VU Research Portal Emulating China: Representation of China and the Contemporary Critique of Indonesia Herlijanto, J. 2013 document version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Link to publication in VU Research Portal citation for published version (APA) Herlijanto, J. (2013). Emulating China: Representation of China and the Contemporary Critique of Indonesia. General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. E-mail address: [email protected] Download date: 06. Oct. 2021 1 Introduction ______________________________________________ ‘Cina lole, abang abang buntute!’ (Chinese! Your tail is red!) I often heard this saying when I was growing up. Then, as a child, I lived in Tegal, a small city in Central Java Province. Other children in my neighbourhood mocked me by chanting this saying. They regarded me as Chinese because I was born to a Chinese Indonesian mother, even though according to the regulations concerning civil registration inherited by Indonesia from the colonial era, I was ‘Pribumi’ (Indigenous) Indonesian, as was my father.1 As a child I did not understand the meaning of 1 Since the early twentieth century, civil registration in the Netherland East Indies (NEI) had been based on ethno- religious category. Contemporary Chinese Indonesian civil registration is based on what is popularly known as staatsblad (statute book) 1917-130, while Christian ‘Indigenous’ Indonesians are based on the staatsblad 1933-75 and the Muslim ‘Indigenous’ Indonesians are based on the staatsblads 1917-751. While some of the regulations bequeathed by the Dutch colonial government have been revoked in the law of citizenship enacted since 2006 onwards, regulations 2 the words. I did know however that the word ‘Cina’ meant ‘China’ or ‘Chinese’, while the phrase ‘abang abang buntute ’, claimed the subject accused possessed a red tail. Despite its unclear meaning and the fact that another version of it (that is, loleng) is used in Central Java to denigrate the Chinese (see for example Sarwono 1999:27) I knew too that I was being belittled. The sentence gives us a clue of how widespread the negative perception of China and of the Chinese was in ‘New Order Indonesia.’ While the phrase ‘Cina Lole’ or ‘Cina Loleng’ appeared to have emerged before President Suharto came to power, it apparently was not followed by the words ‘abang abang buntute.’2 The additional words emphasizing the redness of the Chinese only came in the New Order period. As the colour red is often seen as a symbol of danger and guiltiness, and during the cold war era was associated concerning civil registration mentioned above are still in effect, despite the protests of the Chinese (See e.g. Wibowo 2007). However, interviews with parents of newly-born Chinese and non-Chinese Indonesian babies revealed that the categorization based on the above staatsblad does not appear in these babies’ birth certificates. 2 For example, in a footnote to one of his articles, Arief Budiman told us how when he was a kid he was often mocked by his ‘pribumi’ friends with the words “Cina loleng makan tahi sekaleng” (Loleng Chinese, [you] eat a can of faeces) (Budiman 2006:339 n. 2). 3 with communism (Kim 1996:49), the inclusion of the words ‘your tail is red’ is meant to convey the relationship between the Chinese and communism. Thus more than just denigrating Chinese Indonesians, the ‘red tail’ in the New Order era was a continuous reminder to whomever uttered or heard it of the imminent danger of communism that came from China with the assistance of Chinese Indonesians. It was also a reminder of a terrible action allegedly sponsored and carried out by China. The ideology of the New Order authoritarian regime was reflected even in children’s perceptions. The origin of the story about China’s guilt and dangerous status might be traced back to the year 1965, when a coup attempt known in Indonesian historical text books as the ‘September 30th Movement’ (Gerakan September 30, Gestapu) took place. Suharto and his allies, who came to power and established the New Order regime in the direct aftermath of the coup, claimed that the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) orchestrated the event in an attempt to change the basis of Indonesian state policy from Pancasila (the Five Principle) to communism. The New Order regime also alleged that China was involved in the coup by providing assistance to the PKI (Sukma 1999:44-45). Thus in the view of the New Order elites, “China had committed the serious sin of intervening in the domestic affairs of a friendly nation” (Elson 2008:271). Following the charge, the New Order froze its diplomatic tie with China (Sukma 1999:32-34). Subsequently, it developed what became 4 known as the ‘China threat perception’ policy that prevailed for almost three decades (Sukma 1999:46-56). The perception was not based on the story of China’s 1965’s intervention alone. The regime also reproduced a negative perception of China, including of pre-Republic China, that had been circulating as early as the end of the 1950s (see Taylor 1963 for the dominant perception of China). This ideology of ‘historical China’ as an aggressive, imperialist, and expansionist power was taught at schools and reiterated in historical writings (Sukma 1999: 52). The regime also developed a suspicious attitude toward anything that might be related to China, including towards Chinese Indonesians. Chinese schools and newspapers were shut down. Expressions of Chinese cultural identity among Chinese Indonesians were restricted. Opportunity to learn Chinese language (Mandarin) was banned unless it was conducted in the University of Indonesia and Dharma Persada University (both are in Jakarta) as a part of the Chinese study program organized by those two universities (see Sutami 2007: 227).3 In short, China and Chineseness had become dirty words, issues that raised the political hackles of the regime. *** 3 The Chinese study program of Dharma Persada University was only opened in 1986. 5 And yet the 1990s saw the emergence of a significant change of perception about Chinese language and culture in Indonesian society. Middle class Indonesians began to be optimistic about China’s economic development. They began to think that growing business cooperation with Chinese companies (and businessmen) was inevitable. In anticipation of this, some even began to learn the Chinese language (Mandarin). Since the formal learning activity of this language was still banned, many professional Indonesians invited Mandarin teachers to their offices or homes to give them ‘private Mandarin courses.’ This growing enthusiasm for learning Mandarin ran parallel with increasing appreciation of aspects of Chinese culture (see Heryanto 1998). Chinese movies - mostly in the form of soap operas - were welcomed by Indonesian viewers. For example, the screening of the prominent Chinese movie series entitled ‘the Return of Condor Hero’ by Indosiar, the then newly established broadcasting company, attracted a lot of viewers. Alongside a number of other Chinese martial arts series, it “succeeded in winning top ratings nationwide for Indosiar” (Thomas 2005: 141). A similar response was evoked by the ‘White Snake Legend’ series, which was aired by SCTV (Rajawali Citra Televisi Indonesia) in 1994 and was popular with the public (Heryanto 1999: 173). Although most of these series were produced by the Hong Kong or Taiwan television industries the average watchers loved them as Chinese movies. 6 The growing appreciation of Chinese culture in the mid 1990s was also apparent in the way themes related to ‘China’ or ‘the Chinese’ became widespread in Indonesian theatre. Most prominent was the 1994 performance by Koma, a prominent Indonesian theatre group led by a Chinese Indonesian drama director, Riantiarno. One of their most famous performances was the ‘Opera Ular Putih’ (The White Snake Opera), which adopted the theme of a traditional Chinese legend. The performance was held in the Taman Ismail Marzuki (Ismail Marzuki Park, usually abbreviated as TIM), and attracted a massive audience. I recall how difficult it was for my friends and I to get tickets for the performance, despite the fact that they were not cheap. Some three years after this performance, Theatre Koma appeared on stage again, this time with ‘Sampek Engtay’ (‘Legend of Butterfly Lovers ’), also based on a Chinese traditional story. Clearly, the emergence of the above phenomenon is at fundamental odds with previous ways of portraying China and the ethnic Chinese (in Indonesia), as well as with the basic tenets of Indonesian nationalism and nation-building (see Chapters One and Two). This dramatic difference between previous policies toward China and the Indonesian Chinese on the one hand and the current enthusiasm for them on the other hand has