Searching for Chinese-Indonesian identity Lim Mei Ming  ;   A Freelance Journalist in Bandung

JAKARTA POST,  16 Februari 2014

                                                                                                                        

                                                                                         

                                                      

It has been for more than a decade that Chinese in Indonesia have had the freedom to express their ethnic identity. In recent years, no significant impediments have been found to imped the celebration of Chinese holidays and festivities.  We should thank the harmoniously supportive climate. Every national element has been striving together for Chinese descendants deserving equal treatment, whereas I myself have felt no significant ethnic discrimination since I was born.  Reminiscing on this ethnic legal history, I do not find any significant changes before and after all of the legal reforms, especially in celebrating the Chinese New Year (Imlek). My piano teacher and elders have been so grateful for the much easier immigration procedures. However, within my kinship, Imlek rituals and courtesy visits have remained practically unchanged. It’s the barongsai (lion dance) shows and mushrooming Chinese associations, foundations and Mandarin classes that are signposts.  The most practical benefit may be former president Megawati Soekarnoputri’s decree stipulating Chinese New Year as a national holiday. Thus, current Chinese students would not need to ask permission from school as I did. I remember, before Soeharto’s resignation, I went to the most historic vihara (Buddhist temple) in Bandung on the eve of Imlek together with schoolmates, none of whom were Confucians but one devoted Buddhist. Hearing there would be crowded festivities, I was interested in watching the very rituals of Confucius (Kong Hu Chu). There was no premeditated discrimination. All uncomfortable social conditions are kept like icebergs at the poles, there as time goes on but not really systematically bound. Since I was born, my non-Chinese neighbors have been and will always be “normal”. As viharas continue rationing angpao (gifts) to visitors and my family keeps delivering basket cakes to neighbors in the traditional way, this nation should stride a new path of clear-minded dignity without  giving in to any ethnic, religious or racial propaganda.  Above all, with the ethnically cultural tolerance, in which non-Chinese seem interested in Imlek festivities with mascots of barongsai and angpao, let me strike the most essential national concern of social economic tolerance. Real assimilation, not just on the surface, shares values to resolve conflicting assumptions, dim normative sentimentalism and kick out any kinds of pebbles to build a smooth path to national dignity.  Prudent and wise measures should be encouraged to support a truthful and just national civilization. Such an aspiration is contained in the essence of Imlek. Briefly, Kong Zi or Confucius or Kong Huchu living during the Zhou dynasty (551-479 B.C.) suggested that the empire return to an Imlek, originally Xia, calendar, on the reason that a king should prioritize the interests of his people who were mostly farmers. Xia calendar starts on the break of spring so that every year starts by signaling farmers to go to their fields.  Kong Zi’s motive was for people’s benefit in farming at the right time. So let’s aspire to take concern of the other national elements at the very essence. According to chairperson of the High Council of Confucianism in Indonesia (Matakin), Ws Budi S. Tanuwibowo, Imlek means taking the side of the people. Combining both the solar calendar and the lunar system (Hijriah), the Imlek calendar perfectly measures ebb tide, full moon arrival and seasons at hemispheres, which matter to the natural-based endeavors of traditional communities.  Imlek is full of social implications. A week before the new year is the Brotherhood Day with rituals of visiting the unlucky. Within the fortnight, time is spent asking for parents and elders’ blessings while paying visits to relatives and friends. At the end of the fortnight, comes the Cap Go Meh cultural festival, a scene of togetherness.  Every Cap Go Meh, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono routinely stays up late with the most honorable Chinese conglomerate figures in one of the most privileged capital buildings, the Jakarta Convention Center. It’s a very elite scene, untouchable for most of Indonesian people, including the Chinese. Matakin presidium member, Ws. Bingky Irawan, expressed his concern. “Sorry to say, the Chinese have often been outrageous,” he said. One of the drafters of Presidential Decree No. 6/2000 that stopped discrimination against Chinese-Indonesians, Bingky thinks the current Imlek celebration has shifted far away from that aspired to in 1995 by those who fought for the freedom.  A deep bleary hole seems to remain to find the true treasure of Imlek. ●

Indeks Prestasi