bury humanity! Because humankind without humanity is no longer human!

Chinese Hunters: Surround the Chinks even more Tightly! The Dutch, in their efforts to direct popular anger away from themselves, channelled these feelings to a group that did not at all deserve to be targeted: the Chinese. The Dutch acted as Chinese hunters who pursued the Chinese wherever they went, crying out: Blood-suckers! Rent-eaters! Smugglers! Counterfeiters! Bribe-givers! Money-lovers! Greedy! Antisocial! These labels would have been better applied to the Dutch themselves. The Dutch were the real criminals. And the social system, which was the basis of the colonisation of Indonesia and has continued until today, allows for any person to be exploited by another so long as the police do not arrest you or are able to arrest you. Under such a system as this, there was no way any group could have been given a privileged social position as a gift from the Dutch, although it was quite w'ithin the pow er of the Dutch to grant such a privilege to an individual. Under this system, it is not just social position but everything - one’s rights and property - indeed everything that has to be fought for, defended, or seized from somebody else. And any group that cannot throw itself fully into this liberal battlefield may fall apart as a group, may lose its rights and property, and perhaps its members may even lose their lives. Everybody has to look out for their own skin, their own flesh and blood. It was this situation in society then - and now - which we all find ourselves in. we residents of Indonesia, indigenous citizens, descendants of foreigners, both passive and active holders of foreign citizenship, and foreigners in Indonesia. That is why the best answer to such a situation is none other than a guided democracy, a guided economy, in short, guided development.

Looking again at the situation of the Chinese, it is indeed possible to see how resilient they were in defending their rights, property, skin, and flesh and blood in the midst of Dutch colonial oppression and in their social relations. We can see, too, how- they related to the Indonesian people, who sometimes w ere also successfully provoked into anti-Chinese activity.

Letter Four

In the 1901 crown speech, a new ethical policy9 was announce, jsjew political changes began, which made the position of the Chinese even worse. According to Phoa Liong Gie in his book De Economische Positie der Chineezen in Nederl.-Indie, the new political direction virtually made the Chinese the official Public Enemy Number One. As stated in the report by P.H. Fromberg, the Chinese were, or were considered, the main obstacle to the economic advancement of the natives. He went on to say that the Chinese were not motivated by the same Christian civilisation and morality as European business people. In order to protect the native population, he said, there should be severe regulations that would limit the Chinese from spreading into the villages. The ethical policy, aimed at protecting the indigenous people, was such a thing of beauty! Beautiful on the surface, but underneath the intent was only more exploitation, and direct exploitation at that. Because the Dutch themselves had been unable to insert themselves as the go-between merchants of society, they then tried to excite the people against the Chinese. But. in a liberal social system, it is struggle itself that determines whether a group will survive or prosper. Does such a group have the characteristics necessary to win a particular battle or not? And, in the case of becoming the merchant middlemen of Indonesia, the Dutch just did not have what it takes; neither did any other foreign group. From among the indigenous people, only very few succeeded, even until today. Hs-y, the consequences of the ethical policy of the Dutch did not end there. On top of this was a whole range of individual oppressions that the Chinese suffered. The officials that inflicted oppression on individual Chinese felt no guilt in what they were doing. They felt they were being of service to the people by protecting the economic life of the native people. This was how it was reported by P.H. Fromberg in his article ‘De Chineesche Beweging op Java’ (‘The Chinese Movement in Java’). Van Gulik, in Winkler Prins' Alg. Encyclopedic, also said that the situation of the Chinese at the end of the nineteenth century was very * The Ethical Policy, which spoke of the Netherlands’s moral duty to the people of the Indies, introduced further government involvement in economic and social affairs. While this included improvements to education, health care, and especially irrigation, most of these changes w ere aimed at meeting the needs of Dutch capital in Indonesia rather than genuinely advancing Indonesian society. In any case, these expenditures ended with the Great Depression. The law yer and politician Van Deventer w as one of its main supporters.

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unhappy. On the one hand, the Dutch positioned them as equal with the native population. But then, as a result of the ethical policy politics, the Chinese were made targets, as if they were an obstacle to the new policy. And the more the colonial government pretended to help the native people, the more the Chinese had to endure various oppressions. All fingers pointed at them accusingly: You suck the blood of the people!

In this regard, P.H. Fromberg reminded people: Ofcourse there were scabby sheep amongst the Chinese merchants ... but one must not make the mistake of calling things specifically ‘Chinese'while these things happen in every society when circumstances are the same, and there was so often this phenomenon that all the Chinese in the Indies were seen as responsible for the misconduct of a few; one lumped them all together. Fromberg’s words had little impact. The white press joined in spreading the hate campaign: Hem in the Chinks even more tightly! The Chinese had no political rights and no means of defending themselves. They faced an absolute power. The Chinese hunters banged their drums, gongs, and everything else they could get their hands on, and blew their trumpets and whistles, while the Chinese were the chickens being hunted down without mercy. Nor did the Dutch government offer any education to the Chinese, whom they said had no Christian culture or morality. So the Chinese had to rely upon themselves in this situation and began to teach traditional Chinese culture to their people. (See also Tio le Soei, Lie Kim Hok).

In addition to all this, the government also banned Chinese from holding any position of employment with the government, from the lowest to the highest position. In dealings with the police, the Chinese experienced detention in greater numbers, more frequently and for longer periods than any other group.

And this was not all. Their formal position was the same as that of the local people, yet they were treated as if they were the enemy of this colonised people. They endured social and economic oppression devoid

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of any protection under the law and without any social facilities such as education, schools or cultural support, yet they were forced to pay more taxes than Europeans. The oppression of the Chinese, and Orientals generally, is best seen in a regulation issued by the colonial government in the town of Semarang. The Chinese were banned from walking across the city square on pain of paying a fine if they were caught in violation. What is the secret behind this regulation, Hs-y? Try to guess! As their educational and cultural activities developed, they became more aware of what their position in colonial society really w as. They began to understand they were not protected by any laws at all. So from this w'e can understand why, at the beginning of the twentieth century, they began to tum to their country of origin, which itself was then also struggling to enter the modem epoch in its own history. They turned their backs on colonisation, and they took no notice, either, of the Indonesian people, who indeed could do nothing for them in the context of friendship betw een peoples. Nor could the Chinese do anything for the Indonesian people. This situation was also well described by Fromberg: The Chinese in the Netherlands Indies, according to the press, are stepchildren whom the Netherlands Indies government refuses to acknowledge but who have been rediscovered by their own father (China), who has been asleep all this while but who is finally awakening.

The article by Haji Rosihan Anw ar in Pedoman, 20 January 1960, ‘ Extraordinary Stamina and Vitality’, is very misleading on this issue: There was a time when Indonesian-born Chinese women did many of the same things as local people. They wore Javanese clothes, chewed betel, and so on. But in 1903 K ang Yu-wei arrived in Java and taught nationalism and reform among the Chinese. He urged them to set up their own schools. So a trend that was heading in the direction of assimilation of

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Chinese with Indonesians was thereby brought to an end. Two Chinese warships visited Jakarta. Semarang and Surabaya, in 1907, 1909 and 1911. An Indonesian-bom Chinese journalist later wrote that when the Chinese community saw the officers and men from these ships, there grew a new w armth of feeling towards the land of their ancestors among the Chinese of Southeast Asia (Boekoe Peringatan 1907-1937 Tiong Hwa Siang Hwee Semarang, 1937).

Hs-y, I say ‘misleading’ because Anwar did not explain the social background of the Chinese situation in relation to van Deventer’s ethical policy, which was carried out so arrogantly and clumsily by the officials of the Netherlands Indies government. Of course, it is quite possible that the arrival of these warships brought about a new feeling of warmth among the Chinese of the South Seas towards their homeland. But none of this could have happened overnight without there being some process that caused things to develop in that direction. The incomplete characterisation of Haji Rosihan Anwar’s reportage feels like it is keeping certain facts separate from the broader and more central issues. This misleading analysis becomes even more obvious when we also take into account his other comments or personal fantasies:

And now the situation today is one where the PRC is emerging as a strong and powerful country. We can imagine how strong a hold this country- must have on the feelings of the Chinese here so that they will do anything that is demanded by Peking’s politics. The honourable Haji should present hard evidence and facts and not just report his own fantasies; otherwise, he would be better off writing short stories! In any case, he appears now as one more Chinese hunter banging his drum. In other words, through the publication of his fantasy, he has joined the chorus: Hem in the Chinks even tighter!

Eventually the Netherlands Indies government realised that it had made a mistake in its policy towards the Chinese. They did not want the

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Chinese to turn towards the country of their ancestors but to Amsterdam. So the colonisers quickly set about correcting their mistake. Finally, in 1908, they established a kind of Hollandsch-Chineesche School, and. in 1910, the pass regulations were repealed. Two years after that, the ghetto regulations were repealed. Since then, the Chinese have experienced their own path of development w hich continues right up until today, but with a new element in the picture: Dutch or Western education.

Then and Now Hs-y, 1 have no choice but to recognise the historical record and therefore, say that the social position of the Chinese was neither a gift from the Dutch nor something given by the Indonesian people. It is the result of a long and complicated social struggle that has taken many victims. That their position was a gift from the Dutch is a total myth, indeed, a modem fabrication that is being exploited by certain people. A laughable superstition, no matter how modem. And. as I have said, Kartini, the mother of Indonesia, had a much more human, a much more understanding and farsighted view on all this than the majority of our politicians in parliament, as reflected in the number of parliamentary factions that have supported PP 10 (PlA, 30 December 1959).

The Chinese issue has developed as the result of a long sociohistorical process. In order to understand this process, one must seek out the historical evidence. There must not be any arbitrary and unacceptable actions against the Chinese, either individually or collectively. I would oppose such actions against any group among the Indonesian people, an independent people to be respected w ho can be respected because, indeed, their behaviour is worthy of respect. I cannot defend anybody here in Indonesia who now mimics the Dutch attitude towards the Chinese or towards any other group in society. Because there were no Jews in Indonesian society, the Dutch placed the Chinese in a similar position to that w hich the Jews had suffered, always being harassed and humiliated so as to satisfy the sense of Dutch racial superiority. Hs-y, if there is any development in Indonesian history which brings dow n shame, it is what is happening now, when some Indonesians are copying the Dutch example by becoming Chinese hunters, backed by their press and showing no humanity.

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What has been launched now against the Chinese was launched in an earlier time by the Dutch. What the Dutch never were able to do, and what is not being done now either, is to create a society without social enclaves, a society where every individual feels he has a place, where all have the same rights and responsibilities, namely, socialism.

Letter Five The Chinese can be Friends in Struggle Hs-y, Perhaps you have read the letter from Foreign Minister Dr. Subandrio to the PRC Foreign Minister Chen Yi, dated 9 December 1959. The letter comprises several numbered points, so it is easy to isolate point number 14, which I think is one-sided and misleading: It is necessary to be aware of the suppressedfeelings within Indonesian society' towards the Chinese, in order to be able to properly evaluate the patience and self-restraint of the Indonesian side in its policies towards the Chinese.

The seeds of anti-Chinese sentiments have been in existence since the Dutch times and also during the Japanese occupation. And since then there has been the problem of the behaviour of the Ch inese after Independence. There are several examples. There was the Poh An Tui, an organisation armed by the Dutch that became a tool of the Dutch in resisting the struggle for Indonesian independence. There was the joy shown by some Chinese when the Dutch returned after the Japanese occupation. There is a lot of evidence to show that it is the Indonesian people who must suppress their feelings in order to establish friendly relations with the Chinese.

Hs-y, here is an official letter wherein the actions of individuals are treated as the actions of a whole group. Fromber had already reminded people that, yes, there are bad apples among the Chinese. But do not generalise by saying that al, Chinese must be held responsible for the actions of a few individuals. Furthermore, Subandrio also misuses these cases of individual actions! The

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reason why the Indonesian people have never taken revenge against the Chinese is because they never have felt any need for revenge against them. The Indonesian people have never sought revenge against a foreign people that has not been their enemy. Those who have sought revenge against the Chinese are the bourgeoisie, their rivals in commerce. And that the Chinese are measured by the actions of the Poh An Tui and by how the Dutch return was greeted by some of them is also very unhealthy. In fact, I would rather say that such a w'ay of measuring the Chinese is sick! Why? Because there is even a former cabinet minister who actually took the initiative to busy himself by forming a welcoming committee in Jakarta for the Allies after the Japanese occupation. Of course, he was the laughing stock of his friends. But this action by this former minister surely could not be used to measure the whole of the Indonesian people and to conclude that they were all ready to welcome the Allied army? In fact, the Chinese can be friends in the struggle of the Indonesian nation. They have already often proved that this is possible, before, during, and since the revolution. And I will try to prove this to you in this fifth letter.

Before Dutch Colonisation I do not know a lot about relations between the [Indonesian] people and the Chinese in this period. 1 have almost no sources about their contribution to struggle, or perhaps there are none. But then the question is: Struggle against what? There are few historical materials about the occasional and sporadic foreign invasions that took place. And the whole concept of government then would have been so different from today, with the Republic of Indonesia and its clear territorial boundaries.

From the almost non-existent evidence I do have, I can still tell of how they helped develop the barren coast of Gresik onto a prosperous international trading port. It would have been better if I could have related this in a section entitled “The Chinese Contribution to Indonesian Progress”. But, anyway, seeing that there is a vacuum of information about the pre-colonial period, let me use Gresik to fill the space.

Knowledge of Gresik’s development became available at the time of the arrival of Islam in East Java. According to Dr. B. Schrieke in his book Boek van Bonang, it was reported that Gresik. with Jaratan as its harbour, was bigger than Tuban. It was a prosperous tow n, full of goods and all kinds of foodstuffs.

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In 1523, there were twenty-three thousand residents of the Islamic faith. If we add the Chinese and other foreign residents, then there must have been at least double that figure in total, including those who were not Muslims. Tuban, the harbour town of Erlangga’s1 kingdom after his victory in 1037, also grew' into a large commercial centre because of its intimate contact with the Chinese, w ho had established a colony there for trading purposes. As a sign of gratitude to the city, Erlangga gave special trading privileges to Tuban, or Tapan as the Chinese pronounced it.

The development of international trade during this period cannot be separated from the contributions of the Chinese. This is also true as regards the development of another tow n under Erlangga, namely, Ujung Galuh. located at the mouth of the Brantas.

Hs-y, this is the little I know about their contributions during this period, which has been reported by history. But historical research in the future w ill surely bring forth more evidence. The Colonial Period

There can be no doubt that the Chinese made very recognisable contributions during the colonial period, but I must also note that there were those who did damage. For example, there was Sacanegara, a Chinese who conspired w ith Queen Syarifah from Banten, herself of Arab descent, to w ork w ith the Dutch so as to dominate Banten (Memorie van Overdracht van de Resident Gollenese, 1753). But do not think there were no Chinese among the fighters for independence. In some ways it is difficult to research them because so many Chinese of that time had assimilated, adopting not only local names but also local customs and traditions.

In his work Faktayang Dilupakan (Facts Banishedfrom Memory), E.H. Bahruddin wrote that many Chinese became spies for Indonesians, being able to take advantage of their position as merchants w ith many connections: So Sultan Agung used a Chinese to spy on the Dutch positions at Pasar lkan. The Chinese concerned, called 1 Erlangga was King of East and Central Java, 991-1046. He was noted for introducing both irrigation works and flood control and expanding rice production as well as emphasising Javanese over Indian elements in culture. He is sometimes credited with abolishing slavery.

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Jonge-ling by the Dutch (maybe his name was Tjong Ling or Lin), was caught and later hanged after being tortured. Because there were these Chinese who were one with the Indonesian people, it is no wonder that the East Indies Company were suspicious of them. They gathered the Chinese together andformed the Chinese Wijken, or Chinese hamlets. In Jakarta, Glodok and Bidaracina still remind us of that era. The village Pintu Kecil was originally a market outside the East Indies Companyfort where Chinese were permitted to trade but not to live. Tangerang was another place set aside for them. This was also the site ofan East Indies Company fort. There was a curfew after maghrib [sunset] prayers, and they' were not allowed to go out again at night. In the rebellion led by Pieter Eberfeld, there were an Indonesian and a Chinese. Both were sentenced to death based on false accusations. The 1740 massacre was justified by the Dutch with the argument that the Chinese w'ere preparing to join with the Indonesian people in an attempt to overthrow Dutch rule. Whether this was true or not, the important thing is that the Dutch considered the Chinese enemies and not allies, and so they were friends in the struggle of the Indonesian people.

The Chinese also made contributions in the resistance against Dutch colonialism and imperialism, although the contributions have sometimes been considered to be too little. After the 1740 massacre, thousands of Chinese surrounded Batavia and launched attack after attack on the fort. The Chinese also attacked the town of Rembang in the same year and killed all the Europeans. The Chinese uprising inspired Sunan [Lord] Pakubuwono to resume his fight to expel the Dutch. When the Chinese surrounded the fort at Kartasura and it was unable to receive food from outside, the Sunan did nothing. In the end the Dutch forces had to surrender in July 1741. The commander and officers were all killed. The enlisted men were offered the choice of being killed or becoming Muslims. Many of them agreed to be circumcised. And so the Chinese military struggle against the Dutch, now working in cooperation with the indigenous people, spread to Jepara and Gresik. Sunan Pakubuwono then realised that the East Indies Company army was able to hit back at the Chinese all over Java, that only the Dutch could keep him on his throne, and that even Tjakraningrat (from Madura) had

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started to attack the Chinese forces and to make attacks into Central Java. So Pakubuwono surrendered to the Dutch and sought forgiveness for his sins. But an official, Noto Kusomo, who had led the native forces allied to the Chinese, refused to give up the fight. Rather, they made Mas Gerendi. the grandson of Sunan Mas, the new Sunan Mangkurat V. Together with the Chinese, Mas Gerendi attacked the palace at Kartasura. Von Hohendroff was only able to save Pakubuwono from the burning palace with much difficulty. He was taken to Semarang. Then, in 1742, Tjakraningrat suddenly invaded from Madura, and the close alliance between the indigenous peoples and Chinese in the fight against Dutch imperialism died out.

A similar thing happened in the middle of the eighteenth century in Banten. Queen Syarifah of Banten. who was of Arab descent, had great influence over the Sultan. In an act of treason against the kingdom and the people, she suddenly surrendered all of her economic powers to the East Indies Company. In 1753, some of the nobles w ho were not recognised by the Sultanate, along w ith various escaped slaves, launched a great revolt against Queen Syarifah. According to E.H. Bahruddin: The rebellion was led by Ki Tapa and lasted three years. Sie Ban Lie, the owner of a food stall on the Tangerang highway, led the Chinese who joined the rebellion. This was reported by the Dutch Resident at the time, van Gollenese. Sie Ban Lie’s son-in-law owned an orchard in Bogor and a weaving mill. It was he who hid Ki Tapa and Mas Dullah in his mill. Ki Tapa, with the aid of the peasant leader Mas Dullah, attacked and cleared out Tangerang altogether, making their way right into Jakarta, to the area now known as Kramat Senen.

If the officers and soldiers of Surapati had had the habit of providing w ritten reports, we w ould know exactly howr many Chinese joined him in his struggle against the Dutch. There are also other scattered data that indicate clearly their resistance against the Dutch invaders. In the Java War of 1825-1830, the Chinese in West Kalimantan indirectly helped with the war effort. Most of the Chinese there were gold miners, living in Mandor, Montrado, Lara and Lumar, and were mainly Teochew and Hakka Chinese. They had taken a hostile stance towards the Dutch since the eighteenth century. They refused to pay all taxes to the Dutch and also refused to pay duty on salt and opium. Governor General Van

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der Capellan waged constant war against them. After every military action against them, they appeared to become docile. As soon as the military forces withdrew, they would begin resisting again. In July 1825, the Dutch were forced to send 600 soldiers to Pontianak to crush their resistance. The Java War delayed the completion of this plan. It was only in 1854 that the Chinese resistance was broken. Their resistance during this period helped the Padri and Java Wars as well as the rebellions in Banten and Palembang and the wars in Bali (1846, 1848 and 1849). Neither should wre forget the role of the Chinese temples in Jakarta during the period of British rule, when they became centres for the spread of rumours and reports undermining the authority of Raffles.2 In the Java War, the Chinese provided concrete support in the form of armed units as well as assistance with equipment. At the same time, there w'ere those Chinese who assisted the Dutch (tax and tariff collectors at bridges), who were destroyed by Diponegoro3 (July 1825). And then, in November 1827, there was a sudden uprising against the Dutch in Rembang, led by Tumenggung Sosrodilogo. The Dutch saw it as a very dangerous rebellion with the potential to spread south, to Madiun and Kediri. Sosrodilogo wiped out Resident Nahuys and the native contingent he had mobilised from Solo. The same fate befell Lt. De Sturler. Sosrodilogo was able to occupy Blora and almost reached Tuban. On 26 January 1828, the Dutch had to send General G.J. Holsman to suppress the rebellion. In a battle at Rajegwesi, to the south of Bojonegoro, Sosrodilogo suffered a defeat from w hich he was unable to recover.

But how' w'as this sudden uprising able to spread so quickly and seize control over such a sizeable area in just two months? It was possible because they had weapons, rifles. And w'here did they come from? Hs-y, a few’ kilometres to the east of Rembang was a Chinese colony called Lasem. an old port. It was from here that the weapons came, smuggled, of course, from Singapore by the Chinese. I draw' this conclusion because the Acehnese ambassadors had the same experience when they were fighting their Dutch colonial wars.

In the struggle for independence, we can also find different examples of how the Chinese sincerely and honestly supported the Indonesian people. 2 Dutch rule in Java was interrupted briefly (1811-14) during the Napoleonic Wars, when the British took over and appointed Sir Stamford Raffles Lieutenant Governor. 3 Prince Diponegoro led the rebellion against the Dutch that was called the Java War (1825-30).

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as well as cases of their resolve to liberate themselves from the discriminatory regulations and policies that they suffered. During the Dutch period, a political association was formed, the Chinese-Indonesian Union (Persatuan IndonesiaTionghoa - PIT). Among its activities was support for the Sutardjo Petition, which demanded a parliament for Indonesia. In the Netherlands, the Chinese were active and supported the Indonesian Association established by Dr. M. Hatta and Mr. Abdulmadjid. This was also because the Indonesian Association viewed the Indonesian nation broadly to include Indo-Europeans, Indo-Chinese and all those who felt themselves to be natives of the country. In my third letter to you I mentioned how Colonel Amir Mahmud, the Martial Law Commander for Bandung, equated Liem Koen Hian with Douwes Dekker. I should perhaps explain to you that Liem Koen Hian was the editor of the Sin Tit Po daily after World War II. (He died in 1952, without many people knowing). In both the struggle for independence and in the struggle to raise the standard of living of the people, there is another name, one belonging to a twenty year old youth, whom we should not forget. He was somebody who always took a stand and thought and acted so energetically. In the middle of 1924, as a result of his efforts, the Indies Seamen’s Employees Union (Sarekat Pegawei Laoet India - SPLI) was formed. It was an affiliate of the International Workers Union (Sarekat Sekerja Intemasional). Semaun himself became the Chairperson and Soemantri, the Secretary. The SPLI was divided into two sections: the Western section, which looked after Indonesians working on the European routes, and the Eastern section, which organised Indonesian sailors working on Asian routes. On Java itself, there were the Warehouse and Sea Union (Sarekat Laoet dan Goedang) in Semarang and the Harbour Workers Union (Sarekat Kaoem Boeroeh Pelaboehan) in Jakarta and Surabaya. These two organisations fused together to become the Sea and Warehouse Employees Union (Sarekat Pegawei Pelaboehan dan Laoetan). This union was headed by R.M. Gondohojoewono, Tan Ping Tjiat and Sundah. This organisation, in turn, joined with Semaun's SPLI. The Chinese had a role, important or not so important, in all the trade unions, for example, in the Sugar Workers Union (Sarekat Boeroeh Goela), which was also founded in 1924. In the trade union-led rebellions of 1925, the Chinese also played a role, as happened in Ngawi. In both the 1925 strikes and the worker mass meetings in Surabaya on 21 December 1924, it was not only the Chinese w orkers who played a role, but also the press, then called the Malay-Chinese press.

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We cannot forget their contributions to the trade union movement such as through the SR, VSTP, the International Typesetters Union, the Mechanics Union, the Electrical Workers Union and the Marine Workers Union. And neither can we forget the contribution of the workers in the printing offices who printed and distributed pamphlets that attacked the Dutch colonialists.

There were also Chinese involved in the transport strike at the Semarangsch Stoomboot-en Prauwenveer, which brought to a halt the work of a thousand workers, both captains and crew. The same was true for a number of other strikes that brought to a standstill some of the big capitalist-colonialist Dutch, British and American companies. These included the two-month strike at a big printing plant in Surabaya, the strike at the machine factories at N.I. Industrie, as well as one at the Braat plant in Surabaya. There were also strikes at Du Croo Brauns, Dapuan and Polygram organised by the Electrical Workers Union, which involved 2,500 people in Surabaya at the end of 1925. While 1 cannot give figures for Chinese involvement in the struggle for independence and in the struggle for social improvement, there can be no doubt of their participation. During the Japanese Occupation Neither can it be said that the Chinese as a group helped their elder siblings. Indeed, the first thing the Japanese did when they set foot on Indonesian soil was to attack the Chinese shops. At that time, they were still at war with the Kuomintang, and that struggle reached Indonesia as well. I still remember Chiang Kai-shek in 1948 saying that one nation can only be defeated by another nation if it assists its enemy.

It is a pity, but I do not have much material about all this, so I will just have to let it pass. The Chinese in the August 1945 Revolution Chinese society in Indonesia was relatively homogeneous [politically] prior to the August 1945 Revolution bursting forth. There were some incidents where they oriented to the national awakening in China itself. This divided the community into two groups. But after the emergence of [Indonesian] nationalism, the Chinese mainland was not an issue again. The Japanese invasion of China did not cause the community to divide into groups either. The fact that many of the prosperous families were able to educate their children also did not result in the community becoming factionalised. It is

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different today. Now there are three groups: Indonesian citizens. Kuomintang [supporters] and PRC [supporters]. They had not developed a strong political tradition, and the Dutch had continuously opposed and tried to hold back their political emancipation.

The Japanese occupation changed their attitude. They shifted from being apathetic about politics to becoming nationalistic, in the sense of being anti-Japanese. At the time the revolution exploded onto the scene, the PRC was not yet a legal reality for Indonesia. Almost nothing was known of the Chinese Communist Party, especially as the white press here reported them as being no more than bandits. The Indonesian press did not pay much attention to overseas events during the period of occupation, giving all their attention to domestic developments, especially anything related to the struggle for independence. The question of citizenship was still an alien issue, as the law on citizenship. Law No. 3/1946, had been issued only eight months after 17 August, while the PRC only became a legal reality for Indonesia in 1949.

It seems that the Arab community found it easier to come to terms with the citizenship issue and accept citizenship because of the centuries-old religious ties. At a conference of locally-born Arabs from Java and Madura (in Solo on 25 July 1946, only three months after Law No. 3/1946 was issued), it was decided en bloc that they would take Indonesian citizenship. There was considerable suspicion at the time that their [the Chinese] social situation tended to mean that these people did not have deep roots in Indonesian society, but, rather, in trade, in the circulation of goods and money. Furthermore, the Chinese community differed from the Arab community in that it was divided into different [social] layers and ethnic groups. One of these layers, as described by Tan Eng Kie, included those who made their living as small farmers in Benteng after 1950.1 think that the difficulties they experienced in determining their attitude would have been similar to those experienced by the Indians in South and West Africa or of Indonesians in the Philippines and Suriname when a national event occurred where they were non-integrated minorities.

But it is not at ali true that the Chinese community was uninterested in the revolution. If there were some who helped the Dutch during the revolution, this should not startle us since the same thing happened within Indonesian society itself. My starting point in talking about the Chinese community is that they were [politically] homogeneous, they were not divided. Also at that time they all looked to the legally recognised Chinese government, a government recognised throughout the world, that is, the

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Nationalist Chinese [Kuomintang] government. The Republic of Indonesia held to this legal reality as well. In fact, it was China, after the Soviet Union which, as a key country or stepping stone, enabled Indonesia to win wider contacts and support in the world.

That this China later moved across to Taiwan and was no longer recognised by the Republic of Indonesia was due to the foreign policy of Indonesia of not recognising two Chinas. Recognition of two Chinas was part of the divide et impera policy of Western imperialism, which Indonesia had fought so hard against. It was also part of Western imperialist doctrine of ‘letting Asians fight Asians ’. In other areas, the rejection of capitalism by Indonesia meant that it was involved in the closing down ofthe activities ofthe Kuomintang in Indonesia in 1957, as the Kuomintang was an institution that was promoting capitalism, at least in Indonesia. In addition, the victory ofthe Communist army at Chungking was a result of the fact that the defeated party had not been able to look after the people properly. If they had been able to take care of their people, then the people would have defended them and they would not have been defeated. So it was, Hs-y, that at the time of the August 1945 Revolution in Indonesia, the PRC did not yet exist.

Hs-y, do you remember how I explained the social pyramid and how the middle class was not a part of that pyramid? The disappearance of the colonial and feudal masters must have put the Chinese in a difficult position. For the mass of the Indonesian people, it was different. They spontaneously joined the revolution as they were at the bottom of the pyramid, which the revolution would overthrow. Generally the Indonesian bourgeoisie did not exhibit a very' different attitude than the Chinese. It is this kind of situation, of a vacuum, where it would be relatively easy to launch provocations by manipulating misunderstandings among the Chinese community. However, very few such provocations succeeded. On 12 November 1945, in connection with the battle for Surabaya, Bung Kamo explained in his speech: Hundreds ofChinese and Arabs, innocent ofany crime, peace-loving people, who came to this country’ only to trade, have been killed or seriously wounded. There have been even more casualties among Indonesians. I protest strongly against the use of modern weapons against the inhabitants ofthis city' who have been in no position to defend themselves.

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So. Hs-y, from the very beginning of the revolution many Chinese have fallen as victims. But it is indeed difficult for a community whose primary concern is trade to adopt a political stand, except on questions of trade. 1 think we can all understand this. Even so. from the first moments of the revolution, members of the Chinese community strengthened the ranks of the revolution. Injo Beng Hoat4, editor of Kengpo daily, just released from a Japanese prison on 9 October 1945, called upon the Chinese of Indonesia to stand behind the Republic of Indonesia. That this Hoat later took another path is a separate issue, no doubt not without its dynamics and own individual reasons. Darker sides also emerged, and not infrequently. In mid-September 1945, there was a bloody clash in Medan and Pematang Siantar between Indonesian youths and Chinese. Yet the Chinese community quickly understood the situation and, on 17 September, issued the following statement: 1.

China is a peace-loving country and has no desire to invade Indonesia', or influence its politics.

2.

The Chinese government exists as a reflection of the right of nations to self-determination and therefore, naturally supports and sympathises w ith Indonesian independence.

3.

Chinese overseas in Indonesia are here as guests and not as elder brothers and therefore, have no desire to create conflicts with the Indonesian people.

4.

Chinese joverseas simply hope that they can contribute to the development of Indonesia in the economic field.

It can be extremely moving. Hs-y, to think how people can retain their common sense, even in the midst of prejudice, mistrust and the spilling of blood. So, it is no wonder then that just one month or so later, President Soekamo sent a cable to Chiang Kai-shek stating his hopes for friendly relations between China and Indonesia. At the same time, another blow for common sense was struck when, on 21 October, more than seven thousand workers, Chinese and Indian, went onjstrikejn Singapore in sympathy with the struggle of the Republic of Indonesia. 4 A prominent Chinese Indonesian intellectual and journalist who pioneered journalism in the Malay language Chinese-owned media.

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The Chinese were not left behind in the press arena either. The Chinese newspapers, Seng Hwo Pao in Jakarta and the Democratic Daily News in Medan, both stood with the Indonesian people, supporting the struggle for Indonesian national independence. Both newspapers were published in Allied occupied areas in the face of threats and suppression by the Dutch. During the battle for Surabaya, in November 1945, many Chinese joined together to set up the Hua Chiao Chan Se Fu Wu Tuan, or Overseas Chinese Wartime Work Corps, which worked for the Indonesian army. Many Chinese youths took up arms and joined the battle on the side of Indonesia. On the ocean, it was Chinese who ran the allied naval blockade to bring in weapons and material for the Republican government. Many Chinese received awards for bravery from the army, and, indeed, some also were honoured as being among the 17 August Independence Proclamation Generation.

It was no accident either that the Chungking [Kuomintang] government defended the actions of the Chinese in Surabaya. And how did that come about? It was because a leading Chinese went on radio in Surabaya to report directly to Chungking the brutality of the British. Obviously, this Chinese figure did not do so just for something to do. He must have been motivated by genuine sympathy. Nor is it an accident that China and the Soviet Union were the first countries to make official statements of support for the struggles of the Indonesian people. Then, on 28 November 1945, the top leadership of the Indonesian Popular Resistance Forces in Surabaya urged the government to send out a mission, especially to China and the Soviet Union, so that the world would have an official and legitimate report on the brutality of the British in Surabaya. So, Hs-y. the real question then is: Why are the Chinese referred to as if they are completely bereft of any genuine commitment? The reality is that it is the Chinese who are closest to Indonesia and can do more to actually help the interests of Indonesia. This is reflected in the good relations with the Chinese of Indonesia. For Chungking itself, the Chinese in Indonesia are like a little China. And is it not also true that China has no imperialist past to account for with Indonesia? Perhaps some people will mention the Kublai Khan expedition as evidence to the contrary. Patience for now, I will write about the meaning of this invasion expedition later on. China was also one of the eleven countries in the United Nations Security Council that discussed Indonesia. This was in Church House, London. 1946. There were six countries on the Council that gave support. I do not know why the Chinese representative did not appear to be so active— | [

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‘

When the Chinese Consul General Chang Chia-tung had an audience with the President in Jogja, the President explained that the basis of the Indonesian

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state was not so different from that put forward by Sun Yat-sen, Rabindranath Tagore and Okakura. namely, that Asia is one. I do not think this was just diplomatic politeness or play-acting by the President. This stand that Asia is one was later manifested in Indonesian foreign policy, including in the policy of recognising only one China.

Asia is one. We Indonesians do not feel free while Burma, India, the Philippines and China have not achieved their complete freedom.

This statement by the President turned out later to impact on the fate of several other colonies in Southeast Asia. It is no surprise that the Dutch colonialists broadcast the President’s statement throughout the imperialist world to warn them that their colonies would also be in danger if the Indonesian people’s struggle w'ere to be recognised. So here then was a strange contradiction. On the one hand, the Chinese were discovering the importance of supporting the struggle of the Indonesian people, while, on the other, Indonesians like Mr. Z. Zain and Dr. Sumitro were busy acting as advisors to the Dutch representative. Dr. Elco van Kleffens. Returning to the Tangerang Incident

The Tangerang incident w'as not the result of some misunderstanding. The Dutch planned the incident as a means of extending their territory at that moment in the revolution. I touched on this a little in my earlier letter, but I think it is worth going into this issue a bit further. On 15 April 1946, a platoon of republican soldiers was guarding Allied prisoners. They were cowardly attacked and wiped out by a whole company of Dutch. Of course, the republican government protested the barbaric act to the Allies. The Allies promised to investigate the incident. But the promise just remained a promise. Meanw hile, Dutch agents were actively spreading the rumour that it was the Chinese who w'ere behind the treachery of the April attack! It was a time when the Chinese were an easy target for disaffection. This time, they were the targets of Dutch provocation. There were massacres. Nobody can defend what happened. Revolution is not about barbaric murder; revolution bears noble ideals. And more than that, revolution means consolidating one’s strength! The Republican Government itself did not defend this act. The massacres occurred just before the arrival of Dutch occupation troops in Tangerang on 13 June 1946. All this was the work of Dutch spies. The massacre

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provided the Dutch with the moral justification for their occupation of Tangerang, allowing them to further expand their occupied territories to the edge of Jakarta. The Chinese who survived escaped to Jakarta. The official figures give eight thousand. Let me quote some statistics about Tangerang from the Encyclopaedic van Nederlandsch-Indie. At the end of December 1905, the district of Tangerang had 107,000 Indonesians, approximately 12,800 Chinese around 120 Europeans and 20 Arabs. The town itself was inhabited by 4,400 Indonesians, 1,350 Chinese and East Asians and about 20 Europeans. We might expect that the population would have increased dramatically during the 41 years between 1905 and 1946, as Tangerang was not only a fertile region but also had a handicrafts industry. According to a report by C.J. Hasselman. Tangerang exported between five and six million woven bamboo hats worldwide, mostly to France. There was a victory for sanity when the republican government’s Minister for Social Affairs, Maria Ulfah Santoso, visited the refugees. Meanwhile, in Tangerang, the Dutch launched their own terror campaign of killing, kidnapping, torture and arson. There were even more victims than there had been earlier among the Chinese. This w as a result of the brutal nature of a mercenary colonial army combined w ith the desire for revenge among Chinese who had been mistreated.

Those w ho point to the Poh An Tui as evidence of the sins of the Chinese should also be ready to acknowledge the bloody Tangerang incident. It was that incident that provided the justification for the Dutch to set up the Poh An Tui. And in any case, to judge the whole Chinese community just on these facts, without considering a whole range of other issues, is far too shallow an approach. But. be that as it may, Hs-y, it is the case of the Poh An Tui that is still used today as the justification for hostility towards the Chinese by those w'ho do not w ant to understand. In respect to this, I would also like to present a letter signed by one Haji Saifulanwar. The letter was published in the Patriot newspaper in Medan on 26 December 1959. The letter stated that houses, shops and kiosks confiscated by the Poh An Tui were to be returned to their original owners. The interesting issue raised by this letter is by what means and with w'hat authority the Poh An Tui confiscated these houses, shops and kiosks. And if this did indeed, happen, how' is it that once independence was achieved in 1950, local leaders failed to do anything about it but allowed the thefts to remain undisturbed until 1959?

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The letter by Haji Saifulanwar goes on to say:

We all know about the criminal behaviour of the Chinese who became the Poh An Tui (city’ police) and who stole, raped and tortured anybody’ whom they liked to label as extremists and who were, in fact, freedomfighters strugglingfor the independence ofthe Republic of Indonesia. Shops owned by Indonesians or pro-Republican Chinese were confiscated and were occupied by the Poh An Tui and given to others in order to weaken the Republics economy and make Indonesia a second Malay a, where the minority group had become the majority’. Whatever sentiments the Indonesian people might have towards the Poh An Tui. this letter shows that there were also Chinese who sided with the Republic and w ho also suffered at the hands of the Poh An Tui. Tangerang and the Chineezen-Crees /Chinese Scare/

The Dutch strove with all their might during the August 1945 Revolution to make the Chinese the targets of their provocation. If this had succeeded, they would have crow ed that they had no choice but to move their troops in to protect the Chinese. The Dutch knew that they had successfully implanted an antiChinese sentiment among the bourgeoisie in Indonesia, no matter what their nationality. (Compare this with the writings of G.A. Romer, ’Chineezenvrees in Indie’, Vragen des Tijds, Volume II). As I explained in my fourth letter, the Dutch w ere also interested in destroying the Chinese. If their strategy of provocation had worked, they both would have a justification for moving their troops in to occupy more territory and would have destroyed the Chinese community.

The extremists among the revolutionaries were most easily provoked. In order to keep them under control, the President was forced to give the follow'ing warning in a speech on 30 June 1946: Lenin himself, the great Russian leader, in his book 'Radicalism: an Infantile Disorder of Communism ’, stated that left-radicalism was a disease, a disaster, a danger; and, with such acts, without realising it, they had in fact been caught up in the game devised by the Dutch’s fifth column.

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The Chinese in Indonesia

It is true that this statement was made in connection with the kidnapping Of Prime Minister Syahrir, but it applied with no less relevance to the extremists who fell to the Dutch provocation in Tangerang. The Dutch were able cunningly to fuse together the anti-Chinese stand of the bourgeois Netherlands Indies government w ith that of the Indonesian bourgeoisie, but it w as always Indonesian freedom fighters that ended up massacring the Chinese at that time!

Hs-y, these facts remind us that wherever the hand of imperialism interferes, we must be vigilant.

The Chinese Did Not Give Much Assistance to Van Mook

Hs-y, the Dutch continued to press down on the military' positions of the Republican youth and army. This is normal in war, is it not? So the moment arrived when the Dutch attempted to consolidate all the anti-revolutionary forces, to undermine the authority of the Republic of Indonesia. Lieutenant Governor General van Mook (later it came out that the Dutch Queen never formalised his position because he w'as not a purebred Dutchman) organised the Malino Conference (15-26 July 1946) to form the states that w ould make up the Indonesian Federation, or the United States of Indonesia, w hich would compete for legitimacy against the Republic of Indonesia. This comprised regions outside of Sumatra and Java. In his book Malino maakt Historie, W.A. van Goudoever, the former editor of De Locomotiefdaily, presented the Dutch, Chinese and Arabs as the future minorities. The conference w as attended by 39 delegates and several advisors from 15 regions in all. But how many Chinese participated in this? Three people: Dr. Liem Tjae Le, who represented Bangka/ Belitung, Tiok Hiang Soen and Lauw; who represented West Borneo. So the score was 3 to 36. But it would be a mistake to judge the balance of forces pro- and anti- revolution among the Chinese and native Indonesians from these figures. First, the delegates were not selected through any democratic process. Second, they did not represent the people but rather, the educated layer close to the Dutch. Third, there w as no way to see w hat psychological pressures were being applied. On balance, we can see that the Chinese did not play a big role in assisting van Mook and did not do anything en bloc to legitimise the Dutch charade. Victory for Sanity Hs-y, in the end, sanity must prevail over the small and insignificant misunderstandings that have no real effect on the revolution. The Indonesian people w'ere also able to ensure that sanity prevailed. After his official tour

Letter Five

through North Sumatra, Chinese Consul Chen Chuang Ping thanked the vicegovernor of North Sumatra. Dr. M. Djamil, for the positive attitude of the people and the officials of the region. Four days later, on 7 September 1946, in an interview in the newspaper Suluh Merdeka. Chinese Vice-Consul Lie She said: Relations between Chinese and Indonesians outside Medan are good.

And Hs-y, exactly one month after the proclamation of independence, there was a clash between Indonesians and Chinese in Medan and Pematang Siantar. Lie She, who also visited Pematang Siantar, said: ...there was plenty of evidence about relations between Chinese and Indonesians to refute the false accusations of the Dutch that Chinese do not feel safe to live in territory under the Republic of Indonesia. The various small misunderstandings between the Indonesian people and the Chinese will have no influence as long as the leaders act responsibly. All remaining disputes should be settled quickly.

As the journalist Jap Ee Tong from the Democratic Daily News put it: “All is splendid!” Khoo Chin Sin, a journalist from Afew China added also: “Wherever you find the Allies, you w ill aiso find trouble!”

It is understandable that the revolution also had its excesses here and there. But these are only pieces of small, dirty foam on a great ocean. The Chungking government sent an extraordinary mission to Indonesia ignoring these small pieces of froth. It was headed by Dr. L.T. Chun and landed in Jakarta on 16 October 1946. A w eek later, he had an audience with the President in the Jogja palace. Even more important was the statement by the secretary to the extraordinary mission. Haji Usman Woo, in Jember on 20 November 1946. when he urged all Chinese in Indonesia to support the struggle for independence, as 400 million Chinese were in sympathy with the struggle of the Indonesian people. The Chinese outside Indonesia also helped the struggle of the Indonesian people, even if indirectly. In Malaya, they launched a boycott of

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Dutch ships, and in February' 1947, the Chinese labourers in Malaya refused to load or unload goods coming from or going to Holland.

Yes, we must also mention the role of the workers, should we not Hs-y? And so it was also that 3 May 1947, the Chung Hua Lao Kung Chung Hui, or Centre for Unions of Chinese Workers in Belitung, also launched a strike. It received economic support from plantation workers and various organisations and groups throughout Indonesia, so that the strike was able to continue for 105 days. Another 1,000 Indonesian miners joined this strike against the Dutch, who were gathering together all their economic strength to overthrow the August 1945 Revolution. The Dutch had to mobilise Indonesians from the villages under their control and other isolated villages to work in the mines. But as soon as these Indonesian farmers understood what J was happening, they also refused to work.

The Chinese on Poh An Tui

The Poh An Tui not only aggravated Indonesians because of their bastardy and hypocrisy, but they aggravated the Chinese even more, especially those who had struggled sincerely and honestly to safeguard and consolidate a long-term friendship with the Indonesian people.

I myself see this organisation as part of the dark side of this whole issue. And a dark side can only exist if there is also a bright side, is that not so? And I think that we must always anticipate that every struggle will give rise to such dark sides, so that we can then limit them. The height of bastardy committed by the Poh An Tui occurred in Panipahan and later was known as the Panipahan Incident.5 Panipahan is near Labuhan-Bilik. On 30 September 1946, two hundred Poh An Tui soldiers landed and attacked. At that time, there were only fifteen Republican Navy soldiers on duty. The Indonesian navy soldiers were equipped with only simple rifles, and many perhaps had no arms at all. The Poh An Tui were not only well equipped, with weapons paid for by the Dutch, but landed using Dutch amphibious aircraft.

5 Also referred to as the Poh An Tui Incident.

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As I have said, the sane thinking Chinese, the majority, rejected the Poh An Tui. An editor of a journal that I know once told me that the editor of the daily Hua Kiau Jit Pau, namely, Tju Tje Hui, repeatedly opposed the Poh An Tui and published many articles that were strongly against them.

But what was the significance of the Poh An Tui in the struggle of the youth? And here, I mean the struggle of the Indonesian youth. It turns out that the Poh An Tui was a generous supplier of weapons. In every guerrilla engagement after the second Dutch military action, they were able to seize weapons that, this time, were not out-of-date, unlike the weapons available to most of the youth at the time.

But there is something I must tell you that is more important than this sickening Poh An Tui. This event is important because it was a manifestation of the progressive aspirations of the Chinese as regards the August 1945 Revolution. I am referring to a Chinese-Indonesia conference. This took place just a few days before the Panipahan Incident! In this conference the Chinese youth w'ere conscious that they were not in a position to contribute manpower or weapons to the struggle because their trading traditions militated against the development of any kind of warrior spirit. But they made it clear that they could contribute strength in the areas of trade and finance. At this conference, the Chinese urged the Republican government to quickly implement their financial policies so that trade, and the economy in general, which had been so damaged by the Japanese occupation, could be normalised so that the lives of the people could benefit and thereby also help safeguard the revolution. Was this also not a form of rejection of the Poh An Tui? The Chinese also made Sacrifices

Did the Chinese also make sacrifices for the revolution? Of course, Hs-y. There were sacrifices in the form of goods and services, made voluntarily, semi-voluntarily or involuntarily (these are the possibilities allowed by the human personality). But also, Chinese fell in almost every battle, because the Chinese lived among the Indonesian people. For example, in the battle of Surabaya, the Chinese women w'orked hand-in-hand with Indonesian women and youth, providing first aid. That there wrere traitors, too, among the Chinese in these battles should not be generalised to include all Chinese; this w'ould be wrong, would lead us all astray, and would poison relations between the tw o peoples. For example, just recently, there have been reports of Indonesian criminal gangs carrying out outrageous acts in Manila. But this does not mean that all Indonesians in the Philippines are criminals.

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According to a United Press report of 2 November 1945. the British killed sixty thousand people in the battle for Surabaya, among them fiv thousand Chinese. Perhaps United Press exaggerated the numbers for the purpose of sensationalism, but the important thing is to register the 55:5 ratio We can see from this the real position of the Chinese during the revolutionary period. In the battles in Makassar, Banteng, Palopo, Maros and Bulukumba between the Dutch colonial and Australian forces on the one side and the people on the other, there were also many Chinese casualties. In December 1945. the allies also confiscated many houses, including 200 houses in Menteng, many belonging to Chinese. And when the British and Japanese launched a joint attempt to seize Semarang from the youth, they imposed a registration tax of one thousand rupiah on all households. This burden mainly fell on Chinese families who had remained in the city.

In the British air attack on Tasikmalaya, nine Indonesians and six Chinese were killed. A ratio of 9:6. This shows that the bomb fell in the commercial areas. There were Chinese also among the 45 killed by the Allied air attack on Cicalengka. It is possible that the figures given by Chinese result in a bigger ratio than expected because the Chinese were diligent in getting the reports to their consul. Hs-y, I think I have talked to you enough now about the sacrifices made by the Chinese, either voluntarily or involuntarily. There is much more I could say but will not because it will just become boring for you. This is because the stories of these sacrifices get told separately from the evolution of the situation of the revolution itself.

Actually, Hs-y, I would like to say more about the role of the Chinese in politics, but there is not enough time at the moment. Indonesians and Chinese: Both Victims of Imperialism

The Chinese were never the main helpers to the Dutch, either in commerce or government. The Dutch themselves became intent on removing the Chinese from Indonesia as early as 1740. However, their Christian morality and civilisation meant that they could not do that. And, as modem human beings, they also needed to be able to present some concrete justification, some moral justification, for doing such a thing. But they never found such a justification. So they created every kind of rule and regulation to squeeze them and kill them, but they were not killed off. So we cannot possibly conclude that they

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were assistants to imperialism. And if there were those Chinese who did choose to help the imperialists, it was because of their greed and their lack of understanding of history itself in Indonesia.

Before I conclude this fifth letter to you, I want to ask you to always remember one thing: No Chinese in Indonesia could possibly help their own murderers, except as a result of individual stupidity.

The Chinese are the friends of the Indonesian people, even though the Indonesian bourgeoisie looks upon them as an enemy. It is from these good relations that I hope we can see grow a close, sincere and honest cooperation that can contribute to the welfare and peace of each nation, and of the world in general.

Letter Six The Contribution of the Chinese towards the Progress of Indonesia

Hs-y, When people lose face or prestige again and again, they often hang on fiercely to their one last remnant of prestige, alive only in abstract fantasy: self-pride and arrogance. It is this way, too, when it comes to relations between Indonesians and Chinese. This relationship, sometimes marred here and there bymisunderstandings or small conflicts, has, on the whole, proceeded peacefully. This is because, indeed, the arrival of the Chinese in Indonesia was very different from that of the Dutch, British, French. Japanese, and even the Hindus in times long past. The Chinese did not arrive bearing weapons to kill. C. Lekkerkerker, in his book Land en Volk van Java, acknowledged:

The inhabitants of South China (and it was these people who travelled to the East Indies) had no desire to wield power, but only to win prosperity. So in their relations with the Indonesian people, who so much prefer peace, there was bound to be a closeness and mutual understanding and a process of mutual influence and giving that were beneficial to both sides. The failure of so many heroes to destroy this relationship has led others to deny the existence of these good and mutually beneficial relations that have advanced the interests of both parties. So C. Lekkerkerker, in his book, goes on to cover up the Dutch failure to get rid of the Chinese and presents the Dutch as protectors of the native Indonesians, saying: By 414 AD there were already' reports of Chinese on Java. It was rather strange that, despite there beingfive

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times more Chinese than Europeans and despite thefact that their country was large and near, yet their influence in culture and politics on the natives was very small.

And trying to show that the Chinese meant nothing to the native Indonesians compared to the Dutch themselves, he continued:

Their culture and technical civilisation were much older, but only slightly higher than those of the Javanese While we, in fact, know that it was the Chinese superiority in shipbuilding - just to take one example - w'hich ended the international trade carried out by native Indonesians. More important than the issue of their technical and cultural advances over Indonesians is the issue of their contributions to the development of the civilisation of the inhabitants of Indonesia themselves. Were there any such contributions? Were the Chinese good at nothing except business? Were they capable only of rottenness, for which they are now being sentenced in the form of concrete actions taken against them?

Hs-y, in this sixth letter I want to argue that there have been constructive contributions. So I do not agree with a recent statement by an official w'ho, echoing the tone of C. Lekkerkerker, made a statement based on nothing but hollow' arrogance, namely, that there is no need to be grateful to the Chinese. Of course, nobody can be forced to say thank you. But acknow ledgement of contributions is recognition of a positive influence, and, if that positive influence has taken our civilisation a step higher, what is wrong in feeling some gratitude? A sense of gratitude is not some kind of selfhumiliation, is it? Is it not a truly necessary feeling in relations between people, between nations?

So, Hs-y, nobody can deny the debt of Indonesian history owed to the writings of Chinese travellers. I think that without these contributions much of Indonesian history would remain lost. Were these travellers paid by Indonesians? I do not think so. Again I must emphasise that my intention here is not to raise up the Chinese and humiliate Indonesians. I just want a relationship that is reasonable, fair and that does not w ander off track somew here. At the very least, the Indonesian people have always been polite and civil, knowing how to be grateful, how to return a favour and who value the efforts of other

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people; if we find something else, then it is more likely we are dealing with the Indonesian bourgeoisie and feudalists and not the people themselves. And when we find these characteristics missing among people who have nothing, then we can assume that we are dealing with failed bourgeois and feudalists!

These reports by Chinese travellers, though often the oldest information available, have only recently been written up by scholars. One of the outstanding features of the writings of these travellers is that they always tended just to record the facts, unlike traditional Indonesian records that merge everything with fantasy. It is a pity that Chinese ideograms, which have otherwise contributed so much to Indonesian history, sometimes introduce confusion when they are forced to record the names of specific Indonesian persons or places. Well, every instrument has its limitations. But is it not true that these contributions are indeed valuable compared to the arrogant statements of some officials who perhaps have never read any Indonesian history? The history' of their own people! Because they have been brought up on a continuous diet of Dutch education? And now, because of some accident, they sit somewhere as big politicians? There was an anonymous article in the Republik newspaper of 3 February 1960, entitled ‘The Links between China and Ancient Indonesia’. In relation to the contribution of the Chinese travellers to our understanding of ancient Indonesia, the article read:

Although Chinese cultural influence did not result in great monuments, such as Borobudur, Prambanan, and so on, the writings ofthe various Chinese guests to Indonesia left other historical monuments in the form of their writings about Indonesia. From an historical and cultural perspective, these writings are no less important for Indonesian history than the Borobudur, Prambanan and Sewu monuments. To be frank, Hs-y, I agree with this. Without the writings of these travellers, the ancient history of Indonesia would be represented by a deathly silence.

Chinese have written about Indonesia since the first century in the Christian era (see J.C. van Eerde, De oudste Berichten omtrent den

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Indischen archipel), and Jetiao, which we can guess is Djawadwipa [ancient name for Java], was reported by a Chinese traveller in 132 AD. There were also reports of visits by Indonesian ambassadors to China. Even from these brief reports, we can discover that our people already had advanced skills in shipbuilding and knowledge of the stars and the w inds! But even more important, it show s that our people already had a government and a foreign policy!

For the fifth century, almost all information comes from the Chinese traveller Fa Hsien. Here we see that both commerce and religion played a role in bringing us this information. From the very earliest, commerce played a major role in relations between the two peoples. Prof. Dr. N.J Krom, in his book De Hindu-Javaansche Tijd, free from the political need to cover up his own failure, acknowledged the importance of these Chinese reports.

The presence of ceramics - those innocent, mute artifacts - from the Han period (second to first century BC) in West Java, Lampung, the Batanghari areas and West Kalimantan, is tangible evidence that our ancestors received from these Chinese travellers things which we ourselves could not yet make and that, in fact, we learned how to make from the Chinese. If the people of Indonesia knew how to make them during that era, then there w'ould have been no purpose in the Chinese travellers bringing them there. There is no point to salting the ocean unless you are mad! And there are several tribes among the Dayak in the Kalimantan interior who have expressed their gratitude by making these Chinese artifacts sacred. Some may laugh at these tribes, but if we look at this from an anthropological perspective, we can understand that this is just a primitive form of expressing gratitude. Friendly relations betw een China and Indonesia w ere busiest during the sixth and seventh centuries AD, even though there were several rather sharp merchants from both sides who presented themselves as emissaries of their kings. There are many stories and legends from the time of our ancestors that describe this period of peaceful relations. It is worth looking at some of the evidence we can find slipped in among this legacy. In the Epic ofAtjeh, compiled by Dr. Teuku Iskandar, which was published in Verhandeling van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal, Land-en Volkenkunde (Volume XXVI),

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So King Indera Syahpun was brought before the king of China and was given that which had been left behind by King Iskandar. So he was ordered by the king of China to build a palace in the king's compound. So king Indera Syah was also given a bride... This work was written after the arrival of Islam, as can be seen by the use of the title ‘Syah’ and also by the use of the Arab word ‘pupal’, which derives from the Arab word ‘fauful’, meaning ‘pinang’. In any case, this work clearly refers to good relations, free from any ill will, between the inhabitants of Aceh and the Chinese. And in the Minangkabau Histories, there is a section telling how there are blood ties between the peoples of Southeast Asia, as they all share a common bloodline from India:

... there were three sons of a king from the land of the Hindus who left their land to find other lands to conquer...

One, called Seri Maharaja Depang, travelled with his entourage to the east, to the land of China, then crossed over to Japan. Another, called Seri Maharaja Alif, travelled with his entourage to the west, to the land of Rome. And another, Seri Maharaja Diraja, sailed on a ship in the direction where the sun lives, to find land and his five wives...

It is not that I am looking to show that there were passive relations between Indonesia and China, but rather, I w'ant to show’ that these relations were not harmful to either party; in fact, they w ere of mutual benefit! It was then just a question of how the various rulers would channel these relationships towards specific interests. And throughout history, this relationship has never been led by a governmental leader. It has always been a people-to-people relationship, of course, with excesses that, in fact, did not need to occur. But none of this contradicts the proposition that the Chinese contributed to the advance of Indonesia.

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The True Historical Significance of the Tributes to the Kings of China

In other classical writings, there are many mentions of tributes being paid by the Indonesian kings to the king of China. Chinese literature also describes the frequent visits to China of all kinds of delegations. Sun Yat-sen, in his book San Min Chu I, also emphasised: ... several smaller countries also paid tribute to China including the Lochoo islands, Siam, Borneo, the Sulu islands, Java, Ceylon, Nepal and Bhutan. But, Hs-y, this tribute should not be interpreted as a sign of submission. As has also been explained by Krom, this was often done by cunning international merchants using the name of their king to obtain great profits for themselves. And because he did not understand that this was what these merchants were doing, Kublai Khan once sent an emissary to Kertanegara, a king of Java, to demand tribute when he realised that such tribute payments had stopped. It was from this incident that it became clear how international traders had been using the honour of their king and their country for their own benefit! One of the emissaries of Kublai Khan was even branded on his forehead with a sign of humiliation.

So this story of tribute shows it was purely a ruse of the merchants, although it also cannot be denied that there were kings in Indonesia who did submit formal tribute to the king of China. Still, the stand made by Kertanegara did help expose the rotten nature of the games played by these merchants.

And why did Kertanegara not send tribute to China during the rule of Kublai Khan? The answer is very easy! Kertanegara had been able to build a very strong navy, the strongest in all Southeast Asia. A strong naval cordon around these seas meant that the merchants felt secure and had less need to fawn before foreign kings to obtain guarantees of their safety. So as a result, the merchants did not need to resort to the cunning of paying such tribute.

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The Significance of the Kublai Khan Expedition in the History of Majapahit Several friends, using different words but conveying the same meaning, have told me that Chinese malevolence towards Indonesia can be seen in the expedition by Kublai Khan that attacked [the east Javanese kingdom] of Singasari. “Who can deny then that the Chinese have an aggressive spirit?” some ask. There can be no denying that the aggression took place. But can their attitude really be justified? Is it fair and just? Hs-y, I once promised you that I would examine this issue for you and now is the time. You must know a great deal about the Great Khan whose exploits rocked the civilised world. The arrival of the Mongols destroyed the Kin Empire of the Sung Dynasty. Under the leadership of Genghis Khan, the Mongol nomad tribes swept down and plundered North China and Korea, then attacked the Khwarazmian Empire, razing the city of Bukhara, and then wiped out the city of Samarkand and its one million inhabitants, leaving only fifty thousand alive. The prosperous towns of Herat and Balkh were also wiped out. They then entered Persia and invaded Russia, so that their empire stretched from the Black Sea to the Pacific. And Kublai Khan was only the grandson of Genghis Khan and somebody who held great ambitions. Nehru wrote that the action initiated by Kublai Khan against the king of Java was not an act of annihilation such as that visited upon Baghdad by Hugalu (the son of Genghis Khan). According to Nehru, this was because of the Chinese influence! And was not Kublai Khan a governor for China appointed under Mangu Khan? And does this not mean that there would have been Chinese soldiers among his army also exerting some influence? The strange thing is, and I still do not understand this, why do Indonesian histories always call this army a Chinese army and not a Tartar army?

But let us put this aside for now. According to Krom: As soon as emperor Kublai Khan established the new Yuan Dy nasty', he began to take an interest in overseas affairs in an attempt to bring as much territory as possible under Chinese sovereignty, or at least to win recognition for Chinese sovereignty. So he sent his emissaries to manyregions to seek a declaration of submission. Then he invited their kings to make personal visits to seek audience

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at the imperial palace. And behind all these requests was the ironfist ofthe Mongol armies. Java attracted the attention of the emperor in 1280. But Kertanegara kept postponing negotiations until finally Kublai Khan lost patience. He sent his last emissary to Java in 1289. This emissary was branded on his forehead by Kertanegara as an insult to Kublai Khan.

Kublai Khan could not hold back his anger and sent a policing expedition to Java in 1292. But by that time, Kertanegara had been deposed by his own domestic enemy, Jajakatwang. Raden Widjaja, the son-in-law of Kertanegara, was able to engage in a manoeuvre and use the Khan expedition to overthrow Jajakatwang, establishing his own kingdom, Majapahit!1 Jn most history books in Indonesia, usually nothing more is said about this expedition once its destruction is described. There is nothing to answer the question: Why was Majapahit under Gajah Mada able to subdue an area much larger than the land area of the Republic of Indonesia today when we know that even after four centuries, Srivijaya2 never subdued even the equivalent of this land area? What is the secret hidden in all this information?

The answer is that there is such a secret, and it is to be found in the change to a more effective military technology, which, in turn, resulted in a change in military strategy and tactics. The new element was the use of chemistry, which transformed the power of w eaponry': the use of senjata api [firearms] of some kind was introduced into Indonesia. I cannot quite envisage what this senjata api was like. Matu Mona, in his Glory' Era, telling the story of the occupation of the Brantas Valley by Kublai Khan, describes them as a kind of rocket. But is it true that the Chinese were familiar with rockets at that time? This is very possible, especially if w e remember the small rockets we call now' mercon [fireworks], which can fire 1 Majapahit was an east Javanese kingdom established in the fourteenth century and considered to have experienced a golden age of Hindu-Javanese culture under King Hayam Wuruk (who reigned from 1350-89) and his Prime Minister Gajah Mada. 2 Srivijaya was a Buddhist kingdom centered in southern Sumatra that dominated the Straits of Malacca and therefore, the trade circulating between India, China and east Indonesia from the seventh to early eleventh centuries.

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into the sky and explode and which we use at the end of the fasting month and for other celebrations. Of course, such things would have been developed such that they were suitable for use in warfare at the time.

With regard to Majapahit obtaining new military technology, jawaharlal Nehru wrote in his collection of letters to his daughter, Glimpses of World History. In reality the Chinese expedition made Java or the Majapahit empire stronger. This is because the Chinese brought ‘senjata api 'to Java and it was because ofthese weapons that Majapahit won victory after victory. Nehru did not describe exactly what type of firearms these were. Were they the kind of primitive rifle that we knew during the Indonesian revolution that the people called locok rifles, and that used gunpowder to fire shrapnel that would kill or maim whoever was pierced? But, whatever the form of these weapons, it cannot be denied that they entered into use on Java after the Chinese attack. Did Europe not also leam the use of firearms from China? It is unlikely that there were very many of these weapons stolen from the Chinese. But by the time of Majapahit, the people already had metalworking and blacksmithing skills. Only three centuries later, in 1612, the armada of Pati Unus3 used cannons to attack the Portuguese in Malacca, about which W. Fruin-Mees wrote in Geschiedenis van Java, Volume II:

They were well equipped with their own cannon, as there were already' excellent metalcasters among the Javanese. So the question arises: from whom did the people of Indonesia develop the skills to make cannons as early as 1512, when Europeans, who began using cannons in the fourteenth century, only came in contact w ith Indonesians in the sixteenth century? These weapons quickly spread throughout Indonesia as Majapahit attacked. They were called pemuras in the Malay-speaking

3 Pati Unus was the king of Demak, a north Javan state. He twice attacked the Portuguese in Malacca in an effort to prevent them from gaining control over the archipelago spice trade. He died in 1518.

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areas, peumuraih, keumaraih and meureuyam among the Acehnese an(j mariem among the Javanese. The Minangkabau also started to make forearms called badie sitenggah, bedil setinggar or istinggar, taking the words from the Portuguese espingarda, the word for such weapons. We can find the same among the Balinese. Batak. Bengkulu. Karo, and so on. And it is quite possible that Majapahit under Gajah Mada used cannons - cannons seized from the army of Kublai Khan and later cannons they made themselves.

So those pronouncements by my friends that the Kublai Khan invasion somehow reflects the evil role of the Chinese in Indonesia are way off mark They ignore the other important aspects, including [the Chinese] contribution to the emergence and rise of the Majapahit empire, which everybody holds up for praise, regardless of its own imperialistic character. All this was made possible by the firearms introduced by the Chinese attackers.

Contributions Made in Peace But you must not think that this expedition only brought weapons of death. Because China was ruled by a foreigner at that time, there were surely many Chinese who also wished to flee the foreign domination of their country. I am sure. Hs-y, that many of the soldiers on that expedition deserted and did not return to their homeland. This speculation is based on my observations of the ornamentation on Javanese and Balinese boats. Hs-y, I much prefer to discuss the peaceful contributions of the Chinese rather than those stemming from the violence of war and represented by instruments of killing.

The Chinese have been making contributions to progress in Indonesia since the tenth century'. Because these ancient contributions have not been advertised or become the subject of propaganda, their origins have been forgotten. The former Prime Minister, Ali Sastroamidjojo4 once wrote:

4 Twice Prime Minister of Indonesia (1953-55 and 1956-57), Ali Sastroamidjojo was a leader of the left-wing of the PNI and was Prime Minister at the time of the AsianAfrican Conference in Bandung in 1955.

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Since the first trade opened up between the two countries, Indonesia and China have been friends. The ships from China not only brought goods, but also traders, labourers, craftsmen, and so on from China. They lived in our country, bringing their skills and ancient culture from China. We can still find today many elements of that Chinese culture on many of the islands ofIndonesia. As far as we can tell, Chinese contributions to progress in Indonesia began in the tenth century AD. The Chinese had been in Sumatra since 942, bringing agricultural instruments and introducing them to the local farmers. In the Encyclopaedic van Nederlandsch-Indie it is stated that Indonesian farmers use a short or shallow plough called a luku, and this tool was called a ‘Chinese luku'. It is clear this was a copy of a Chinese plough. Even today, many farmers in the Tangerang area use a similar plough. This was initially introduced by a Chinese named Tjo Huan Giok in the seventeenth century.

The contribution of the Chinese to agriculture, and thereby to prosperity, has not been small. This is even more important if we remember that Indonesia has always been an agricultural country. It was the Chinese who perfected the techniques for grow ing pepper in Indonesia. They devised a net to place around the stem of the pepper tree so that the plant would not spread everywhere but stay within the one location. They also kept trimming the tree of its leaves, which made it more productive. They also planted the trees closer together using more fertiliser. According to statistics from the Dutch colonial period, pepper plantations in Bangka, where the new methods were used, could carry 2,500 pepper plants per hectare, whereas in Lampung, where the old methods were used, they got 1,200 plants per hectare, a 100% difference in production. These methods are what magically transformed Banten into the biggest pepper producing region in the world, making its harbour an international harbour, a centre of w'orld trade. In Bangka and Belitung, almost all the pioneers in planting pepper were Chinese. Even today, pepper is exported from Bangka and Belitung all over the world, ranking it as the number one exporter of pepper, producing 80% of the global output. Indonesian tea production is now the fourth largest in the world. According to notes in the book Oud Batavia, Chinese tea was brought into

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Indonesia in 1681. In the Nederlandsch Oost-lndische Encyclopaedic ' states that Jacobson brought Chinese experts in tea cultivation to Java i 1832 and 1833 to manage tea production. Then in Huan Tse, or Short Notes on the Universe, it says that ‘Kelapa' (they mean Java) had started to plant Fukien tea. which tasted delicious. The word ‘tea’ itself comes from th Fukien dialect, another indication that tea was brought here by the Chinese from China.

There was a very close relationship between the Chinese and the Indonesian people before Dutch colonialism started to raise obstacles to assimilation. This can be seen in the Chinese efforts in agriculture - their coconut and fruit plantations and their vegetable gardens. These not only meant more food, but they also brought in foreign exchange from the markets in Singapore. Nobody will deny that sugar has always played an important role in the Indonesian economy, before, during, and since the revolution. It is true that the people themselves had learned how to produce sugar, but the new' techniques introduced by the Chinese helped increase productivity and therefore, also the prosperity of the people. The Chinese introduced waterdriven mills, and, if there w as no w ater, they used buffaloes. These techniques were quickly adopted by the people so that Jepara and Jakarta were exporters of sugar by the sixteenth century. Even today, sugar is a key traditional product for East Java. The water-driven mills also remain important today in both West Java and West Sumatra.

The contribution of the Chinese in the field of mining also should not be belittled, although perhaps many people have forgotten this as a result of being concerned only with w hat is happening today. The Chinese were also pioneers in this area in times past. The Chinese role in pioneering tin production w as not small: in fact, it is possible that the development of tin mining was much dependent on their initiatives. Tin is very important for Indonesia today as a source of foreign exchange. Indonesia is the second largest producer in the world, accounting for 20% of all production. It was the Chinese who pioneered tin mining in Bangka, Belitung and Singkep. Before the Dutch capitalists arrived with their modem machinery, the Chinese had introduced techniques previously unknown to the people. In the book by Polak. Pertambangan di India Belanda [Mining in the Dutch Indies], it is noted that the authorities in

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palembang quickly recognised the Chinese skill in this area and sent to south China for labourers to open tin mines on Bangka.

The techniques used by the Chinese were the same as those used in China, namely, a water-driven mill to pull up the tin from the mines below. And they also used a Chinese-style tin smelter. This kind of primitive tin mining produced several thousand tons of tin for Indonesia. Meanwhile, in West Kalimantan, the Chinese were the pioneers of traditional gold mining and gold panning. Opening lip Land for Plantations

The Chinese contribution to developing the national plantation sector, which has made Indonesia an exporter of plantation produce, also cannot be ignored. With extraordinary patience, resolve and diligence, they entered wild forest, which was not producing anything, and turned it into plantations that produced foreign exchange and created work for thousands of workers. According to records, they first started opening up forest in the sixteenth century, at least in so far as there were white people around to witness the event. One elderly Chinese man told the story of how Chinese coolies cleared the forest during the Dutch colonial period. A Dutch capitalist, he said, mobilised fifty Chinese coolies to clear land for a plantation. They built a road and fences, put bridges across gullies, levelled the land, and so on. The plantation was supposed to be ready for planting within half a year. But after a year of work, there were only two coolies still alive. The other forty-eight had died of disease or snakebites or had been killed by tigers. The Dutch capitalist deployed another fifty coolies to do the planting. Of these fifty, thirty-eight died. So, in order to create this plantation, eightyfour out of a hundred Chinese coolies had to die. The same fate befell the coolies from Java.

The Republik daily on 11 February' 1960 reported the story of a Chinese contract labourer named Li A Er. This story also illustrates how the endeavours of the Chinese played no small part in the opening up and development of the Deli area and north Sumatra. The Chinese coolies were used, squeezed and when they had no more energy left, were thrown on the

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rubbish heap by their bosses and left to live in misery. Even today you can find many of these homeless people taken in by the Federation of Medan Chinese Associations and other social welfare bodies. Here is the result of the interview with Li A Er, who lives in an impoverished dwelling about four kilometres from Medan: When he was 26 years old in China, he was courted with the words: Leave and cross the South Sea. There you will receive between 1,000 and 2,000 yuan every year! Yuan was the currency under the Ch ing dy nasty. This was a lot ofmoney in those days. Li was influenced by this, especially as it was difficult in China then: it was hard to make a living, and there were many people dying of hunger. The first thing the Dutch did with these coolies purchased from China was they forced them to sign contracts where they were given an advance of 35 guilders. Twenty-one guilders were given to each coolie, the other 14 guilders were entered into the ledger as a deposit guarantee against the coolie breaking the contract. This happened to Li A Er when the Dutch sent him to East Sumatra. While in East Sumatra, Li A Er was forced to clear the jungle for tea and tobacco plantations ... then the Dutch wouldforce him to clear more jungle.

This kind of barbaric exploitation by the Dutch was also practiced when it came to marriage. If a Chinese coolie wanted to marry a female Javanese contract coolie, then they had to agree to extend their contract, the man by two years and the woman by three years. So with each marriage, a couple extended their servitude by a combined total of five years. In East Sumatra, Li A Er worked for twelve years as a contract coolie. Then he worked as a coolie on a wharf in Belawan harbour. He was let go when he no longer had the strength to carry heavy goods.

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The exploitation of Li. and of other coolies like him, did not allow him to accumulate the slightest wealth, let alone the wealth that could turn him into an enemy of the Indonesian economy. He could not even afford food, so he had to surrender himself to a poor house. It is clear that it was not the Chinese coolies who were benefiting from all this but, rather, the Indonesian national economy. So, whenever you read about the tobacco auctions in cities overseas like Bremen, remember that among the shouting of the traders bargaining can also be heard the screams and moans of the Chinese coolies who lost their lives because of disease, or because they were killed by tigers or snakebites, but most of all by the greed of the Dutch colonialists. Not only is it unjust, but it is also hypocritical to deny the contributions they have made. The blood, sweat, soul and life of the Chinese coolie were squeezed by the Dutch colonialist, and now, since the nationalisation of the Dutch plantations, the benefit has transferred directly to the Indonesian nation in this era of independence. There is a statistic that will speak clearly of this. Hs-y, between 1888 and 1931, three hundred and fifty-six thousand contract coolies were brought from China to Medan, and for sixty years the tobacco plantations have been dependent on these contract coolies.

The Chinese coolies, whether in Belitung, Deli. Bangka or in the mines of other plantations in Sumatra or Kalimantan, worked side by side w ith Indonesian workers, suffering the same fate and circumstances, and confronted the same enemy together: imperialism and Western colonialism. In relation to this, the words of J. Chailly Bert, in his book about Java and its inhabitants, are still very moving: Apart from the Chinese, who is there who is prepared to mix with the natives, learn to speak the native language, live as the native people do, so as to win their trust?

It is only the Chinese who have shown a real intention to remain in Indonesia, to contribute whatever they have: skills, capital and experience. It is up to the Indonesian government to find a way to channel these contributions.

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In the Field of Fisheries In his book The Geography of Indonesia, S. Sutopo writes that several centuries ago the Chinese were already developing fishing in a village that had few inhabitants, called Bagan Siapi-api. This fishing village later developed into one of the biggest fishing regions in the world. The largest fishing region was Bergen, Norway, followed by Bagan Siapi-api. Every year 50 million tons of fish and prawns were produced to supply other towns. Just as the Chinese had created the port town of Gresik in the Middle Ages, so the Chinese created Bagan Siapi-api as the fishing town it is today. In 1930, 11,988 of the 15,320 inhabitants were Chinese, and 80% of them were fishermen. Exports of fish from Bagan Siapi-api in 1928 amounted to 5 million guilders. While these exports once benefited the Dutch, do they not now benefit the government of the Republic of Indonesia? So how astonishing it is to hear some official accuse the Chinese of being small-scale monopoly capitalists because they own kiosks that monopolise the sale of salted fish, so they must all be viewed as economic criminals! We can see that while they may crow that their Chinese policy is not anti-Chinese or racialist, other times when they crow, out comes anti-Chinese and racist pronouncements.

In the Field of Small-Scale Timber Industry and Enterprise In the field of timber, the Chinese, like the native people, have had to face wild animals and poisonous creatures each time they go into the jungles. Dutch Indies statistics from 1928 show' the position of the Chinese in the timber industry quite clearly [refer to Table 1: Timber Production for 1928 (in cubic metres) at the end of chapter].

The small-scale end of this industry; such as furniture manufacture, w as almost totally in Chinese hands. I am not sure how much was in their hands compared to that in native hands or how much was being produced. But we can make some estimates from the statistics, w hich I will explain to you in a minute.

A little w'hile ago, a Chinese man from Surabaya visited me in my house. His name was Ong Thian Tjo. He told how he had come to Indonesia at the age of seven - he had been sold. Now' he was 39 years old. “W'hy are you

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becoming a citizen of the PRC?”, I asked. And I knew he would not be able to give a firm answer.

"Because I was bom in China”, he answered. But 1 could tell from the look in his eyes that this w as not the real reason. There was something else - there was uncertainty about his future in Indonesia.

He lived in Surabaya and ow ned a small enterprise that manufactured picture frames. He w'as proud of his enterprise, not only because his product wras as good as anything from overseas, as he said, but because he had also helped the country save a little foreign exchange. Perhaps an anti-Chinese racialist will laugh at me for using this example. Is it not true that every person should have the right to be proud of what he has achieved? And it turned out that he had also been active in the battle of Surabaya against the Japanese-Dutch-British aggressors. Can you imagine how hard it was for me to contain my emotions, Hs-y, when he showed me his resident’s card, then his citizenship card, then his permit to enter Jakarta? So this was the alleged alien monopoly capitalist who was an enemy to the Indonesian economy? What was clear was that the man before me, who had fought sincerely and genuinely in Surabaya, was not going to suffer PP 10. And he was looked upon as a criminal by journalists, who perhaps have never know n the bitter suffering of struggle because they were enjoying themselves sitting around in the Netherlands.

"What was the turnover in your business, Bung?', 1 asked. “Fifteen thousand a month”, he answered. Fifteen thousand is the same as S50! “What was your clear profit each month, Bungl”, I asked. “Around three thousand rupiah”, he answered. Three thousand was no more than $10. Can he really be considered a monopoly capitalist? What does this mean when compared to Standard Vacum, w hose front fence alone is w orth ten times $50? And do not forget there are thousands of Chinese like him. who are saving foreign exchange for the country because of their skills. Perhaps there are those who will shout: but his is not a retail outlet that will be hit by PP 10! His is not a retail outlet! Such lowly insults can only come from the mouth of a bourgeois who knows no loyalty.

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Contributions in the Field of Culture

If it is the case that the Chinese have made valuable contributions to the movement for independence, to industry, agriculture, fishing, and so on, their positive contribution is even clearer in the field of culture.

It is very typical for the Chinese to take their culture all over the world, including Indonesia. And Chinese culture has never revealed itself as wanting to imprison other cultures or as having tendencies in that direction. We can see how Chinese culture has been taken up in Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and in such a way that it cannot be said to be expansionist. This culture has been adopted voluntarily. And w hat has been the contribution of the Chinese in this field to the progress of Indonesia? Kwee Kek Beng, in his paper ‘Sumbangsih Apakah yang Dapat Diberikan oleh Warganegara Indonesia Keturunan Asing kepada Pembinaan Kebudayaan Nasional Indonesia?’ [What Contribution Can Be Made by an Indonesian Citizen of Foreign Descent to the Development of the National Culture?] said: When the ancestors of the Chinese in Indonesia first arrived, they did not bring religion, as did the Arabs and the Westerners, but they brought cuisine, which slowly became part of the food of the ordinary Indonesian people.

The West also brought cheese and butter, but these foods never became as popular nor were as cheap as bean sprouts, bean curd, taokwah, soy sauce, noodles, tea. black beans, pickled vegetables, and such others. And the Indonesian people have never been forced to eat these foods. They were adopted voluntarily. It is the same with the adoption of folklore, which has taken place over the centuries, such as performing the barong dance in East and Central Java. This is clearly an adaptation of the Chinese dragon dance, even if the barong is too short and not really like a reptile. The barong here has entertained the people for centuries at festivals, celebrations, on important days and at weddings.

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The same can be said of Capgomehf Pehcunb, and so on, which are not only festivals for the Chinese but for the native peoples as well, even though here and there local tastes have made themselves felt. In Tangerang, Pehcun is celebrated on the banks of the river; in the coastal towns of Sulawesi, it is celebrated on the beach.

There are still standing today scores of temples, which native peoples believe can provide blessings. For example, there are the Dampu Awang temple in Semarang and the Five Ancestors temple in Medan (see ‘The Five Ancestors Temple’, Republik, 21 February 1960). Even R.A. Kartini, the person who began the modem century in Indonesia, in her book Door Duisternis tot Licht, told how she had been cured by Welahan tepekong. Before jujitsu and judo were systematically and scientifically taught here, kuntaw was a much admired form of self-defence and one which contributed much to the native form of martial art. pencak.

Chinese music has been influential for so long over the centuries, people no longer bother to investigate whether any particular form of music is genuinely home-grown or not. One example of this was presented by Kwee Kek Beng in his paper:

A few years ago there was a very popular tune in Jakarta called ‘Sipatmo ’, which people thought was an Indonesian song. Somebody even wrote a pantun [traditional quatrain verse] for it. But it turned out it was a Chinese tune, namely, one called ‘Si Pat Moh ’, or Eighteen Strokes. And even gambang-kromong1, although it is being squeezed out every day by the din of popular western music singing of love and lust for all those who want to listen, is still broadcast by Radio Republic Indonesia, enthralling all those 5 Capgomeh is a celebration related to Chinese New Year, held on the fifteenth day of the Lunar New Year. 6 Pehcun is observed on the fifth day of the fifth month in the Chinese calendar, during which people make offerings to the sea or river, seeking safety. 7 Gambang-kromong is a kind of fusion Chinese-Indonesian music that uses both Chinese and local instruments. It originated in Batavia.

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native listeners still free from prejudice. It is this music which for centuries has accompanied the lenong performances. And it appears that lenong itself js but an adaptation of Chinese drama from the Kuan Hantjing [Guan Hanqing] tradition, of course, with its own local embellishments and sometimes using stamboul, or the costumes of the nobles. The art of batik, which has evolved to a high state in Java, may also even have originated in China and North Burma! This can be seen from the remnants of the batik craft, which did not develop further in those regions The tradition of the blue stamp still exists in China and is similar to the use of indigo in batik. I am not saying, Hs-y, that batik definitely originated in China, but in my opinion, it is indeed a possibility. What is needed now is some research. As far as I know there has been no such research to date. I base my opinion on the history' of the Indonesian people and that the people who are Indonesians today are the descendants of migrants. These early arrivals would have brought a culture and civilisation richer than those of the people who were already living here.

Hs-y, people cannot deny that the Chinese-Malay language has had a big influence on the development of the Indonesian language. It is true that Chinese-Malay has many variants depending on where it emerged. The Chinese-Malay that has had most influence was that which developed on Jakarta. It was a fusing of Betawi Malay, the Malay used by the Chinese, and the need for a practical language of communication.

As I have said, the emergence of Chinese-Malay resulted from the need for a practical language of communication. This need was not only for the Chinese to be able to communicate to outsiders but so that they could communicate among themselves as well. They comprised several different ethnic groups that could not communicate with each other except through the Chinese script. There are those in Indonesian society, mainly teachers of the Indonesian language, who belittle Chinese-Malay without taking onto account the social and sociological process related to the function of this mishmash of a language. They hold firmly to ‘book’ language, originally recognised and lauded by Raffles and then officially legitimised by the Dutch Indies,

Letter Six

187

which was based on the works of Abdullah bin Abdulkadir Munsyi.8 They always fall back on these works. Whatever the shortcomings of this ChineseMalay, it spread slowly in the middle of the eighteenth century concurrent with the growing Dutch unease over how many Asians were learning their [Dutch] language. In this arena, we cannot forget the name of Lie Kim Hok.9 His leadership in this arena is acknowledged by the well respected teacher of Malay of the time, Ibrahim gelar Marah Soetan (1857-1954) and also by Haji Aeus Salim. Several pioneers of Chinese-Malay, such as Phoa Tjhoen Hoat and Phoa Tjoen Hoay, and several writers and other journalists have named him the father of Chinese-Malay.

A.F. von de Wall was of the view' that Lie Kim Hok wrote a clean and sweet language, something which cannot be denied reflected his purity of heart. The influence of the Chinese-Malay of Lie Kim Hok spread throughout the Chinese-Malay press in Indonesia and became the standard for this mishmash language, strange yet easy and flexible. And after the collapse of Dutch colonialism in 1942, the Dutch language shut up shop and Indonesian formally replaced it. Since then, the influence of Chinese-Malay has entered official Indonesian as well.

How these Contributions have been Belittled by the White ImperialistColonialists The white imperialist-colonialists used regulation and other forms of oppression, including monopolies, to marginalise both the Indonesian people and the Chinese from their respective arenas of action. This should have resulted in an uncompromising unity between the two groupings in opposition to these policies. What happened instead was that each party has looked only to its own safety and has not wanted to know' w'hat was happening to the other. But there should not be this lack of concern with the problems of each other. 8 Abdullah bin Abdulkadir Munsyi wrote the autobiographical work Hikayat Abdullah about Malacca, Singapore, and the life of Malays in the mid-nineteenth century. 9 Lie Kim Hok (1853-1912) was a member of the Tiong Hoa Hwe Koan, writer of journalistic articles, and a prolific author of popular novels that are considered to have pioneered the use of Malay for modem forms of literature.

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The divisions successfully created by the Dutch are steadily producing a yawning gap between us. The result is that not only is there less and less daily contact between the Chinese and local people, but the Chinese end up silently accepting their oppression at the hands of the Dutch while quietly looking fOr ways to save themselves. The pity is that so many people do not understand the oppressive role of the Dutch in this matter, and so there arises anti-Chinese racism, the Chinese being a much softer and easier target because they are not in a position to defend themselves.

According to Abadi, 30 January 1960, K.H. Tjikwan, a Member of Parliament, accused the Chinese of receiving privileges and facilities from the Dutch oppressors which no native could ever receive. He based his accusation on an 1870 regulation issued by the Dutch Minister de Waal (it is not clear which regulation he is referring to). He also blamed the Chinese for the fact that there were three categories of subjects under Dutch rule: (1) Europeans and Japanese, (2) Chinese and East Asians, and (3) Inlander, or natives. The first categories received rights, privileges and facilities under the law that natives could never receive. Hs-y, I think this unfinished argument by Tjikw'an is a joke. These regulations were needed not only for statistical purposes, for know ledge, but were also part of a divide and rule policy. The only party that can be held accountable for this is the colonial pow'er itself that had the power to implement such regulations. This colonial policy has succeeded in building social structural divisions among us. They also succeeded in making these groups and the Indonesian people feel as if there were indeed differences in status and position between the groups in accordance with this categorisation. But their most glorious achievement is that even after independence there are still people who think in terms of these colonialist-created categories, among them being K.H. Tjikwan.

With the success of this population policy, the contributions of the Chinese have diminished. And at the same time, among the Chinese, the feeling that they should try to understand the needs of the native Indonesians has also declined. Of course, all this social fragmentation should not have happened, but it is often difficult for different social groups to control so many factors that impact them. Sometimes, not only have the contributions that once joined the two communities in intimacy weakened, but there also has emerged this anti-Chinese hatred based on false accusations. But no true contribution can,

in the end, be denied.

Letter Six

189

How Should We View Even' Contribution? Every civilised people or group should be grateful for the kind of contributions that have come from the Chinese and which have helped the progress of Indonesia. 1 am sure too, the Chinese would feel grateful to the Indonesian people. Without the people, no Chinese - trader or otherwise - would have been able to make their lives here. Nobody can deny, of course, that among the contributions of the Chinese there have been those that have brought harm to the people, such as the habit of smoking opium or of maintaining certain existing forms of gambling. But I think that drugs and gambling are more a reflection of prevailing social chaos. These w ill disappear as society further progresses to a higher level. We must give priority to preserving our friendship, is that not so, Hs-y? Of course, opium has brought harm to the people. Almost all the school textbooks today carry warnings about drugs. But the most drugdependent group is among the Chinese themselves, not among the native people. Approximately 1,847 mata of opium are smoked every year, of w hich only 397 are smoked by natives. In Java and Bali, the Chinese smoke about 70 times more per capita than natives, and outside Java, 670 times more, [refer to Table 2 .Total Opium Smokers by Ethnic Groups (1936) at the end of chapter]

Thankfully the policies of the government have been able to reduce the influence of opium.

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Table 1: Timber Production for 1928 (in cubic metres) Type

Cut by Indonesian Cut by Chinese Labour Labour

State Enterprises

Wood

572,966

399,235

L206,2 n

Wood charcoal remnants

270,795

185,500

1.568,065

Wood charcoal

3,139

36,000

71,386

Table 2: Total Ethnic Groups and Opium Smokers (1936) Total

Opium Smokers

Java and Sumatra Natives

43,000,000

27,401

Java and Sumatra Chinese

600,000

7,657

Residents

Letter Seven

The Demographics of the Chinese in Indonesia Hs-y,

Those infected with the anti-Chinese disease appear to be equipped with a special radar, one that quickly and diligently picks up each and every' incident in society, of whatever kind - like a Peeping Tom, if we use the colloquialism - as long as such incidents can be used to inflame the disease that they themselves suffer: anti-Chinese racialism.

Yes, Hs-y, I raise my hat to their brilliance. But the problem is that their abilities in this respect are counter-balanced by a major deficiency: magically they adjust the form and content of these incidents that their radar picks up to make them compatible with their anti-Chinese disease. So the form and content that have been picked up on their radar are offered up, either retail or wholesale, but never contain any real value. 1 would like to discuss the case of Dr. Liem Twan Djie. He is the author of the standard text De Distribueerende Tusschenhandel der Chineezen op Java, alongside one or two other standard texts on the Chinese in Indonesia by other writers. At the beginning of 1960, he was appointed professor of business economics at Airlangga University and delivered his inaugural lecture on ‘Business Economics and the Politics of Guided Economy’ (Java Post, 29 January 1960). We can assume that such a person will have examined thoroughly the whole issue of PP 10 - its costs and benefits, short-term and long-term - from both a scholarly and practical point of view. The word is that he is a member of a certain political party that itself is now' beating the antiChinese drum. What I was getting at earlier w as, w'ell, why do the members of his party not ask him w hat he thinks? Will he not have a better understanding of the problem than those just beating the drum of hatred? Or perhaps, indeed, he is not a member of any party'. Or perhaps again there will be those who say his silence means he actually agrees with all this commotion. Well then, Hs-y, perhaps I should give another example. Another professor, w'ith w'hom I am acquainted, also said to me that it is best that those of foreign descent should stay quiet so as not to inflame prejudices even further. Perhaps I am talking all over the place now. But I can never forget one thing in all this. The racialist anti-Chinese w ill change the form and content of any incident that their radar picks up with just one thing in mind: the destruction of the Chinese

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The Chinese in Indon esia

in Indonesia, to vanquish the Chinese from the face of the earth, and to prevent them from living in any country anywhere. Or most horrifically, the Chinese are just something to wipe their feet upon. So, whether they like it or not, they end up on the side of the imperialists. And so then, Samandjaja in the Republic swept away these prejudices when he published a quote from Kane O’Hara [an eighteenth-century Irish dramatist]: When the judgment is weak. The prejudice is strong. We can see how prevalent these voices are that want to wipe the Chinese from the face of the earth by looking at all the words they use in their efforts to try to eliminate every newborn Chinese baby. Listen to these voices:

The foreign traders are already’ busy being offered Rp 30 thousand. It is as if they have some plan here. (Pikiran Raky at, 9 July 1959)

They want it to look as if our government has no concern about their fate at all. (PlA, 5 January 1960) They have been able to start their trade again by deliberately conducting a go-slow. (PIA, idem) Duta Masyarakat has been at it one year:

Anti- ’tauke Are the Chinese Communists or Capitalists? (H. Mahbub Djunaidi, ‘Support for the Ideal of Collaboration Between Islam and Nationalism’, Duta Masyarakat, 20 January 1960)

The PRC people go home taking black market foreign exchange, manipulating supply of goods, and raising prices madly. (Suluh Indonesia, 20 January 1960)

If I investigate these Chinese and the situation they pretend to be in, I can see that they are not the groups that have a great hold over the commanding heights economy of the Indonesian people. But for decades

193

Letter Seven

they have wielded power over all that is needed by our farmers, whether it is through credit, money-lending, trading in day-to-day’ consumer goods, from emping crackers to wall lamps.

(H. Mahbub Djunaidi, ‘Support for the Ideal of Collaboration Between Islam and Nationalism’, Duta Masyarakat, 21 January 1960) None of this drumbeating is free from prejudice because those beating these drums are indeed unjust in their outlook. There are many other voices also not worth listening to, many published in the daily Nusantara, which I could also advance as examples. But I do not think it is necessary. These statements are of no value; indeed, they are close to being the words of people w ith a mental condition. You can see clearly in their words the hunger for victims, the hunger to take lives, the thirst for blood and their narrow outlook. They show a complete disinterest in any other view points or information that explain howall these things have come to pass (insofar as things have happened and are not just their false fantasies). None of them dares to look at the social system itself, which permits anybody to do what they like, except w'here the law- has given the police the authority to stop activities. Have the police taken action against any such activities that have provoked these people to hysteria? It is outside my competence to answer this question. What is clear is that their prejudice against the Chinese must be kept alive. If these prejudices decline, then these people will lose their source of livelihood as slander mongers.

But it w ould be unfair if w-e did not expose the origin of this hate­ spreading commotion, which so shames Indonesia as a free, modem and civilised nation. The origin was none other than Asaat. He began this whole spreading of hatred at the All Indonesia National Congress of Importers held 19-23 March 1956, in Surabaya. The real shame here is that he is a former Acting President of the Republic of Indonesia. He said:

Indonesians are clever farmers, but they are not clever at selling what they produce. It is the peasant farmer who heads off to the paddy' field, but the rice mill and trade is in the hands ofthe Chinese, who take a great profit from this. It is the peasant farmer who plants the rice, but the tobacco trade and cigarette factories are in the hands of Chinese. It is the farmer who plants the soybean, but the soybean trade and exports and the tofu factories belong to the Chinese.

194

The Chinese in Indo nesia

It is Indonesians who go into the forests to look for rattan, but the rattan export trade is controlled by Chinese. It is Indonesian fishermen who put their lives on the line to catch the fish, but the fish market is controlled by the Chinese, lt is the Indonesian people who produce batik, but the bulk of the batik trade is controlled by the Chinese.

The Indonesian people have shown that they makegood films, but the cinemas are in the hands of the Chinese. The textile mills, the tile and ceramic factories, and almost everything are in the hands of the Chinese. The coastal and inter-island shipping are controlled by the Chinese. Transportation of both people and goods, by ship, bus, and down to the trishaw, is all controlled by the Chinese. It is an Indonesian who drives the trishaw, but a Chinese 'tauke ’ who gets rich. And so it goes...

(Central K.ENSI Working Group: KENSI Struggles) Hs-y, this overly long quote does not really do justice in showing how the Chinese were made the target of attack through all kinds of falsification of history. Their detractors transform all these incidents that are picked up on their radar and turn them into clubs with which to bash the Chinese. And so these heroes of hate-spreading turn everything into weapons to kill off this group that cannot defend itself. I think I should say, too, that even an undeniable fact loses its significance if it is separated from the source of the problem, that is to say, from the main, primary problem. This fact is just a product of the primary problem. What might approach the total truth comprises these facts together with the primary problem that gives rise to these facts. I say “approach the whole truth” because the w hole truth is the truth itself, not a reproduction of the truth. Is that not the case?

But, even so, I think these examples are enough to reveal what the real character of these people is. They may pretend to be socialist, nationalist or religious leaders, but these pretensions cannot disguise the real intent in their hearts: to end the presence of the Chinese in Indonesia. I admit that this issue of demographics is not so interesting. But this personal predilection must be put aside so w'e can deal properly with the issues that we are facing.

Letter Seven

195

The First Population Presence of the Chinese It is not clear when Chinese first started living in Indonesia. Science has only gone so far as to make guesses based on the findings of a few ancient artifacts. But there is no written evidence of any kind until several centuries after Christ. Nevertheless, the artifacts that have been discovered have revealed in their own way that Chinese have been here since before Christ.

Orsoy de Flines, an expert in porcelain, discovered Chinese porcelain, or objects with a Chinese influence, in West Java, Lampung, in the Batanghari region and West Kalimantan, as well as stored in several different kraton [residential compound of a ruler]. All this tells us that the Chinese have been here since ancient times, making contributions to the culture of the Indonesian people. It is only natural that every meeting between cultures with different origins and different courses of development results in an exchange between those cultures. Although these objects are not accompanied by written evidence that can tell us all we know, I tend to think that such exchanges took place. I do not accept the views of Prof. Dr. N.J. Krom that:

In contrast to the experience with the Hindus, there is nowhere to be seen any evidence that the native inhabitants have adopted any aspects of Chinese culture.

My rejection of this assertion is based on the evidence of Chinese influence in music, theatre and cuisine, just to cite a few areas. These influences remain visible today even though modem pretensions often mean they try to hide these influences. Other artifacts that point to the presence of Chinese habitation during prehistoric times are polished stone axes from the Neolithic period. These axes share some distinctive similarities with emerald and jade axes used in China at the same time. Still other artifacts that lend credence to a Chinese presence in prehistoric times are large bronze gongs belonging to the Dongson Culture, originating from a village in Tonkin called Dongson. These gongs, found in South Sumatra, have similarities with gongs from the Han dynasty. HeineGeldem has concluded that these gongs were made by Chinese and that, therefore, this indicates that Chinese were in South Sumatra thousands of years ago. But I think Heine-Geldem may be mistaken in his conclusions

r

196

The Chinese in Indonesia

in this case. These gongs were the type used in war; they would have been repeatedly beaten as soldiers marched in rows. When I was in China, I saw that there were many such gongs from many areas, although each region had its own decorations or form. It is clear they were widely used in war According to van Leur, the Chinese who came to Indonesia were peaceful And such gongs have never been commonly used in Indonesia. So I tend to think, rather, that these gongs were presents from the kings of China to the different kings in Indonesia. But it is also possible that they belonged to groups of soldiers who deserted from their mother army and decided to reside in Indonesia. According to Krom, this is also how the Hindus came to Indonesia. The strong Chinese influence in weaving, in silver and bronze artifacts, and so on, and the marriage in some cases of Chinese and native [design] elements - even though none of these w'ere made by Chinese but by native inhabitants - show clearly that there has long been a peaceful and harmonious Chinese presence among the local peoples. Even though the evidence may be slight, w'e have enough to guess that there was a Chinese presence here in prehistoric times. The geographic factor - the relative barrenness of China compared to the fertility of Indonesia - would confirm the speculation that they would like living in Indonesia, as w'as confirmed later by the various waves of arrivals in the period after the birth of Christ. And the peaceful character of the Indonesian people, who welcome their guests, would have strengthened this attraction.

Chinese Population Movements after the Birth of Christ At first glance, travel from Indonesia to China might appear to have been confined to exchanges at the level of royalty alone. But it w'ould be incorrect to limit our view' here. There w'as already knowledge of each other in the two countries. Such a familiarity could have developed only as a result of friendly traffic among the peoples. I say ‘friendly’ because there was no evidence of any military hostilities between the two countries during this period. The relationship was not based on fear of one country by the other. It is true that there is historical evidence that some delegations to China by Indonesian kings were apparently seeking recognition of their sovereignty. But there is no reason to conclude with certainty that this was based on an Indonesian fear of China. This seems not possible if we remember that, at the time, the state of the development of Chinese ships - junks - had not reached the level that it did later in the Middle Ages, when China felt the need to extend its influence to countries across the seas.

Letter Seven

197

During the Han dynasty, under Emperor Wang Mang, China already knew of Indonesia. The Han chronicles mention Indonesia, referred to as Huang-tse. They describe the inhabitants as being the same as those from Hainan and making their living from the pearl trade and piracy. Emperor Wang Mang had requested a rhinoceros from this country.

These brief reports in the chronicles suggest that China only knew of Indonesia from the international traders who visited China. However, the later expedition of the Chinese emperor to bring back the rhinoceros shows that the Chinese knew the sailing route to Indonesia. Similarly, Chinese reports from 132 AD of a visit to China by King Dewawarman from Djawadwipa [Java] show' that Indonesians also knew the sailing route to China.

Hs-y, I think it w'ould be useful for me to discuss briefly the writings of Fa Hsien1. I mentioned in an earlier letter to you how it took a year for Indonesian and Chinese travellers to journey between the two countries because of the winds. It is understandable that not many Indonesian travellers decided to reside in China, given its relative barrenness, so that making a living would be more difficult. On the other hand, it would have been much easier for Chinese travellers to fall in love with Indonesia during the six months they had to wait there and then decide to stay in Nusantara. It is easy to conclude then that there w ere many Chinese living in Indonesia during this period. The reports by Fa Hsien from the fifth century only confirm this. The reports of I-tsing2 from the seventh century also tell of a close relationship between Chinese pilgrims and local Indonesians. The pilgrims were often invited to travel on board trading ships heading for India. Hwui-ning, a legal expert, lived in Java for three years in the seventh century'. And there were already Chinese Buddhist priests residing in Indonesia, or at least staying for long periods. Krom wrote about this: 1 Fa-hsien was one of China’s greatest travellers. At age sixty-five he walked from central China to India, from which he took a ship and returned by sea to his homeland, sailing via Ceylon and Sumatra, across the Indian Ocean and the China Sea, finally reaching China in AD 413. He returned with books of the Buddhist canon and images of Buddhist deities. In AD 414, he recorded his travels in Record of Buddhist Countries today known as the 'Travels of Fa-Hsien'. 21-Tsing was a Tang Dynasty Buddhist whose written records of his travels contributed to the world know ledge of the ancient kingdom of Srivijaya, as well as other kingdoms lying on the route between China and the Nalanda Buddhist university in India.

198

The Chinese in Indonesia

The language of this country' was called Kw ’un-lun; clearly this was old Javanese. This term was used by the Chinese, it seems, everywhere they came across the indigenous culture mixed with Hindu elements and speaking this mixed language. If the Chinese Buddhist priests saw' advantage in learning this local language for their studies, then it would be logical to think that the language had a role in teaching...

It also can be clearly shown that there were Chinese populations much later in the time of King Erlangga, in Tuban and Gresik. And there were already known Chinese colonies in Jepara, Lasem and Banten. But more important than all this data is the question: Why is it that they were able to and, indeed, desired to stay in Indonesia? The answer is not so easy to find; it was because the local people were willing to mix with the Chinese - the local people protected them and received them as friends. And this is more important than all the bits of evidence about whether there were Chinese present in this era or that.

Chinese Population during the Rise of Islam Hs-y, actually there is not much to say about this period. In the history with which we have been familiar, there has not been much reported about them. It is possible that all the wars between the kings in their struggles to expand their territories forced the Chinese to withdraw. I do not know. There are also no reports about them during the period of inter-island wars over the key points in international trade. And it seems that during this period of wars, the Chinese were also able to escape any disasters. But, of course, there were a few who left an influence among the ruling nobility because of some skill or expertise that they possessed; they were thus granted local titles. This can be shown in their influence in architecture, interior decor, the art of carving and so on. This is a challenge for research, whether for indigenous Indonesians, those of foreign descent, or Chinese. I do not think I am competent to assess this matter. What is clearer is the disposition of the Chinese in the century that Indonesia came into contact with white people.

The Chinese Population in the Era of Dutch Colonialism In the sixteenth century there were reports by white people of a Chinese presence in Banten, as well as in many other parts of Indonesia. They lived

I

Letter Seven

199

peacefully with the local inhabitants and were engaged together with them in endeavours in industry, agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, fishing and other enterprises. By the end of the Dutch occupation, at the time of World War II, there were five times as many Chinese as Europeans. They helped build the cities of Gresik, Tuban, Banten, Jepara, Batavia and even Singapore. Let me quote for you what C. Lekkerkerker wrote in his book Land en Volk van Java’.

The Chinese who came to Indonesia, leaving their homeland, were the poorest from their troubled country. They came in small groups. They’ came from South China, and they’ had no desirefor power, butjust wanted to seek a livelihood. They never constituted any kind of united group. They used many languages. They often could not understand each other — even communicating through writing was difficult. In the beginning Europeans saw them as being all the same. Most of them came from the southern part of Fukien3, a barren province of ten million inhabitants almost the size of Java and located across from the island of Taiwan. Lekkerkerker suspected that these people from Fukien started arriving in Indonesia 800 or 900 AD. The peranakan [locally-born] Chinese are their descendants. Women never joined these migrations to Indonesia. So we can imagine how the mixing of blood betw een Chinese and local people occurred over the centuries. And usually the Chinese from Fukien had more success in finding prosperity than Chinese from other regions.

Hokkien Chinese can be found on the east coast of Sumatra, in Banjarmasin, Makassar, Menado and Ambon, as well as on Java. There are many in Riau although only a few in Pontianak. The fishermen of Bagan Siapiapi and Bengkalis are also mostly Hokkien Chinese. Many of those in and around Jakarta and Medan are farmers.

Hakka, or Keh, Chinese are the next largest group. They came from a region to the south of Fukien, in Kia-jing north of Kwantung, or Canton, as well as from the far western part of Fukien province. They are people from the interior. It is suspected they were originally from North China and then pressed down into Kwantung4. At the time Lekkerkerker wrote his book, the province of Kw antung had 32 million inhabitants and w as twice the size of Fukien. Most 3 Fukien is a southern Chinese province, now known as Fujian. The people from Fujian are commonly referred to as ‘Hokkien’ in Southeast Asia. 4 Kw antung, or Canton, is a southern Chinese province, now known as Guangdong.

200

The Chinese in Indon esia

of the Hakka were coconut and rubber plantation workers (and also earlier mine workers) in West Kalimantan, and they began to live there between 1740 and 1745. Most of the labourers in the mines on Bangka and Belitung were also Hakka. The same for the East Sumatra coolies and the timber cutters. There were some who ended up in Java, usually bonded under some contract. They ended up as carpenters, blacksmiths, and so on. The Hakka that migrated to Java were called Makao. The wealthy Hokkien Chinese looked down upon the Hakka.

A less important group was the Tio-tsu [Teochew], or Hoklo, who are often called the Swatow Chinese. They came from the Tio-tsu region and the Hai Fung and Luh Fung western coastal region, also in Kwantung, on the border with Fukien. Their dialect also indicates they are of the same family as the Hokkien. There are not many in Java. Many became coolies in East and South Sumatra and also in Bangka and Belitung. But there are many in West Kalimantan, where they have been long-term residents.

The smallest ethnic Chinese group in Indonesia is the Kwong-fu [Cantonese]. They came from Kwantung and came to Indonesia from Hons Kong. They usually suffered worse conditions and made their living wherever and however they could. It is also the reason why they are the most dispersed of any group throughout Indonesia. More than 40% work in the handicrafts sector, while in Sumatra they work in agriculture and plantations. Those who landed in Bangka and Belitung usually immediately became mine labourers. In Palembang and East Kalimantan they became handymen or worked in the oil fields. Finally we can mention the Hai-lam, who came from Hainan Island and the peninsula across from the island. Most of the peranakan Chinese in Indonesia no longer remember their origins.

As with the native population, the Chinese population grew quickly. This was partly due to the strong desire of the immigrants to move to Indonesia and also due to biological population growth, so that in just ten years they grew by 52%. So from these tables [refer to Table 3: Chinese in Indonesia, Born In or Outside Indonesia, based on Notes of October 1930 at the end of chapter, and Table 4: Chinese Ethnicity in Indonesia, 1935 at the end of this book], it is clear that 20% w ere in Java and 51% outside Java. 32% of the Chinese in Indonesia were bom outside Indonesia as of October 1930. Of the 750,000 Chinese bom in Indonesia, 500,000 had Chinese fathers.

57% of the Chinese in Java and 23% of those outside Java w orked as peddlers, w ith many more running small shops or street stalls.

Letter Seven

201

Since the days of the colonisation, the Dutch knew that the Chinese were not reluctant to open shops even in the most remote areas. And according to Lekkerkerker, they never took unfair advantage of the situations in which they found themselves. They spent only a little of their earnings. This is the secret of their success, with some of them becoming very wealthy individuals. Lekkerkerker went on to say that the view that the Chinese who landed in Indonesia became rich quickly is just a fantasy. Lekkerkerker also rejects the agitation that among them were those too steeped in money-lending and smuggling. Their success in trade was due to their willingness always to bargain and take risks. But he does not accept that they were any more involved in money-lending or smuggling than the native inhabitants. Singkeh and Peranakan

The Chinese have traditionally been divided into two groups since Dutch colonisation, singkeh and peranakan. Most of the former live outside Java. Between 1888 and 1931, 356,000 contract coolies were brought from China to Medan. These were the singkeh, which literally means ‘new guests’. They were totok (of pure Chinese descent), and some stayed while others returned to their homeland. The second group, the peranakan, constituted those bom in Indonesia. During the period of Dutch colonisation, both the East Indies government and the Chinese themselves called both groups by the modem term Hoakiau, meaning ‘Chinese travelling away from home’. The name Tionghoa is the modem word for China.

Most of the peranakan are on Java. They are the descendants of totok men with native women, or from peranakan women as well.

The singkeh are stronger physically than the peranakan and as a consequence, are more often to be found doing hard labour, such as in the plantations and mines. They also have a lighter skin colour. Although the peranakan, especially those in Java, have lived here for several generations and have mixed their blood so often with indigenous blood, yet they are still able to hold on to most of their Chinese characteristics. They do not become natives. It is true they mix with the local people, but this has never resulted in a fusion. Where intense assimilation has occurred, it is because of some different characteristic of the indigenous people. According to an American writer, this is the result of the religion ofseed, which says that the Chinese seed, or tsing, always produces a Chinese no matter from what womb a child may emerge.

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The Chinese in Indonesia

Hs-y, I do not agree with this view, although it is the basis of the Chinese family system. In my opinion, there are two reasons for the slowness of assimilation. Their position in society, as a group that appears obviously different from the local population, results in their adopting a posture that reflects that differentiation. Secondly, the social situation that they find themselves in makes it difficult for them to assimilate. This is not to say that they have never assimilated or have not wanted to assimilate. But for a people with such an ancient and great culture, and one which is so greatly honoured, it is not easy to assimilate, especially with a people whose cultural development is not at the same level. Assimilation can be carried out by a group that is unable to defend its traditions and culture, perhaps because its level of learning and culture has degenerated compared to previous generations, or perhaps because of frustrations that develop in the life of the family - in short, if life as a Chinese no longer fulfils its needs. Naturally, the peranakan were in a better position to assimilate than the singkeh. The Rapid Population Increase of the Chinese

Hs-y, the rapid growth of the Chinese population, 52% in ten years, is truly a record that is hard to beat. But the secret to this is not the tsing, or devotion to the seed, but, rather, the patriarchal family. For the tsing is just a symbol of this patriarchal character. According to their beliefs, the emperor is accountable to God for the welfare of his people, and so, too, is the father responsible for the | welfare of his family. The role of the father is so important, Hs-y, that whenever think of the intensk patriarchal system in China, I always think of the novel Pa Chin, Fam iff'In this story the grandfather is the sole decision-maker for lants. This results in the family having just one personality, that oKthe patriarch, the founder of the family, the father.

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