Silent Strategies:
The Legacy of Sexual Violence among Chinese Indonesians
Sari Andajani-Sutjahjo, Linda Rae Bennett and Sharyn Graham Davies
Introduction: The May 1998 rapes
-
In March 1997, Indonesia's authoritarian President Suharto was
re-elected for a seventh five-year term. Suharto's re-election occurred
just as the Asian economic crisis was reaching its peak. In July 1997,
the Thai baht crashed, resulting in a global loss of confidence among
international businesses in Asian currencies. By January 1998, the
Indonesia rupiah had plunged to one sixth of its previous value,
reaching a historic low of 17,000 rupiah for US$1.[1]
Rising tensions were visible across Indonesia. Unemployment was
growing, petrol prices were increasing, there were food shortages and
people were getting frustrated. People were especially frustrated with
the Suharto regime's corruption, collusion and nepotism. By May 1998,
mass demonstrations were occurring across the archipelago. University
students were particularly vocal in their anger towards Suharto.
Students across the nation rallied to the call 'Bring down Suharto and
his family' (Turunkan Suharto dan keluarganya). Many rallies soon
turned violent and on 12 May 1998, four Trisakti University students
were shot dead by the military. The military had been authorised to use
only tear gas and rubber bullets, but had used live ammunition against
protesting citizens. These shootings escalated the violence and created a
sense of lawlessness throughout much of Indonesia.
-
A key target of violence was the ethnic Chinese Indonesian community.
Overt discrimination against Chinese Indonesians has a long history in
the nation, as we explore later in this article. The military and
religious extremists used pre-existing feelings of resentment to provoke
and justify violence against Chinese Indonesians. By January 1998,
violent attacks were increasingly directed at Chinese Indonesian shop
owners who were accused of increasing the price of basic commodities and
stock-piling food and other resources. There has, however, never been
any evidence to substantiate such claims made against Chinese Indonesian
business owners. Nevertheless, Chinese Indonesians had their businesses
looted and burned, and these actions were justified against these
fallacious claims.[2] Even if security forces were inclined to protect Chinese Indonesians, those forces were often outnumbered by those rioting.
-
The violence perpetrated on Chinese Indonesians reached a peak in May,
1998. During this month between 180 and 400 Chinese Indonesian women
were raped.[3] Many more women were sexually assaulted, abused and harassed.[4]
The exact number of women raped will never be known because women and
their families remain too ashamed to speak of the rapes. Moreover, women
and their families have a justified distrust of the organisations to
which they theoretically should have been able to report this violence.
This distrust is justified because both the police and the military
continue to deny that the rapes ever occurred. This denial stems from
the fact that it was police and military personnel who committed the
rapes.[5] Even when women did report
rapes to police, they were not taken seriously or believed. The police
and military claimed that any accusations of rape that they were
involved were merely part of a smear campaign.[6]
The continued denial of the rapes at the highest levels of power
seriously hinders the ability of Chinese Indonesians to feel safe,
secure and valued in Indonesia.
-
This article examines the ongoing impact of the May 1998, rapes on
Chinese Indonesians. The article is divided into four sections. We first
outline our theoretical framework, which incorporates the heuristic of
silence. Second, we explore the history of Chinese positionality in
Indonesia. Third, we discuss our methods. Fourth, we examine how Chinese
Indonesians use silence to reduce perceived threats of future sexual
violence. In the conclusion we argue that strategies of silences are
deployed by Chinese Indonesians to reduce ongoing levels of fear.
Silence
-
Silence is characterised conventionally as an absence; an absence of
sound, an absence of speech. Postmodern scholarship though has rethought
silence as something tangible. For instance, silence can reify
personhood and dispossession. Luce Irigaray's (1985) work is relevant
here as it investigates the silence that is woman, where woman is
produced through patriarchy and where her own needs, desires, interests
and indeed her very self, is silenced.[7]
Women are silenced politically, geographically and socially, and kept
outside hegemonic power structures alongside those others (poor,
disabled, racialised) who cannot speak.[8] Silence can thus perpetuate regimes of power and result in violent oppression.[9] Adrienne Rich poetically reveals how 'cartographies of silence' are a form of historical repression.[10] Silences can thus be thought of not as absences of sound and voice, but forms of structural violence.[11]
-
Silence can also be read as a form of power. Michel Foucault's (1976)
work shows that silence can be forcefully leveraged against an
adversary.[12] Silence can be an
expression of agency over one's life, a display of rights and individual
sovereignty. Silence can represent one's ability to escape formation
and surveillance and exist elsewhere, beyond the order of law.[13]
Silence may not be the absence of thought, but an active choice of
action to suppress pain, emotion, or a way to deal with an extraordinary
reality beyond what language can convey.
-
In keeping with the notion of silence as power, Jane Parpart (2010)
argues that the discursive conditions determining who can and cannot
speak reflect also an expression of agency.[14]
Silence then can be an expression of agency as an empowered and wise
choice often made in conflict-ridden social environments. The danger of
associating silence solely with violence and oppression, then, is that
it potentially ignores other modalities of agency that manifest
themselves as silence. This reading of silence can empower narratives of
women's historical suffering, passivity, docility and submission in a
patriarchal world.[15] Wendy Brown
also acknowledges this dual modality of silence, first as a way of
dealing with something that is beyond language and second as a
reflection of one's defence mechanism against suffering and the
preservation of self.[16] Silence can be an aesthetic with divisions of visible and invisible, audible and inaudible.[17]
The meaning of silence is also socially constructed and may be valued
in some cultures and not in others: is speaking for the silent an act of
reinstating oppression?[18] The meanings of silence vary cross-culturally.[19]
For instance, in Lombok, Indonesia, women working in the tourist
industry choose silence as a response to sexual harassment because they
do not want to give the men who harass them any attention. As such, it
is not an oppressive silence but a deliberate message sent by the women
through silence.[20]
-
We have then two notions of silence: silence as a way to perpetuate
subordination of the other; and silence as the display of individual
sovereignty. These are not mutually exclusive. The silencing by the
state of others through violence or mere ignorance can provoke
resistance from subalterns. Here, Patrick Hanafin notes, silence
reflects the power of resistance residing in the paradoxical state of
being 'nobody,' 'in becoming nothing', and being 'imperceptible.'[21] Mahatma Ghandi's nonviolent social protest through silence manifested as resistance is a notable exemplar here.[22]
In respect to Indonesia, silence has been deployed as a political
strategy to undermine Chinese Indonesians and as a strategy by Chinese
Indonesians to forge a life in Indonesia. We acknowledge these multiple
meanings and uses of silence, noting its complexity. In this article we
expand on what we call strategies of silence in a manner that also
acknowledges the body and physicality as key sites of silence, which
moves beyond the narrow idea of silence as only pertaining to voice or
sound. Before examining how strategies of silence are used by Chinese
Indonesians in response to the May 1998 rapes, we turn first to analyse
the contentious position of Chinese Indonesians in Indonesia.
Chinese Indonesians
-
The position of Chinese Indonesians in Indonesia has long been fraught.[23]
When Suharto came to power in a coup in 1965 he introduced a
comprehensive policy legitimising systemic violence towards ethnic
Chinese, many of whom had lived in Indonesia for generations. Chinese
language schools were banned in 1966.[24]
People were forced to change their 'Chinese sounding' names to
Indonesian ones. The number of Chinese Indonesians who were able to join
political parties was severely restricted and Chinese Indonesians were
not permitted to serve in Suharto's government.[25]
Chinese Indonesians were discouraged from attending public universities
with their number capped at 10 per cent of the student body.[26] With such restrictions it is little wonder that Chinese Indonesians primarily turned to the market economy to make a living.
-
In 1995, it was estimated that 73 per cent of all publicly listed Indonesian companies were owned by Chinese Indonesians.[27] Chinese Indonesians at this time made up just 2 per cent of the total Indonesian population.[28]
It should be noted that Chinese Indonesians are not an homogenous group
and while there are many similarities across the country Chinese
Indonesian communities include people of various religious and
socio-economic statuses.[29] The
visibility of Chinese Indonesians in the economic domain, alongside
their absence in political, media and educational domains, meant that
Chinese Indonesians became an easy target to blame for the economic
crisis.[30] The wealth of many
Chinese Indonesians led people to accuse them of being in collaboration
with Suharto's corrupt regime. Discrimination against Chinese
Indonesians had begun as early as the 1800s,[31] but the two most violent events occurred in 1965, when a massacre of Chinese Indonesians occurred,[32]
and again in May 1998, with the mass rape of Chinese Indonesian women.
Before we turn to analyse the stories of women living through this
latter event, we outline our methods.
Methods
-
Exploring the legacy of the May 1998 rapes among Chinese Indonesians was
the objective driving this research and underpinned the submission of a
research proposal to the New Zealand Peace and Disarmament Trust
(PADET). Following the award of funds, Sari Andajani-Sutjahjo conducted
in-depth interviews in November and December 2013, with 17 Chinese
Indonesians who lived through the May 1998 riots. Our research design
explicitly excluded women rape survivors in order to avoid
retraumatising these women. Most interviewees, however, had family
members who witnessed or had been targets of sexual violence.
Participants were aged between 30 and 70, and all were Christian. All
except two identified as Chinese Indonesian. The remaining two women
identified as campuran, or of mixed Chinese and Indonesian heritage.
-
Eleven participants were women and six were men. While four women were
single, the remainder were married. Two married couples were interviewed
jointly. It is not unusual for Chinese Indonesians to be highly
educated and aspire to postgraduate studies, despite prior exclusion
from public universities. The high level of education is reflected in
the fact that all participants were tertiary educated and half held
postgraduate degrees. All but one participant resided in Jakarta and all
but one participant had witnessed the May 1998 riots first hand.
Several informants were teenagers at the time. One female participant
lived outside Jakarta at the time of the riots but was aware of the
violence through media reports and the anxiety she witnessed among
family and friends. Most participants had lived around the epicentre of
the riots including in Trisakti, Tangerang and Glodok, an area known as
Jakarta's Chinatown. All participants were born in Indonesia and were
third or fourth generation Chinese Indonesians. Only one participant, a
70-year-old man, was able to fluently speak a Chinese dialect. The
remaining participants were not fluent in any Chinese dialect, and were
unable to read or write Chinese scripts. All interviews were conducted
in Indonesian. All names used in this article are pseudonyms.
-
Interview respondents were recruited through Andajani-Sutjahjo's social
networks in Jakarta. Recruitment was also initiated via visits to a
private university in Jakarta and by distributing information about the
study to university staff. The criteria for participation included:
being over 18 years of age; having lived in Indonesia during the May
1998 riots; and identifying as Chinese Indonesian. A number of academics
first volunteered to participate and this led to recruitment of other
participants via snowballing. Our qualitative sample represents those
people who felt confident engaging with the difficult topics of ethnic
and sexual violence and its impact on Chinese Indonesians.
-
Several interviews were conducted in cafes in Chinatown or in a local
Buddhist temple, while others were conducted in participants' homes or
at the university campus. Interviews lasted between 60 and 90 minutes
and were audio recorded with consent. They were then transcribed and
analysed in Indonesian. Relevant quotes were translated into English for
this paper.
-
As this article is concerned with the intersection of identity politics
and violence, it is relevant to acknowledge the authors' subjectivities
and experiences of ethnic violence, and the impact this had on data
collection and interpretation. Andajani-Sutjahjo is a third generation
Chinese Indonesian. She speaks fluent Indonesian and a Javanese dialect.
She has never had a Chinese name, has never visited China and is unable
to speak or write any Chinese language. Due to ongoing threats and
incidents of ethnic violence and discrimination against her and her
family, she now resides in Aotearoa New Zealand. Andajani-Sutjahjo is
tertiary educated and she spent much of her early professional career in
large Indonesian cities, including Surabaya and Jakarta, and is thus
typical in terms of her life experiences and status to interviewees.
-
The shared identity of Andajani-Sutjahjo with participants likely put
the latter at ease in the context of discussing painful and politically
charged issues. Whilst Andajani-Sutjahjo is not a survivor of the sexual
violence perpetrated during the May 1998 riots, she arrived in Jakarta
as the riots were ending to assist family who had experienced
destruction of personal and commercial property, and to oversee the
medical treatment of family members, some of whom live with permanent
disabilities as a result of violence perpetrated against them.
Andajani-Sutjahjo's shared history of having lived through the violence,
and being part of the targeted community, assisted with recruiting
people who perceived her as a safe confidante. Additionally,
Andajani-Sutjahjo is a qualified psychologist and researcher of
gender-based violence, which also added to her competence as a sensitive
and ethically aware interviewer.
-
The authors were all acutely aware of the possibility of
retraumatisation of participants and thus discussed issues around
recruitment in order to reduce the potential for harm. Linda Bennett and
Sharyn Davies also communicated during field work to debrief
Andajani-Sutjahjo after difficult interviews. This debriefing was
important because of the impossibility of Andajani-Sutjahjo maintaining
objective boundaries over memories of the violence being disclosed to
her. It was also important for the authors to work through
interpretation of narratives to discuss possible points of bias or
over-emphasis due to emersion with the community. Bennett and Davies are
both Australians who were living in Indonesia in 1998 and have
continued their close connection with Indonesia in the intervening two
decades.
Silent strategies
-
While the Indonesian government and the military continue to use silence
as a strategy to ensure that the perpetrators of the May 1998 rapes
remain unpunished, Chinese Indonesians use silence to keep themselves
safe. Strategies of silence have long been used by Chinese Indonesians.
During the Suharto period Chinese Indonesians created yayasan (foundations) as a way to silently conduct business and to evade taxation;[33] creating yayasan,
rather than businesses, meant such endeavours seemed benign and
nonthreatening. Confucian practice was banned under Suharto and so
Chinese Indonesians silently developed klenteng (places of
worship) that outwardly conformed to Buddhism, which was not banned.
Parents silently hired private Mandarin tutors for their children to
ensure language transfer.[34] While
Chinese Indonesians want to see justice, they also know that strategies
of silence have proved effective in keeping them safe. There may also
be, as one anonymous reviewer pointed out, 'a mentality of "kalah dan
salah" (always losing, always be in the wrong), which is deeply embedded
in the psyche and practices of Chinese Indonesians'.[35] Below we examine four strategies of silence: invisibility; movement; quietness; and care.
Silence as invisibility
-
Silence for some women who lived through the May 1998 riots is enacted
through making themselves invisible. Lisa was born and raised in Jakarta
and was 19 during the May 1998 riots. Lisa continues to live in
Jakarta, with her husband and children, and she talked about the
continuing need to hide her 'Chinese-ness' and also to de-sexualise her
appearance:
When I go to the market I always wear gombrong-gombrong (baggy
clothes) with messy hair to make myself look unattractive. Also I do it
so I won't attract attention because my skin is fair. I always ask my
husband to accompany me if he can. I used to go to school and university
by bus. Back then I used to wear a jacket, even when it was very hot,
over 30 degrees. Also I didn't put any make-up on. I was nyamar (in disguise). I covered all of my body, arms and legs. But of course I couldn't cover my face, my hands or my slanting eyes (miring mata) so I wore a hat.
-
Lisa, like many other Chinese Indonesian women, is publicly aware of her
vulnerability, not just as a woman but as a Chinese Indonesian woman.
Lisa's choice of attire and where to sit on public transport are closely
circumscribed by her desire to avoid attention. Clothing is seen as an
effective shield to disguise her 'Chinese-ness' and her femaleness. Lisa
also wanted her husband, or other male kin, to act as chaperones.
-
For Dewi, a single woman who was 18 at the time of the May 1998 riots,
her key to survival as a Chinese Indonesian woman has been to become
socially adaptable and to continuously adjust her way of being and
behaving. Dewi learned from her interactions with others how to navigate
social life and how to disguise her 'Chinese-ness' and her feminine
attractiveness in public. The ability and choice to disguise herself
according to how she perceives her safety in different contexts is
described by Dewi below:
Anytime I go to Bali, I wear a tank-top and shorts and I feel ok and I feel free (merasa bebas) and no one is harassing me (laughs) because there are so many bule
(Western tourists) in Bali, and they even wear bikinis so no one
notices me. I am not in the spotlight (laughs). It feels good to be less
visible.
-
Angel, who was 18 at the time of the May 1998 riots, was raised in a
small town in Eastern Nusa Tenggara Province. Angel moved to Jakarta
several years after the May 1998 riots and described her shifting
understanding of personal space and safety. It was only after the move
that she was made aware of her 'Chinese-ness,' both directly and
indirectly, through her interaction with locals. She felt that she then
needed to redefine what safe public appearance and safe space were in
the company of non-Chinese Indonesian men:
I was raised in a place with little ethnic conflict or apparent racism.
But here in Jakarta, I became more aware of my Chinese-ness. I now have
these two radars [gesturing two antennas hovering above her head]. My
safe-space boundary is very important. I always do a scenic scanning of
people around me so no one stands within my radars. When waiting for the
bus, I always try to find a space or a place where I can stand. I
choose to stand next to a wall or against the wall away from the crowd. I
am hoping not to be noticed but at the same time to be able to see any
threat.
-
East Nusa Tenggara Province, where Lisa grew up, is a predominantly
Christian area. Whilst Angel's childhood was not marked by intense
feelings of being born into an ethnic minority, her adult experiences of
being a Chinese Indonesian woman in Jakarta following the May 1998
riots have led to a heightened sense of belonging to a threatened group.
This belonging resulted in Angel reexamining the way she presented
herself in public and constantly seeking a safe hiding place in public.
Angel's experiences demonstrate how the historical and geographic
specificity of the assaults of Chinese Indonesian women endure over time
and across space and manifest more intensively for those living in
particular sites where the violence was most extreme. The spatial nature
of the act of invisibility and camouflage can be read here as the art
of political disguise.[36]
Silence as movement
-
The majority of Chinese Indonesians have had no desire or intention to
leave Indonesia. There can be no return to a Chinese homeland when one
has never been to China, does not speak the language, has no contacts in
the country and has always lived in Indonesia. Lani, who at the time of
interview was 35 and single, did have thoughts of moving abroad
following the May 1998 riots but did not have the financial means to do
so. Lani understood Indonesia's political culture as volatile and
unpredictable and felt that at any time kerusuhan (riots) could
occur. If the riots occurred again Lani felt that 'Chinese Indonesians
will be scapegoats for such violence and will be the last priority in
terms of receiving government protection.' Thus, while Lani sees no
option except staying in Indonesia, she feels a constant threat of
violence. Brevie, who was 38 and married at the time of interview, feels
deep ambivalence about the possibility of having to relocate in the
event of further violence. She stated: 'My work is here, I am being
educated here. My church and my family are here so I don't want to move
out.' Brevie does not want to give up all that is familiar and valuable
in her life despite her fears of recurring ethnic violence.
-
Dewi, who was introduced above, explained that her survival strategy has
been to be ready to move at any point, to make no fuss, to be adaptable
and to be inaudible:
Dewi: One has to be ready to remove oneself/carry oneself in terms of body language and gesture (bisa bawa diri) because here in Indonesia we Chinese Indonesians are only numpang (lodging).
Andajani-Sutjahjo: Numpang?
Dewi: Yes, Chinese Indonesians are born here but most Indonesians
do not consider us Indonesian. We are like half this and half that. We
have an ambiguous status. We supposedly want to go back to the Chinese
mainland. But if we do we won't be accepted there either. And here we
are not getting acceptance either, especially not by the government
which always makes things difficult for us. You see we can't cover our
face so wherever we go they call us Cina [a derogatory term for
Chinese]. So basically whatever the government or its local
representatives tell us we do. That is all. No less, no more.
Andajani-Sutjahjo: What do you mean?
Dewi: Well, for example, we need to get lots of letters and
certificates from the civil office to do things. So because we need to
get those things we just keep quiet and don't cause any fuss (jangan aneh-aneh).
-
This excerpt from Dewi shows that Chinese Indonesians use silence as a
way to deal with living in a society that considers them merely lodgers.
Being ready to move, and by not making a fuss, Chinese Indonesians seek
to live largely under the radar. At the same time, this silence is used
as a political tool by those in power to continue to control Chinese
Indonesians and render them inaudible and invisible.[37]
In public spaces, Chinese Indonesians adopt a passive and indirect
approach against the more direct and active methods used by those in
positions of power.[38]
Silence as quietness
-
Christina has completed degrees at both Australian and United States of
American universities and was 47 at the time of interview. She
identifies as both Javanese and Indonesian Chinese. Christina explained
the discrimination against Chinese Indonesians as a form of structural
racism:
Subjectively, I have never felt safe living in Indonesia. I feel as if I
am an object of violence and this causes significant social trauma.
It's a form of violence perpetrated by the state as a system against me
as an individual. Imagine, my father is indigenous Indonesian but I
never feel myself as 'original' because of my Chinese blood from my
mother. I am not utuh (whole/intact). My self-identity is always
in conflict. It is because of the way I look, my face. Once I went to
visit a civil office to get my marriage certificate. I read the fee
structure and it said the fee was 50 thousand rupiah. But then they made
it difficult for me by asking for my certificate of citizenship. Of
course I don't have that as I am Indonesian by birth. They asked me to
pay 350 thousand rupiah which is seven times more than the official fee.
I asked for clarification, but one of the female officers shouted to
embarrass me and said sarcastically 'Yes Ma'am, marry that board then.'
Then my husband pulled my hand, told me to be quiet, and asked me to
leave so we wouldn't cause a scene.
-
Christina has learnt that Chinese Indonesians must be quiet. Christina's
attempt to seek just treatment was impossible. Chinese Indonesians are
expected to be absent in the public sphere, they must be invisible and
refrain from speaking. Fanny, who was 35 at the time of interview, has
also learnt to be quiet:
As someone who is Chinese, you are different; you are seen as being
different. Indigenous Indonesians and the state consider us as
different. I can't change my face. When someone calls me amoy (a derogatory name for a Chinese Indonesian girl), well that's harassment. So I keep quiet.
-
Chinese Indonesians embody narratives of silence so as not to draw
attention to themselves and to not provoke arguments. Chinese
Indonesians also learn about public spaces that are forbidden, or when
they must enter them they keep quiet. In a longer interview, Fanny
talked of how her father reinforced for her their 'otherness' and how
they could never properly belong to Indonesia.
Silence as care
-
Chinese Indonesian men also spoke of a strong sense of responsibility
for protecting Chinese Indonesian women from potential sexual violence.
This responsibility stemmed from their socialisation into the role of
family protectors and desire to be in solidarity with the Chinese
Indonesian community. These men expressed a keen awareness that Chinese
Indonesian women are viewed as sexual objects of non-Chinese men's
desire. These men described a sense of non-kin protection, or fictive
kinship, in which individuals who are not biologically related share a
historical and cultural bond.[39]
Hence, being Chinese Indonesian influences collective awareness among
Chinese Indonesian men with regard to their role in protecting Chinese
Indonesian women from sexual violence. Men's sense of duty translates
into practical terms in forms of monitoring and chaperoning women's
movements.[40] This attention to
women's mobility is intended to protect women, but at the same time
reinforces the notion that women are not safe. The two quotes below
illustrate how Chinese Indonesian men of different ages express their
concerns and duties about protecting Chinese Indonesian women. Budi, who
was a 35-year-old married man at the time of interview, noted:
I think a Chinese man has more privileges than a Chinese woman. We are
relatively safe when we walk alone. Often when I see a Chinese girl
walking alone, I felt deg degan [worried and my heart beats faster]. I often observe how groups of pribumi [native Indonesian] men watch a Chinese girl from hair to toe with mupeng [muka pengen,
a hungry/desiring face]. So even if such a girl is not a relative of
mine, I feel as if I have to watch over her until she is safe from the
harassment of those men.
-
Lina, a 30-year-old single woman at the time of interview, spoke of her father in terms of his wanting her to stay safe:
My father always reminded me that whenever I am in a bus I have to sit
next to an older lady, and always start a conversation with someone
sitting next to me, but keep it to speaking with women only. Then if
something happens that woman hopefully will help me.
-
The advice given by Lina's father acknowledged the vulnerability of his
daughter in public, as well as his feeling of powerlessness and hope
that an older woman would help Lina if she were in danger. Similarly,
Angel who moved to Jakarta for her study also mentioned that she would
sit close to an older woman if possible, especially when travelling
alone on public transport. Silence here denotes a way of blending in and
protecting oneself in a vulnerable position. The disguise or camouflage
becomes a spatial practice that is effective when one examines and pays
close attention to the surrounding environments. James Robinson
describes this act of disguise, or camouflage, as being closely
associated with social and cultural imaginings where social space
becomes rendered an emotional space of sanctuary and refuge.[41]
Conclusion
-
In many ways life for Chinese Indonesians improved after the downfall of
Suharto. Following the events of 1998, demands were made by human
rights activists and others for the political protection of women from
violence. In October 1998 the independent National Commission on
Violence against Women was formed. Incumbent President Habibie made a
formal apology in a speech on Martyr's Day, 10 November 1998, condemning
the rape of women and the violence of the May riots.
-
In 1998, Presidential Instruction No 26 removed the regulation requiring
ethnic Chinese Indonesians to produce certificates of citizenship when
enrolling in school or making official applications. In 2000,
Presidential Decree No 6 removed the ban on the practice of Chinese
traditions, beliefs and customs. In 2001, then President Wahid removed
the ban on the display of Chinese characters and the importation of
Chinese publications, and this removal resulted in a booming
Chinese-language educational sector in Indonesia.[42]
-
In 2003, President Megawati, declared support for Chinese education and
the establishment of Chinese Studies departments in Indonesian
universities and she officially included the Chinese New Year as a state
holiday.[43] In 2004, President
Megawati declared that Chinese Indonesians were no longer required to
possess an Indonesian Citizenship Certificate and she stated that
Chinese Indonesians are no different to those claiming themselves
bumiputera (indigenous Indonesians).[44]
It should be noted, even after President Megawati's declaration, these
rules are still being broken by officials at the local level.[45]
Chinese Indonesian communities took advantage of reforms to establish
political parties, non-government organisations and action groups to
promote solidarity and fight for the abolition of discriminatory laws.
Some of those groups included the Chinese Indonesian Reform Party; the
Indonesian Chinese Social Clan Association; the Association of
Indonesian Chinese Descents; and youth groups such as GANDI.[46]
Many Chinese Indonesian groups also promoted pluralism and
multiculturalism to revitalise Chinese culture, media, language and
religion.[47]
-
Yet, ongoing discrimination against Chinese Indonesian communities
continues to hinder women's ability to come forward and claim justice
and demand that perpetrators of the rapes be held accountable.
Discrimination has been internalised as part of Chinese Indonesian
identity. There have been ongoing questions of the loyalty of Chinese
Indonesians to the state.[48] Fear
is tangibly felt, not least most recently during the arrest and
imprisonment of Chinese Indonesian politician Ahok. Chinese Indonesians
continue to be seen as scapegoats for any political and economic
turmoil.
-
The Chinese Indonesian community still fears sexual violence. All
Chinese Indonesian women interviewed reported a pervasive fear of rape
and sexual harassment. All Chinese Indonesian men interviewed described a
sense of heighted fear of sexual violence being perpetrated against
Chinese Indonesian women. Chinese Indonesian women, as the perceived
property of Chinese Indonesian men, make an easy target for grievances.
Women are thus silent subalterns.[49]
As a result of continued fear, Chinese Indonesian communities still
feel vulnerable and exclude themselves from public life by making
themselves silent.
-
An aesthetic of silence continues to exist where Chinese Indonesian women carve out an appearance that silences.[50]
This silence can be simultaneously read as disempowering and
empowering. Chinese Indonesian women choose strategies of silence:
silences as invisibility; movement; quietness; and care. Silence is a
modality of defence whereby women can preserve sanity and wellbeing.
Silence is an active, informed modality, a form of resistance shaped by
historical and ongoing violence. Silence is also used to reclaim dignity
and sovereignty.
-
A resolution to the May 1998 Rapes is critical for the healing of
Chinese Indonesians, not just for survivors and immediate victims but
for the community at large.[51]
Indonesia needs to acknowledge wrongs and demonstrate that organised
sexual violence against women will not be tolerated. Continued denial by
the state is a denial of moral accountability and serves only to
further reinforce that Chinese Indonesians cannot trust the state. The
internalised fear of violence can only be ameliorated and healed once
the nation publically condemns the violence, brings perpetrators to
justice, and restores dignity for Chinese Indonesians.
Notes
[1] Jemma Purdey, Anti-Chinese Violence in Indonesia 19961999, Singapore: Singapore University Press, 2006.
[2] Purdey, Anti-Chinese Violence in
Indonesia; John T. Sidel, 'Macet total: Logistics of circulation and
accumulation in the demise of Indonesia's New Order,' Indonesia 66
(1998): 15994, DOI: 10.2307/3351451
[3] Monika S. Winarnita, 'The tragedy of May 1998,' Inside Indonesia 95, JanuaryMarch 2009.
[4] Camely Arta, 'Never forget May 98 Tragedy,' Komnas Perempuan,
8 May 2017. Online:
http://magdalene.co/news-1208-never-forgets-may-98-tragedy-komnas-
perempuan.html (accessed 28 February 2018).
[5] Tragedi Mei 1998 dalam Perjalanan Bangsa Disangkal!
(Denial, May 1998 Tragedy in the Nation's Journey!), Jakarta: Komisi
Nasional Anti Kekerasan Terhadap Perempuan, 2003; Komnas Perempuan.
Reformasi 14 Tahun: 'Defisit Demokrasi Menghalangi Pemenuhan Hak
Konstitutional Perempuan,' Indonesian Conference on Religion and Peace (ICRP), 2012. Online: http://icrp-online.com/2012/05/15/defisit-demokrasi-halangi-hak-konstitusional-perempuan/ (accessed 28 February 2018).
[6] Krishna Sen, '"Chinese" Indonesians in national cinema,' Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 7(1) (2006): 17184, DOI:10.1080/14649370500463877.
[7] Luce Irigaray, This Sex which is Not One, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985.
[8] Sophia Dingli, 'We need to talk about silence: Re-examining silence in International Relations theory,' European Journal of International Relations 21(4) (2015): 72142, DOI: 10.1177/1354066114568033.
[9] Gurminder K. Bhambra and Robbie Shilliam (eds), Silencing Human Rights: Critical Engagements with a Contested Project, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
[10] Adrienne Rich, 'Cartographies of silence,' in The Fact of a Doorframe: Selected Poems 19502001, edited by Adrienne Rich, 13843. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002.
[11] Johan Galtung, 'Cultural violence,' Journal of Peace Research 27(3) 1990): 291305. DOI: 10.1177/0022343390027003005.
[12] Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, translated by Richard Howard, London: Tavistock Publications, 1967.
[13] Patrick Hanafin, '"As nobody I was sovereign": Reading Derrida reading Blanchot,' Societies 3 (2013): 4351. DOI: 10.3390/soc3010043.
[14] Jane L. Parpart, 'Choosing silence: Rethinking voice, agency and women's empowerment,' in Secrecy and Silence in the Research Process, edited by Roisin Ryan-Flood and Rosalind Gill, 1529, New York: Routledge, 2010.
[15] Parpart, 'Choosing silence.'
[16] Wendy Brown, Edgework: Critical Essays on Knowledge and Politics, Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2005.
[17] Jacques Ranciθre, The Politics of Aesthetics, London: Continuum, 2004.
[18] Dingli, 'We need to talk about silence.'
[19] Keith H. Basso, '"To give up on words': Silence in Western Apache culture,' Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 26(3) (1970): 21330. DOI: 10.1086/soutjanth.26.3.3629378.
[20] Linda R. Bennett, 'Poverty, opportunity and purity in paradise: Women working in Lombok's tourist hotels,' in Women and Work in Indonesia, edited by Lyn Parker and Michele Ford, 82103. London: Routledge, 2008.
[21] Hanafin, '"As nobody I was sovereign".'
[22] Upendra Baxi, 'Epilogue: Whom may we speak for, with and after: Re-silencing human rights,' in Silencing Human Rights: Critical Engagement with a Contested Project, edited by Gurminder K, Bhambra and Robbie Shilliam, 25163, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
[23] Purdey, Anti-Chinese Violence in Indonesia.
[24] Leo Suryadinata, Ethnis Tionghoa dan Nasionalisme Indonesia 19652008 (Ethnic Chinese Indonesian and Nationalism 19652008), Jakarta, Kompas, 2010.
[25] Chang-Yau Hoon, 'Assimilation, multiculturalism, hybridity: The dilemmas of the ethnic Chinese in post-Suharto Indonesia,' Asian Ethnicity, 7(2) (2006): 14966, DOI: 10.1080/14631360600734400.
[26] Sarah Turner, 'Setting the scene speaking out: Chinese Indonesians after Suharto,' Asian Ethnicity 4(3) (2003): 33752, DOI 10.1080/1343900032000117187.
[27] Sarah Turner and Pamela Allen, 'Chinese Indonesians in a rapidly changing nation: Pressures of ethnicity and identity,' Asia Pacific Viewpoint 48(1) (2007): 11227, DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8373.2007.00334.x.
[28] Hoon, 'Assimilation, multiculturalism, hybridity.'
[29] Iwan Santosa, Peranakan Tionghoa di nusantara (Chinese Indonesia in the Indonesian Archipelago), Jakarta: Kompas, 2012.
[30] Filomeno V. Aguilar, 'Citizenship, inheritance and the indigenizing of "Orang Chinese" in Indonesia,' Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique 9(3) (2001): 501533. DOI: 10.1215/10679847-9-3-501.
[31] Bart Luttikhuis and A. Dirk Moses, 'Mass violence and the end of the Dutch colonial empire in Indonesia,' Journal of Genocide Research 14(34) (2012): 25776. DOI: 10.1080/14623528.2012.719362.
[32] Robert Cribb and Charles A.
Coppel, 'A genocide that never was: Explaining the myth of anti-Chinese
massacres in Indonesia, 196566,' Journal of Genocide Research 11(4): 2009: 44765. DOI: 10.1080/14623520903309503; Purdey, Anti-Chinese Violence in Indonesia.
[33] Chang Yau Hoon, 'Face, faith and forgiveness: Elite Chinese philanthropy in Indonesia,' Journal of Asian Business 24(12) (2010): 5166.
[34] Leo Suryadinata, Ethnis Tionghoa Dan Nasionalisme Indonesia 19652008 (Tionghoa and Indonesian Nationalism 1965008), Jakarta, Indonesia: Kompas, 2010.
[35] See Aimee Dawis, Chinese Indonesians and their Search for Identity, New York: Cambria Press, 2009.
[36] James P. Robinson, 'Invisible targets, strengthened morale: Static camouflage as a "weapon of the weak",' Space and Polity 16(3) (2012): 35168. DOI: 10.1080/13562576.2012.733573; James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance, London: Yale University Press, 1990.
[37] Rhys D. Jones, James Robinson
and Jennifer Turner, 'Introduction. Between absence and presence:
Geographies of hiding, invisibility and silence,' Space and Polity16(3) (2012): 25763. DOI: 10.1080/13562576.2012.733567M.
[38] Robinson, 'Invisible targets, strengthened morale,' 354.
[39] Morris W. Foster and Richard
R. Sharp, 'Race, ethnicity, and genomics: Social classifications as
proxies of biological heterogeneity,' Genome Research 12 (2002): 84450, DOI: 10.1101/gr.99202.
[40] Sharyn G. Davies, 'Sexual surveillance,' in Sex and Sexualities in Contemporary Indonesia: Sexual Politics, Health, Diversity and Representations, edited by Linda. R. Bennett and Sharyn G. Davies, 1031, London: Routledge, 2015.
[41] Robinson, 'Invisible targets, strengthened morale.'
[42] Chang Yau Hoon, Chinese Identity in Post-Suharto Indonesia: Culture, Politics and Media, Sussex: Sussex Academic Press, 2008.
[43] Hoon, Chinese Identity in Post-Suharto Indonesia.
[44] Hoon, Chinese Identity in Post-Suharto Indonesia.
[45] Turner and Allen, 'Chinese Indonesians in a rapidly changing nation.'
[46] Suryadinata, Ethnis Tionghoa dan Nasionalisme Indonesia 19652008; Turner, 'Setting the scene speaking out.'
[47] Hoon, 'Assimilation, multiculturalism, hybridity'; Purdey, Anti-Chinese Violence in Indonesia; Sen, '"Chinese" Indonesians in national cinema'; Turner, 'Setting the scene speaking out.'
[48] Susan Giblin, 'Civil society
groups overcoming stereotypes? Chinese Indonesian civil society groups
in post-Suharto Indonesia,' Asian Ethnicity 4(3) (2003): 35368. DOI: 10.1080/1343900032000117196.
[49] Irigaray, This Sex which is Not One.
[50] Ranciθre, The Politics of Aesthetics.
[51] Winarnita, 'The tragedy of May 1998'.
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