Ian Timberlake, Jakarta – Buoyed by overtures from Indonesia's democratic President and emboldened by the nation's new climate of freedom, ethnic Chinese here say they are ready to push for an end to years of discrimination.
"If the Chinese want the same rights as the others, we have to fight for them," said Mr Benny Setiono, chairman of the Chinese Indonesian Association. His people are believed to make up at least six million of Indonesia's 210 million citizens.
They have been subject to discriminatory government policies and racist violence ever since the archipelago of 17,000 islands and an estimated 300 ethnic groups gained independence from the Dutch in 1945. Mr Setiono and other community leaders are calling for an end to bureaucratic practices and laws that they say target them unfairly, despite what they see as the sincere intention of President Abdurrahman Wahid to embrace religious minorities. In this mainly Muslim nation, most ethnic Chinese are Buddhist, Christian or Confucian.
Although some racist laws are no longer being enforced, the Gus Dur government has revoked only one. The legislation is a legacy of the 32-year reign of former strongman Suharto who stepped down two years ago amid violent civil unrest centred in Glodok, Jakarta's Chinatown.
Gus Dur was voted into office by legislators in October after Indonesia's first free general elections in decades. One of his first acts was to revoke a 1967 presidential decree that forbade the public celebration of Chinese religious and traditional festivals.
"It was revoked in January, just in time for the celebration of the Chinese New Year," said Ms Mely Tan, a sociologist at the private Atma Jaya Catholic University in Jakarta.
Mr Abdurrahman, who claims to have some Chinese ancestry, attended the festivals that featured lion and dragon dances. "We trust Gus Dur very much," said Mr Setiono. "Now people feel freer."
Coinciding with Gus Dur's reversal of the ban, new Chinese newspapers began appearing and were sold openly on Pancoran Street, a crowed market area in Chinatown.
"I think minorities don't feel afraid anymore," said Mr Cyrillus Kerong, a Catholic and non-Chinese native of Flores Island in eastern Indonesia. He is chief editor of Indonesia Shang Bao, a daily launched in April by the long-established Bisnis Indonesia newspaper to target local and foreign business people who speak Mandarin.
Shang Bao is one of at least five new Chinese papers now published in Indonesia. But Ms Tan pointed out: "Only one regulation has been revoked and that's on cultural expression but the others are still there."
During Dutch colonial rule, ethnic Chinese were, for a time, forced to live in designated neighbourhoods. After Indonesian independence, they faced quotas designed to limit their entry to state universities.
There were other discriminatory laws and some violence in the first years after independence but attempts to control the ethnic Chinese peaked during the rule of Suharto.
The general seized power in 1965 after what he claimed was a coup attempt by the Chinese-backed Indonesian Communist Party. Many ethnic Chinese were jailed or murdered during the massacre of thousands of alleged communists and their sympathisers by soldiers and Muslim gangs.
Mr Tedy Jusuf was a young ethnic Chinese army officer at the time. There was never a law against ethnic Chinese serving in the armed forces, he said, but he was given a different job to make his life difficult. "I did my best and was patient so I could survive.
Many Chinese friends in the armed forces quit ... They pretended they were not Chinese or they became Muslim." He rose to the rank of brigadier-general and retired from active service in 1996. He is now chairman of the Indonesian Chinese Social Organisation.
Ethnic Chinese say the Suharto regime seized their schools, refused to recognise Confucianism, ordered them to adopt Indonesian names, forced them to carry a special citizenship document, allowed only one Chinese newspaper, and generally promoted ethnic Chinese assimilation.
"You know how many regulations there are about the Chinese? Three books!" said Mr Setiono whose family has been Indonesian for more than two centuries, he said. "For more than 20 or 30 years, the Indonesian Chinese lost their confidence," said Mr Jusuf.
Now, some of that confidence is returning. In May, about 20 members of youth group Simpatik staged the first public protest by ethnic Chinese. Marching to the presidential palace, they demanded an end to the remaining discriminatory laws, and asked that the government bring to justice those responsible for the 1998 violence that left about 1,200 people killed and dozens of women raped.
Mr Setiono has talked about meeting senior government and security officials after the latest outbreak of rioting in Chinatown. On May 13, the second anniversary of the 1998 rampage, national police raided roadside peddlers of pirated VCDs in Chinatown. The vendors, who are not ethnic Chinese, went wild and were joined by a group of young men who damaged several nearby businesses and shops in the Harco Glodok plaza. There is little evidence this incident was directed at ethnic Chinese "but the Chinese are always among the victims," he said.
Aside from the May 1998 Jakarta riots, ethnic Chinese were targeted in November 1998, as well as in 1997, 1980, 1974 and 1973.
Mr Syafi'i Ma'arif, national chairman of the Muslim Muhammadiyah organisation, blames the violent history on "socio-economic jealousy". Muhammadiyah, with about 30 million supporters, is a social and educational body.
During the Suharto era, Chinese were estimated to control at least 70 per cent of Indonesia's private sector and a small group of Chinese conglomerates provided key economic support for Suharto's regime.
"This gives us a big problem. People think all the Chinese are like that," said Mr Setiono, a retired businessman. Mr Kerong said the Suharto regime exploited social tension between the Chinese and pribumi (natives) to help entrench itself.
Although some Chinese are poor fishermen and farmers, many had no choice but to go into business, said Mr Hasballah Sa'ad, Indonesia's State Minister for Human Rights. "We blocked the Chinese in certain areas. They had no chance in political activities, none in the bureaucracy. It's very unfair."
He pointed out that ethnic Chinese Kwik Kian Gie holds a senior Cabinet post as Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Finance and Industry – a sign of the present government's belief in equality.
Mr Syafi'i said some ethnic Chinese are "trying to become true Indonesian citizens" but others still view pribumi as inferior. But he agrees that discriminatory laws must ultimately disappear. "As a democratic nation, we have to treat every citizen equally." Mr Setiono sounds optimistic that further legislative changes are coming. "One by one, I think. It takes time."
Others are not so convinced. "Maybe Gus Dur has ideas about human rights, democracy and so on but the Indonesian elite doesn't think the same way," Mr Jusuf said. In his Harco hardware store, Mr Edy Jan said Chinese cannot escape discrimination. "If they don't want me here, okay. I'll go somewhere else."
[The writer is a Canadian journalist based in Indonesia. He contributed this article to The Straits Times.]