Sejauh Aku Mampu: May 1998, Indonesian-Chinese, and Singapore

The tragedy in May 1998 is still fresh in every memory of Indonesians. The month of chaos and the month where President Soeharto resigned as a president. The month where many people died, a source told that more than one thousand people died. My friend said to me about this tragedy and some of them said that on May 1998, many of their houses and shops were burned. Some sources told about the rape of the woman but the truth of this story is still debatable. The chaos situation made those crimes easily undetected.

One thing that doesn't make me stop asking is why there should be an offence to Indonesian Chinese at that time. This adds the long history of the existence of Indonesian Chinese in Indonesia. Having read Wikipedia, there was actually a massacre of Chinese people in Batavia in 1740. Then When Suharto came to power, Chinese Indonesians were increasingly discriminated against. With the justification of denouncing Chinese communism, Suharto not only closed communist-leaning parties, but also extended his reach toward all Chinese Indonesian parties and all aspects of Chinese Indonesian socio-culture. Soeharto effectively stripped Chinese Indonesians of power, banning them from politics and the military. He championed forced assimilation policy against Chinese Indonesians so that they would forget their ties to China. This policy brought forth many anti Chinese legislations. Soeharto passed and enacted very discriminatory citizenship laws, such as forcing Chinese Indonesians to re-register themselves as Indonesian citizens by renouncing their alleged Chinese citizenship regardless of the validity of the Indonesian citizenship they may already have. He denounced Chinese cultures and banned Chinese characters and literature. This made them couldn't learn their own languange at that time. My friend told me about this problem and she felt annoyed because she couldn't learn Chinese character. It seemed that she was so angry when she told me about that "sensitive" matter.

Perhaps, Singapore was the safer place for them to run away from that situation. Many businessmans saved their assets to Singapore, bought condos, and created their new life here. This is why many Singaporeans perceived that Indonesians were rich. That paradigm is still on their mind, I think, even though many of them have known the actual condition in Indonesia. The impact is still felt now. Many Indonesians here are mostly Indonesian Chinese. A friend of mine told me how his sister doesn't really want to study in Indonesia and she insisted to go to Singapore. We can't deny that they can't go to governmental position and Indonesia wasn't a hope for them to live in. Many of us stereotype that they are richer. Okay, but let's remember how they struggled on their economy, the strong discrimination till they don't have position in Indonesia. Let's understand this condition and hope there should be a strong understanding each other. But, I still don't know how to built that understanding.