http://publikasi.permias.org/pub/pub1-11.htm
Publikasi
Permias Vol 1(1), March, 2001
This paper
will be published this year in a book, title "Violence in
Indonesia"
Editor : Ingrid Wessel and Georgia Wimhoefer. Publisher :
Abera, Hamburg, Germany.
From Riots to Pogroms?: Shifting Patterns of ‘Disorder’ in Indonesia
John
T. Sidel
School of Oriental and African Studies
University of London
I.
Introduction
This
paper focuses on the pattern of ‘anti-Chinese riots’ which
occurred in Indonesia in the late Suharto period, most
notably the
instances of rioting in Medan, Pekalongan, Rengasdengklok,
Situbondo,
Tasikmalaya, Banjarmasin, and Ujungpandang in 1994-97, the
‘food
riots’ along the northern coast of Java in January-February
1998, and the rioting in Jakarta, Solo, Medan, and Palembang in
May 1998. The paper offers an outline of a book which the
author
is currently writing, using the title suggested above and
drawing
on research undertaken in Surabaya and Jakarta since
September 1997.
This essay thus represents the floating of a ‘trial balloon’
for a larger project, in the hopes that it will generate
further
discussion and debate.
This
essay also reflects the author’s trepidation in the face of
the considerable intellectual and methodological difficulties
in
studying a phenomenon such as ‘riots’, not to mention
the real limitations of his empirical knowledge of specific
Indonesian
riots. Other scholars of ‘riots’ have pointed out the
problematic nature of most causal explanations for riots,
especially
those reliant on the metaphor of fires or explosions and the
identification
of ‘sparks’ or ‘triggers’ to explain the timing
of events. Studies of individual riots have also highlighted
the
difficulty of describing riots, given the often diverging --
and
changing -- accounts available for any given event. The old
Russian
proverb, "he lies like an eyewitness," comes immediately
to mind.
Nonetheless,
‘anti-Chinese riots’ in the late Suharto era are certainly
worthy of investigation. Clearly, the phenomenon
of‘anti-Chinese
riots’ -- anticipation and fear of such riots in early 1998,
and reactions to the events of 13-15 May 1998 in Jakarta --
played
an important role in Suharto’s downfall, as the author has
argued elsewhere(1). More importantly, perhaps, there
is ample reason to believe that ‘anti-Chinese riots’ hold
a greater significance for the prospects of democratization
in Indonesia
since Suharto’s resignation in May 1998. The only two
consolidated
competitive liberal democracies in Southeast Asia, after all,
are
found in the two countries in the region where assimilation
-- rather
than segregation and stigmatization -- of Chinese immigrants
has
proceeded most successfully, suggesting that there is an
important
link between ‘the Chinese question’ and the prospects
for democracy in Indonesia. Meanwhile, the exaggerated fears
and
apocalyptic predictions of ‘anti-Chinese riots’ in early
1998 may be worth reflecting upon today as Indonesia
confronts rising concern about ‘communal violence’ in Maluku and elsewhere
in the archipelago.
II.
Four Category Errors
The
last four years of the Suharto era (1994-1998) were marked by
the
sporadic occurrence of rioting, in which the business
establishments,
houses of worship, residences, and property of ethnic-Chinese
Indonesians
were among the most prominent targets of deliberate
destruction.
Riots occurred in such prominent cities and provincial towns as
Medan, Pekalongan, Rengasdengklok, Situbondo, Tasikmalaya,
Banjarmasin,
and Ujungpandang during this period. With the onset of the
economic
crisis in late 1997, moreover, anticipation and fear of further
-- and more widespread -- rioting grew considerably, with
media coverage of military and police preparations for riots (e.g. articles
titled "Malang ‘rusuh’" about riot simulation exercises) and
rumors of impending rioting reaching near-panic level
in early 1998. As a foreign ‘expert’ on Indonesia based
in Surabaya at the time, the author found himself besieged with
invitations to dine and drink with the dozens of foreign
correspondents
and television cameramen who descended upon the capital of
East Java, which according to the Asian Wall Street Journal would soon
face a ‘tidal wave’ of anti-Chinese violence. While only
a few small-scale ‘food riots’ occurred in January-February
1998, disappointing the parachute journalists and speeding
their
departure for other prospective ‘hot spots’ around the
globe, the events in Jakarta, Solo, Medan, and Palembang in
mid-May
1998 brought ‘anti-Chinese riots’ in Indonesia back to
center stage.
Interpretations
of these riots varied considerably, and yet four distinctive
kinds
of explanations could be discerned amidst the muddle of
journalistic
prose and official commentary, all of which might be
described as based on essential -- and essentialist -- category errors. First
of all, some commentators, both foreign and Indonesian,
tended to
describe the riots in terms of the psychological phenomenon
known
as ‘amok’. As the Commander-in-Chief of the United States
Pacific Command (CINCPAC) noted after a brief visit to
Indonesia, "Amok is a Malay word. Indonesians riot at the drop of a hat."
Such a view of riots in Indonesia, it must be acknowledged,
contains
a pearly grain of truth: Indonesia is really the only country
in
Southeast Asia where the kind of disruptive collective action
connoted
by the term ‘riot’ has occurred so frequently in recent
years, especially with the property of ethnic-Chinese residents
as a primary target. Yet such a view is clearly based on a
racist stereotype of ‘Malays’ and a logical fallacy regarding
the incorporation of foreign words into the English language:
terms
like dacoit and thug, after all, tell us more about the
preoccupations
of British colonial officials in the Indian Subcontinent than
about
the putative proclivity of ‘the natives’ for banditry(2).
More
importantly, perhaps, an understanding of rioting in
late-twentieth-century
Indonesia based on the notion of ‘running amok’ suffers
from severe descriptive and explanatory limitations. On no
occasion,
after all, were rioters described by observers as seized by a
‘murderous
frenzy’. Instead of random violence against ethnic-Chinese
Indonesians, most accounts reveal a distinctive, consistent
repertoire
of rioting, in which buildings, automobiles, and looted goods
were
set on fire or otherwise destroyed. Footage from the May 1998
rioting
in Jakarta likewise reveals an atmosphere in which little
frenzy
or anger is in evidence, and in which the line between
participation
and spectatorship is conspicuously blurred. As E.P. Thompson
commented
with reference to the actions of the English crowd in the
eighteenth
century, "[i]t is the restraint, rather than the disorder,
which is remarkable; and there can be no doubt that the actions
were approved by an overwhelming popular consensus(3)."
Moreover,
a pseudo-psychological theory of rioting as ‘running amok’
fails to explain the pattern of rioting in terms of timing
and location:
why in some towns and cities, at certain moments, but not
others?
A
second view is that of the riots as what Thompson describes
(and
derides) as "spasmodic episodes," following a stimulus-response
logic in which rising prices lead via hardship and hunger to
rioting.
The grain of truth in this kind of analysis is found in the
cases
of rioting after the onset of the economic crisis in
Indonesia in late 1997, which occurred against the backdrop of a sudden rise
in inflation, unemployment, and hardship for millions of
Indonesians.
More importantly, perhaps, the increasing frequency of ‘riots’
in the 1990s coincided with a noticeable rise in unemployment
among
young men in urban areas, especially including among young
men with
higher levels of education(4).
Yet
this kind of analysis is deeply flawed as well, based as it
is on
a simplistic and reductionist understanding of social action,
which
Thompson caricatures so wittily.(5) The view of riots as
‘rebellions
of the belly’, moreover, provides a poor guide for describing
and explaining what Indonesian rioters did when they rioted:
they
attacked buildings -- and not only commercial establishments --
and by all accounts they engaged more in the destruction and
burning
of property than in opportunistic looting. Even in the
Jakarta riots
of May 1998, where one friend of the author was told, "Rakyat
belanja, diskonto seratus persen!" (The People are shopping,
one hundred percent discount!), the greatest losses suffered by
stores were due to fires, rather than looting, and many
looted goods
were returned after the rioting subsided.
More
curious perhaps, is the weakness of the ‘socio-economic tension
chart’ for explaining the timing and extent of rioting in
Indonesia
in the 1990s. The vast majority of ‘anti-Chinese riots’
occurred before the onset of the economic crisis, during a
period
of rapid economic growth. In fact, what is most striking is how
little rioting occurred in the context of the economic
crisis, especially
if we consider that the ‘food riots’ of January-February
1998 were notably small in scale and in all likelihood
instigated
and orchestrated by elements in the Armed Forces, and that
the May
1998 rioting in Jakarta and elsewhere was almost certainly
planned,
provoked, and coordinated by military elements as well.
A
third prism through which some commentators have viewed the
riots
is that of Benjamin Barber’s book "Jihad Vs. McWorld,"wherein
Indonesian rioting is seen as a form of ‘local resistance’
to the forces of globalization, voiced in the idiom of Islam.
(6)Here
the element of truth in this view is found in the pattern of
rioting,
as most of the riots in the 1994-97 period occurred in towns
and
cities where Islamic devotion -- and institutions of worship
and
learning -- occupied a conspicuously prominent and legitimate
place
in the public sphere. Many of the riots commenced in
response to
incidents involving local Islamic schools and teachers, with
Islamic
students among the ‘shock troops’ of the rioting and Christian
churches among the buildings destroyed by the crowds. The ‘food
riots’ of early 1998 likewise occurred mostly along the
northern
coast of Java, in pasisir towns of a strongly santri (devout
Islamic)
character. Even the rioting in Jakarta occurred against the
backdrop
of increasing activity and vocality on the part of militantly
anti-Christian
(and anti-Chinese) Islamic groups such as KISDI and Dewan
Dakwah
Islamiyah Indonesia.
That
said, the view of the ‘anti-Chinese riots’ in Indonesia
in the 1990s as emblematic of a broader, global conflict
between
‘Jihad’ and ‘McWorld’, or a Huntingtonian ‘Clash
of Civilizations,’ does not stand up in the face of serious
critical scrutiny. The riots in 1994-97, after all, took
place against
the backdrop of unprecedented upward social mobility and
economic
prosperity for Indonesian Muslims, in which thousands, indeed
millions, of Indonesian Muslims eagerly joined ‘McWorld’, partaking
of Western-style education, adhering to distinctly modernist
conceptions
of religious faith and identity, and aspiring to more active
participation
in the global economy. As with the other kinds of
explanations sketched
above, moreover, this ‘Jihadvs. McWorld’ interpretation
fails to account for the timing of the rioting, most notably
the
precipitious increase in rioting in 1994-97, the scattered food
riots of early 1998, the mass rioting in mid-May 1998, and
then,
most curiously of all, the virtual absence of ‘anti-Chinese
rioting’ thereafter.
Fourthly
and finally, some commentators situated the ‘anti-Chinese
riots’
of the late 1990s in the broader context of
Indonesia’s‘simmering
cauldron of communal resentments and conflicts’, anticipating
disintegration and disorder in post-Suharto Indonesia along the
lines of Bosnia or Rwanda. Such a view is understandable, of
course,
if we place the anti-Chinese slogans and Church burnings that
marked
the rioting of 1994-98 against the backdrop of the violent
conflict
between Dayaks and Madurese transmigrants in West Kalimantan
in 1996-97 and the more recent strife between Muslims and Christians
in Ambon and elsewhere in Maluku.
Yet
as suggested above, such a view is highly misleading in its
assimilation
of ‘anti-Chinese’ riots to a communal violence/ethnic
cleansing paradigm. The vast majority of the rioting, after
all,
involved virtually no violence against persons of Chinese
ancestry
in Indonesia, but rather violence against property
(especially buildings),
and those who died in the rioting -- mostly rioters
themselves --
were invariably victims of fires and/or of the security
forces themselves.
In this context, the rapes of ethnic-Chinese women during the
May
1998 rioting stand out as exceptional events and as evidence
that
military elements -- who had engaged in mass rapes in East
Timor
in earlier years -- were directly responsible for these
tragic events.This
distinction, between ‘anti-Chinese riots’ in which violence
was directed against property rather than persons, and the
violent
conflicts between Dayaks and Madurese in West Kalimantan and
between
Muslims and Christians in Maluku, is all the more meaningful if
we consider that since 1998 there have been virtually no
‘anti-Chinese
riots’ in Indonesia. The upward trend of increasing rioting
in the late 1990s reached its dramatic apogee in May 1998 and
then dramatically reversed with the fall of Suharto.
In
short, the four standard interpretations of ‘anti-Chinese
riots’
in Indonesia in the late 1990s raise more questions than they
answer,
questions which I shall tentatively address in the remainder of
this brief paper. First of all, why of all the countries in
Southeast
Asia is it only in Indonesia that we have seen such a pattern
of ‘anti-Chinese riots’ in recent years? Secondly, why did‘anti-Chinese
riots’ increase in frequency, and, arguably, intensity, in
the late Suharto era (1994-98) and then disappear from view?
Thirdly,
why did such riots occur in certain towns and cities at certain
times, and not in others? Fourthly, why did these riots
assume a
certain form -- why did they crystallize in the form of a
consistent,
distinctive repertoire? Fifthly and finally, what has been
the significance
of these riots for Indonesian society and politics?
Drawing
on available documentary materials about various riots in
1994-98,
as well as a wide range of other relevant sources, the rest
of this
paper addresses these questions in terms of three complementary
lines of inquiry. First of all, the ‘anti-Chinese riots’
of 1994-98 are viewed in the light of historical patterns of
class relations and the process of capitalist development in Indonesia
in the Suharto era. Secondly, these riots are located within
the
context of the peculiar political sociology of religion in
Indonesia.
Thirdly and finally, these riots are situated against the
backdrop
of the Suharto regime, its entrenchment, maintenance,
internal tensions,
and ultimate demise, and the various kinds of ‘conspiracy
theories’
which link instances of rioting to cabals and conspiracies
initiated
by elements within the regime.Throughout the paper, as the
title
suggests, there is a concern for the phenomenological dimension
of rioting in Indonesia during the period in question, not only
the self-understandings of rioters themselves, however
difficult
that might be to recover and represent, but also the ways in
which
‘riots’ operate in the discursive terrain of Indonesian
politics.
III.
Community and Class: "Capitalism with a Chinese Face"
In
contrast with the four ‘category errors’ identified above,
one alternative prism through which to understand ‘rioting’
in Indonesia in the 1990s is to situate this phenomenon
within the
broader constellation of class relations and class conflict
in Indonesian
society during a period of rapid capitalist development,
urbanization,
and industrialization. In this regard, class relations in
Indonesia
are marked by at least two features which contrast sharply with
the rest of Southeast Asia, and which bear directly upon the
question
of Indonesia’s distinctive pattern of ‘rioting’.
First of all, and most obviously, Indonesia is notable for
the historical pattern of segregation and stigmatization of ‘Chinese’
immigrants beginning in the era of Dutch colonial rule, in
sharp
contrast with the assimilationist policies and practices
found in
Siam and the Philippines. The result is that the business
class,
which, as elsewhere in Southeast Asia is overwhelmingly
dominated
by businessmen of Chinese ancestry, is perceived to be foreign,
and problematically so. ‘The Chinese’ are identified with
the workings -- and the intrusions -- of the market economy,
and
‘Chinese’, as Jim Siegel has noted, operates as a sign
for ‘money’.(7) In the absence of a business class that
is properly ‘domestic’, the market economy is viewed with
considerable skepticism and ambivalence, with terms like
kapitalis
and konglomerat assuming a distinctly sinister, menacing
tonality,
and Communism, Socialism, Islamism and various forms of
economic nationalism and populism attracting considerable support.
Secondly,
and perhaps more mysteriously, Indonesia is also notable for
the
strength of its local communities and the horizontal bonds
among
peasant villagers and urban poor folk independent of vertical
clientelist
networks and linkages to the hierarchy of the state. The
institution
of the neighborhood watch (ronda), the practice of collective
beating
and shaming of thieves, and the protection of suspected PKI
members
and sympathizers by fellow villagers in many localities in
1965-66,
and the manifold forms of village-level community protest in
the
1990s all reflect a density of what local community
solidarity and autonomy that finds few parallels elsewhere in Southeast
Asia (with
the exception of the famous ‘closed corporate communities’
of central and northern Vietnam). This pattern of relatively
strong
desa (village) and kampung ties may be attributed to enduring
pre-colonial
traditions, (8)the reification and reinforcement of village
boundaries, leadership, and membership in the Dutch colonial era,(9) and/or
the autonomous local institutions of religious worship and
learning in the country, most notably the pesantren.(10)
This
backdrop is important if we consider the varying responses of
local
communities across industrializing, urbanizing Southeast Asia
to
the intrusions of state and market over the past decade of
rapid economic growth in the region. In urban and suburban areas in
Indonesia,
Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand in the 1980s and
1990s,
industrial estates, residential subdivisions, and golf
courses began
to displace rice paddies and peasant villages, and department
stores
and shopping malls came to replace ‘traditional’ markets
and local ‘mom-and-pop’ stores. The parallel processes
of urbanization, industrialization, and ‘WalMart-ization’
in Southeast Asia, however, met w ith diverging responses in
terms
of local communities’ resistance to these forms of encroachment
and marginalization. Of all the countries in the region,
Indonesia stood out in terms of the pattern of land disputes, wildcat labor
strikes, and protests against environmental degradation
initiated
by local communities against intruding business ventures and
government
projects.(11) Nothing that I witnessed in the ‘growth
zones’ of Cavite and Cebu provinces in the Philippines in the
late 1980s and early 1990s, for example, compared with the
extent
of local struggles over the terms of ‘progress’ -- and the
distribution of the benefits thereof -- that I found a few years
later in East Java: patches of urban and suburban land fought
over
for decades, factories burned down by angry crowds, and major
government
projects -- like the proposed bridge connecting Surabaya to
Madura
-- delayed or cancelled due to virulent local resistance.(12)
In
this context, the following question comes to mind: what if the
phenomenon typically identified as an ‘anti-Chinese riot’
were understood as just another variation on this theme of
community
protest against the intrusions of market and state in
Indonesia?
The sites of ‘rioting’ in 1994-98, after all, were mostly
major urban centers -- Medan, Ujungpandang, Banjarmasin, and,
eventually,
Jakarta -- or provincial towns -- Rengasdengklok, Situbondo,
Tasikmalaya
-- in the rapidly industrializing and urbanizing provinces of
East
and West Java. The rioting in Pekalongan in November 1995,
for example,
occurred against the backdrop of the increasing marginalization
of the local batik industry by major Jakarta-based companies
like
Batik Keris in the 1980s and 1990s.(13) The events of
October 1996 in Situbondo likewise transpired in the context of
land evictions connected with the construction of a major oil
refinery
in the town and a major dispute between farmers and a local
sugar
mill. (14)The riot in Ujungpandang in September 1997,
erupted in a city which in preceding years had seen
increasing restrictions
on small-scale market vendors, the construction of major
shopping
malls, and the initiation of controversial real-estate projects
in which urban poor folk were displaced or evicted to make
way for
new middle-class residential subdivisions and business
establishments.(15)
And
so forth. In all such cases, these encroachments and intrusions
upon local communities and their livelihoods were seen as
involving
and benefiting ‘Chinese’ businessmen, whether Jakarta-based
magnates or so-called konglomerat lokal, who through the
corruption
and collusion of government officials were able to ride
roughshod
over legitimate local concerns.(16) In short, the rioting in
these
towns represented protests against capital, in a country
where the
face of capital happens to be conspicuously ‘Chinese’.
The violence of ‘the mob’, after all, was directed not
against ‘Chinese’ persons, but against property: stores
were damaged and burned down, and goods were looted and set
alight
in the streets, with looting overshadowed by this symbolic
destruction
-- rather than consumption -- of commodities and economic
power.
IV. Politik Aliran: Religion, Education, Recognition
Yet
this focus on the political economy of capitalist development
in
Indonesia and this portrayal of the moral economy of
community protest
against the encroachments of Capital should not obscure other
dimensions
of the Indonesian ‘crowd’ in the late twentieth century,
most notably the importance of religion. For just as many of
the
most celebrated land disputes and other instances of
community resistance
to the incursions of state and market in Indonesia in the 1990s
involved religious leaders in localities known as areas of
Islamic
devotion, so did many of the ‘riots’ during this period
prominently feature Islamic ins titutions of learning and
worship,
Moslem students and leaders, and Islam as an idiom of
protest. Moreover,
if the riots were in part self-evidently ‘anti-Chinese’
-- with the official, derogatory, term ‘Cina’ featuring
prominently in riot graffiti and slogans -- so were some of the
targets identifiably Christian, as suggested by the number of
Catholic
and Protestant churches set afire during the rioting.
This
aspect of the riots must be understood against the backdrop
of the
distinctive features of the sociology of religion in
Indonesia in
the twentieth century. As is well known, early Portuguese
influences
in eastern Indonesia and later Dutch missionary efforts
throughout
the archipelago created sizeable pockets of Catholics and
Protestants,
and together with the largely non-Moslem ethnic-Chinese
minority,
these Christians were, by the early twentieth century,
conspicuously
overrepresented in the ranks of the small but growing urban
middle
class of traders, professionals, and civil servants. By the
time
of independence this small Christian minority -- thanks to
early
exposure to the urban cash economy (e.g. in the
ethnic-Chinese case),
early access to Western-style education (e.g. missionary
schools),
and discriminatory state policies (e.g. in recruitment to the
colonial
army) -- enjoyed a privileged position in business, the state
bureaucracy
(including the Army), and the urban social élite.(17)
Against
this backdrop, Christian elements of the urban middle class
enjoyed
a special position under the Suharto regime from its
inauguration
in the mid-late 1960s. University lecturers and student
activists
affiliated with the Partai Katolik and other Christian groups
joined
the rallies against the PKI and Soekarno in the critical
first months
of the New Order, and enjoyed something of a hegemonic position
as the regime's leading political operatives for years to come.
Most notoriously, General Ali Moertopo, close Suharto
associate,
political fixer, and head of Opsus (Special Operations),
cultivated
relations with a cluster of (ethnic-Chinese) Catholic
activists like Harry Tjan Silalahi and the brothers Yusuf and Sofyan Wanandi
(Liem Bian Kie and Liem Bian Koen) who, with Moertopo's
blessings,
founded the Center for Strategic and International Studies
(CSIS)
in the early 1970s. This clique of "political technocrats"
helped craft the defusion of Konfrontasi, draft the blueprint
for
ASEAN, build up Golkar and mastermind its first electoral
success
in 1971, and put an internationally palatable ‘spin’ on the
invasion of East Timor in 1975.(18) In the 1980s, moreover,
the prolonged tenure of a Eurasian Catholic, General Benny
Moerdani,
as intelligence czar and security chief reinforced both the
reality
and the impression of a ‘Jesuit mafia’ entrenched in the
seat of national power.
If
this macro-political constellation located a cluster of
highly visible
Christian figures in Jakarta within the innermost corridors
of the
Suharto regime, Catholic and Protestant worthies often occupied
a similar position of local prominence in many areas of the
archipelago.
A significant portion of ethnic-Chinese konglomerat lokal
were active
members and benefactors of Catholic and Protestant churches,
and
Christian congregations and schools fed into networks that
linked
local Christian communities to major universities and to
professional classes and government positions in urban centers including
Jakarta.
Just as ethnic-Chinese were disproportionately well represented
among the local business classes, so were Christians
over-represented among urban professionals, with a high coincidence of
educational
achievement, wealth, and religious activism in many cities
and towns
around Indonesia.
At
the same time, the policies of the Suharto regime contributed
to
an intensification of religious identities and cleavages in
Indonesian
society. The anti-communist pogroms of the mid-1960s, for
example,
led millions of Indonesians to seek refuge -- from
accusations of
affiliation with the ‘atheist’ PKI -- in religious
identities, associations, and activities. Government regulations stipulating
that all Indonesian citizens must adhere to one of the
officially
sanctioned monotheistic faiths, prohibiting inter-faith
marriage,
and mandating religious instruction in the public school system
served not only to harden religious boundaries but also to
objectify
and "functionalize" religion as the basis of public identities.
Moreover,
the Soekarno-era pattern of aliran politics, in which the
main political
parties -- PNI, PKI, Nahdlatul Ulama, and Masjumi --
represented
different socio-cultural groups in Indonesian society, was
reconfigured
under Suharto. Aliran politics, after all, was not
primordial politics
at all, but rather a pattern of political association and
competition
in which the enduring socio-political cleavages were
essentially
based on education: between ‘modernist’ (i.e. madrasah
-educated) and ‘traditionalist’(i.e. pesantren-schooled)
Moslems, and between these santri (devout,
or, literally, student) Moslems, (missionary-educated)
Christians,
and the broad mass of unlettered or secular-educated nominal
Moslems.
This was not "group" politics but rather a certain kind
of patronage politics, in which these aliran -- literally,
streams
or currents -- provided the basis of elite recruitment and
social
reproduction via the political parties who carved out niches
within
the Indonesian state. With the violent end of the Soekarno
era and
the forced demobilization of the main political parties,
recruitment
into the political class continued, but now through the
university
system, through which local functionaries, Golkar
parliamentarians,
and civilian cabinet ministers were selected, typically through
student organizations and other networks as the primary
channels
for an upward flow along enduring aliran lines.
With
the explosion of tertiary education in the 1970s, 1980s, and
1990s,
moreover, new and expanded universities -- whether secular,
Christian,
or Moslem -- graduated increasing numbers of aspiring
urban-middle Indonesian Moslems. On the one hand, these three decades saw the
emergence of a new, upwardly mobile, modernist Moslem middle
class,
Moslem urban professionals and civil servants, HMI graduates
plugged
into Golkar, and, by the 1990s in the era of ICMI, Moslem
politicians
and businessmen who were finally rising to the top of the
political
class and the embryonic pribumi bourgeoisie. On the other hand,
the same period still saw considerable disappointment for the
majority
of Indonesian Moslems, for whom such upward mobility remained
largely
unrealized. Even in the high-growth years of the early-mid
1990s,
economists noted high rates of unemployment in Indonesia not
just
for urban youth in general, but for urban youth with tertiary
education
in particular.(19)
On
the one hand, by the 1990s Indonesia had experienced a
noticeable
Islamicization of the public sphere, in which Islamic
education,
Islamic worship, Islamic commodities, Islamic publishing, and
preaching
had expanded not only the employment possibilities for
professional
Moslems (as opposed to Moslem professionals), but also the
claims
made on public space and on the accepted notions of civility
and
propriety in urban middle-class Indonesian society. After
more than
two decades of the New Order, the rising number of
Indonesians schooled
under a distinctly, self-consciously "Islamic" rubric
had become a visible feature of urban society in many parts
of the
archipelago. The public sphere of modern, urban middle class
life,
for the very first time in Indonesian history, was now also
claimed
by those who defined themselves as pious Moslems.(20) On the
other hand,
the continuing prominence and evident opulence of Catholic
and Protestant
churches, and the increasing visibility and commercial
centrality
of non-Moslem-owned department stores and shopping malls on the
urban landscape, provided ample reminders that the goal of
upward
social mobility for the majority of Indonesia’s --
predominantly
Moslem -- citizens remained largely unrealized.
In
this context, it is worth noting that the vast majority of
the ‘anti-Chinese’
riots of the late Suharto era took place in towns and cities
well
known as established centers of Islamic piety, worship, and
learning,
and that the series of events which preceded and supposedly
‘triggered’
the riots were invariably inflected by the idiom and
institutions
of Islam. The riots, after all, were typically preceded by
the distribution
of surat kaleng (anonymous letters), rumors, and
controversies involving
proposals for the construction of new Protestant or Catholic
churches
and accusations that a local campaign of kristenisasi was under
way.
Moreover,
many of the incidents that appear to have precipitated the
riots,
the so-called proximate causes or immediate "triggers,"
involved perceived insults, violations, and abuses suffered
by locally
venerated Islamic figures and institutions. Thus the beating of
pesantren officials (and rumors of their deaths) at the hands
of
the police set off the riots in late 1996 in Tasikmalaya, and
the
conclusion of a court case involving alleged blasphemy provided
the occasion for the rioting in Situbondo in the same year. The
May 1997 riot in Banjarmasin likewise arose in the context of
heightened
tension between supporters of the Islamic party PPP and
Golkar’s
backers in the lead-up to the election, and it was the
killing of
a IAIN (state Islamic teaching college) lecturer’s daughter
by a mentally disturbed ethnic-Chinese peddler that
stimulated the
looting and burning of ‘Chinese’ shops in Ujungpandang
in September of that year. In many of these riots, the ‘shock
troops’ were santri from the local pesantren or HMI students
from the IAIN, and Christian churches were among the key
targets
of destruction.(21) Even the May 1998 rioting in Jakarta and
other cities
was preceded by a rising tide of attacks on prominent
ethnic-Chinese
Indonesians by government officials and military officers close
to militant Islamic groups like KISDI and Dewan Dakwah
Islamiyah
Indonesia, and by a call for jihad against ‘hoarders and
speculators’
(penimbun dan spekulator) by the quasi-governmental Assembly
of Indonesian Islamic Scholars (Majelis Ulama Indonesia) earlier that
year.
V.
‘Pihak Tertentu’: Conspiracies and the Indonesian State
Finally,
as the case of the May 1998 riots in Jakarta suggests, the
timing
of ‘anti-Chinese riots’ can be linked to the macropolitical
context of national politics and to the rise and fall of the
New
Order regime. The first set of such riots, after all,
occurred in
West Java in 1963 in the context of the ascendancy and
increasing assertiveness of the Indonesian military in the final years of
Demokrasi
Terpimpin under Sukarno, and the Malari riots of 1974 (as
well as
the disturbances in Solo and Semarang in 1980) transpired
amidst
heightening tensions within the Suharto regime. Finally, the
wave
of riots in various cities and provincial towns in 1994-1997
coincided
with the last years of the New Order, just as the conflagration
in Jakarta in May 1998 erupted just a few days before the
resignation
of long-time president Suharto.
The
link between ‘anti-Chinese riots’ and the New Order regime
has been understood in different ways by various
commentators. First
of all, one narrowly functionalist explanation situates rioting
in an authoritarian context in which only through
spontaneous, disruptive
collective action can the broad mass of the population find
an outlet
for their grievances and their desire for political
participation.
A more structural-functionalist version, by contrast, asserts
that
the New Order regime was so dependent on a notion of ‘order’
that it invariably produced some kind of excess, namely
dis-order,
whose manifestations and subsequent repression helped to
maintain
a kind of -- punctuated -- equilibrium.
Alternatively,
a less structuralist, and more agency-driven account casts
‘anti-Chinese
riots’ as part and parcel of the demobilizational tactics of
the Suharto regime, in which disturbances against property
and against a vulnerable minority were used to discredit opposition to the
regime.
Thus the Malari riots provided the justification for the
crackdown
on student protests in the mid-1970s, the riot in Medan in 1994
was used to imprison Mochtar Pakphan and to immobilize the
SBSI,
the various riots in 1996 were reportedly staged as part of
‘Operasi
Naga Hijau’ and ‘Operasi Naga Merah’ against Nahdlatul
Ulama chairman Abdurrahman Wahid (‘Gus Dur’) and Partai
Demokrasi Indonesia leader Megawati Soekarnoputri,
respectively,
(22) and the May 1998 riots were allegedly instigated
by elements of the military so as to precipitate the use of
emergency
powers against student protesters and other forces mobilized
against
the Suharto regime. A variation on this theory links such riots
to factional infighting within the regime, with disturbances
created
and then repressed by one clique of military officers to
discredit
a rival clique and curry favor with President Suharto. Thus,
for
example, both the Malari riots of 1974 and the disturbances
in Solo
and Semarang in 1980s have been tied to the machinations of
close
Suharto aide (Ret.) General Ali Moertopo, and to his rivalry
with
high-ranking military officers like General Soemitro in the
early-mid
1970s and General Benny Moerdani in the early 1980s.(23)
Likewise the various riots in the mid-1990s occurred in the context
of the purging of Moerdani’s supporters from the Armed Forces
leadership and other key centres of power in the regime (a
process
known as de-Benny-isasi) and the rise of self-consciously
Moslem
officers and civilian political elites during this period.
Finally,
the May 1998 riots in Jakarta and other cities have been
understood
as part of an effort by then Kostrad (Army Strategic Reserve
Command)
commander and presidential son-in-law Lt. Gen. Prabowo Subianto
to undermine and engineer the ouster of then Defense
Minister and
Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief General Wiranto.(24)
In
many of these cases, there is indeed evidence of a link between
the riots and the realm of elite politics. In most instances,
for
example, the timing of a riot stands out as coinciding with a
period
of rising challenges to, and tensions within, the New Order
regime.
In many cases, moreover, the reaction of police and military
personnel
to the disturbances has been described as strikingly slow,
weak,
and lenient, especially in the context of the security forces’
well-documented record of violence against the population
over the
years. Suspicions of instigation and orchestration by
elements within
the regime have also been reinforced by the proximity of many
riot
sites to military camps and installations, and the virtually
simultaneous
outbreak of rioting across a distance of many kilometers
(e.g. in
the riots in Situbondo in 1996 and in the Greater Jakarta
area in
May 1998). In some cases, most notably the May 1998 riots,
eyewitnesses
have also claimed that military troops in mufti,
para-military groups,
and ‘protected’ criminal elements were visibly involved
in the instigation, provocation, and orchestration of rioting
and
looting.(25)
That
said, these so-called conspiracy theories suffer from notable
limitations
as well. For example, only in very few cases, such as the
Trisakti
shootings on 12 May 1998, is there evidence of a military
hand in
the actual events commonly identified as having precipitated or
‘triggered’ the rioting, and more generally there is an
understandable paucity of credible, documented evidence of
instigation
and orchestration. More importantly, perhaps, such ‘conspiracy
theorizing’ often rests on the problematic assumption that
the demonstration of capacity and the deduction of motive
suffice
as the basis for an explanation of a given riot. In fact,
conspiracies often go astray, or run aground, or encounter other
conspiracies,
and it is worth noting that very few of the alleged
conspirators
said to have instigated riots over the years in fact
succeeded in
achieving their supposed political aims.
Moreover,
even though the Indonesian military has been guilty of
considerable
violence and manipulation over the years, and the notion of
"disorder"
in Indonesian society and the putative need for a "strong
state"
to restore order is highly problematic and politically
pernicious,
the denial of Indonesian society’s capacity for self-expression
and mobilization and the instinct to look for a dalang ‘behind’
the rioting may well reflect excessive conservatism and
elitism,
as Jim Siegel argued many years ago.(26) In fact, as noted
above,
there are plenty of examples of Indonesians’ capacity for
disruptive
collective action over the years, and, regardless of the number
of instigated, ‘fake’ riots over the years, it was clearly
the fear of a ‘real’ riot that prevented the kind of electoral
fraud and manipulation that would have won Golkar yet another
manufactured
victory in the elections of 1999. More curiously, perhaps,
the notion
of riots as the products of conspiracies leaves inexplicable
the
virtual disappearance of ‘anti-Chinese riots’
from the scene of Indonesian politics since the fall of Suharto.
In this transitional period of incipient (re)democratization,
in
which military conspiracies and ‘communal’ conflicts abound,
why no ‘anti-Chinese riots’?
VI.
Conclusions
The
pages above have suggested something of an answer to this
question.
In part, the preceding discussion has suggested, ‘anti-Chinese
riots’ have reflected a certain kind of geographical, even
architectural struggle over public space, in which ‘things
are put in their place’ or new claims are made on the urban
landscape, and perhaps some kind of sacrifice is being made with
the burning of goods and buildings. In part, the analysis above
has noted, riots operate on a discursive plane, beginning
with rumors
and accusations and leaving a trail of rumors and accusations
in
their wake. Yet, above all, this essay has stressed, riots must
be understood as a sociological phenomenon, in terms of
social networks
and those who fall out of them, and in terms of the
mobilization
of people to gain a certain kind of recognition beyond what
is accorded
them through the channels of state power.
Seen
in this light, the almost immediate disappearance of
‘anti-Chinese
riots’ in the post-Suharto period suggests that a sociological
sea change of sorts has occurred virtually overnight. With
the overthrow
of a bureaucratic authoritarian regime and the establishment of
competitive elections as the new basis for the circulation
and accumulation
of power, the pattern of social networking and competition
has shifted.
The competition -- for resources, for recruitment, for
recognition
-- now flows in new directions, with claims over jobs, over
‘turf’,
and over the public sphere now fought over more freely on
more ‘horizontal’
terms. Thus recent years have seen a broad array of conflicts
between
gangs in adjacent urban kampong, between rival religious
sects in
remote rural desa, and, most notably in Maluku, between
self-identified
‘Christians’ and ‘Muslims’ in neighboring settlementsaround
the country. Unlike the ‘anti-Chinese riots’ of yesteryear,
these conflicts have involved not just sporadic destruction
of private
property but also considerable violence against persons and
the drawing of more enduring boundaries between entire communities.
As
the preceding analysis has suggested, such conflicts should not
simply be bundled together with ‘anti-Chinese riots’ as
evidence of a uniquely Indonesian psycho-pathological
proclivity
for primordial violence, nor should they be treated as
permanent
features of the Indonesian political landscape. Happily
enough, apocalyptic predictions of Indonesia’s imminent dissolution
or descent into ‘anarchy’ and ‘communal violence’ have proven
wrong in the recent past, as the now faded fears of
‘anti-Chinese pogroms’ in 1998 amply illustrate. Contrary
to the fulminations of New Order ideologues and apologists over
the years, what has followed the fall of Suharto is, for the
most
part, not ‘Disorder’ but Democracy, with ‘anti-Chinese
riots’ now replaced by new forms of political conflict,
participation,
and expression.
1 John T. Sidel, "Macet Total: Logics of Circulation and
Accumulation in the Demise of Indonesia's New Order,"
Indonesia,
66 (October 1998), pp 159-194.
2 See: Eduardo F. Ugarte, "'Like
a Mad Dog': The Perceived Savageness of 'The Malay' in
Euro-British and Euro-American Colonial Writing," Pilipinas, 28 (Spring
1997), pp. 97-118.
3 E.P. Thompson, "The Moral Economy
of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century," Past and
Present,
50 (February 1971), p. 112.
4 See: Chris Manning, Indonesian Labour
in Transition: An East Asian Success Story? (Cambridge:
Cambridge
University Press, 1998), pp. 172-195.
5 "What is perhaps an occasion
for surprise is the schizoid intellectual climate, which
permits
this quantitative historiography to co-exist (in the same
places
and sometimes in the same minds) with a social anthropology
which
derives from Durkheim, Weber, or Malinowski. We know all
about the
delicate tissue of social norms and reciprocities which
regulates
the life of Trobriand islanders, and the psychic energies
involved
in the cargo cults of Melanesia; but at some point this
infinitely-complex
social creature, Melanesian man, becomes (in our histories) the
eighteenth-century English collier who claps his hand
spasmodically
upon his stomach, and responds to elementary economic stimuli."
Ibid., p. 78.
6 Benjamin R. Barber, Jihad Vs. McWorld:
How Globalism and Tribalism Are Reshaping the World (New
York: Ballantine
Books, 1996).
7 James T. Siegel, Solo in the New Order:
Language and Hierarchy in an Indonesian City (Princeton:
Princeton
University Press, 1986), pp. 232-254.
8 See, for example, Eric Wolf, "Closed
Corporate Peasant Communities in Meso-America and Central
Java,"
in J.M. Potter, M.N. Diaz, and G.M. Foster (eds.), Peasant
Society:
A Reader (Boston: 1967), pp. 230-245.
9 See, for example, Jan Breman, "The
Village on Java and the Early-Colonial State," Journal of
Peasant Studies, Volume 9, Number 4 (July 1982), pp. 189-240.
10 Sidney Jones, "The Javanese
Pesantren: Between Elite and Peasantry," in Charles F. Keyes
(ed.), Reshaping Local Worlds: Formal Education and Cultural
Change
in Rural Southeast Asia (New Haven: Yale University Southeast
Asia
Studies Monograph Series, 1991), pp. 19-41; M. Dawan
Rahardjo, "The Kyai, the Pesantren and the Village: A Preliminary Sketch,"
Prisma, Volume I, Number 1 (May 1975), pp. 32-43; and Feillard,
Islam et Armée, pp. 225-237.
11 See, for example, Stanley, Seputar
Kedung Ombo (Jakarta: Lembaga Studi dan Advokasi Masyarakat,
1994);
Ir. Herlianto, Urbanisasi, Pembangunan, dan Kerusuhan Kota
(Bandung:
Penerbit Alumni, 1997); Vedi R. Hadiz, Workers and the State in
New Order Indonesia (London: Routledge, 1997); and Douglas
Kammen,
"A Time To Strike: Industrial Strikes and Changing Class
Relations
in New Order Indonesia" (Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell
University,
1997).
12 Muthmainnah, Jembatan Suramadu: Respon
Ulama terhadap Industrialisasi (Yogyakarta: LKPSM, 1998).
13 See: Chantal Vuldy, Pekalongan: Batik et Islam
dans une ville du Nord de Java (Paris: École des Hautes Études
en Sciences Sociales, 1987); and Perilaku Kekerasan Kolektif:
Kondisi
dan Pemicu (Yogyakarta: Universitas Gadjah Mada, Pusat
Penelitian
Pembangunan Pedesaan dan Kawasan, 1997), pp. 220-226.
14 See, for example, Ahmad Suaedy, Th.
Sumartana, Elga Sarapung, and Lutfi Rahman, Draft Laporan
Survai
Peristiwa Situbondo 10 Oktober 1996 (Yogyakarta: Institut
DIAN/Interfidei,
1997), pp. 9-13.
15 See, for example, "Mencari Sebab
Amuk Meledak," Forum Keadilan, 6 Oktober 1997, pp. 19-20; and
Sukriansyah S. Latif and Tomi Lebang, Amuk Makassar (Jakart: Institut
Studi Arus Informasi, 1998), especially pp. 45-46, 81-103.
16 For an illuminating portrait of a konglomerat
lokal, see: Benny Subianto, "Potret Konglomerat Lokal,"
in Huru-Hara Rengasdengklok (Jakarta: Institut Studi Arus
Informasi,
1997), pp. 92-108.
17 On the close linkage between Christianity
and education in Indonesia, see: Gavin W. Jones, "Religion
and Education in Indonesia," Indonesia 22 (October 1976), pp.
19-56.
18 Richard Tanter, "Intelligence
Agencies and Third World Militarization: A Case Study of
Indonesia, 1966-1989," (Ph.D. dissertation, Monash University, 1991),
pp. 321-325, 430-432.
19 On this point, see: Chris Manning,
Indonesian Labour in Transition: An East Asian Success Story?
(Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 177-188.
20 For signs of this trend, see, for
example, the set of articles on "Boom Dai" in Tempo, 11
April 1992, pp. 13-23. See also: Robert Hefner, "Islam, State,
and Civil Society: ICMI and the Struggle for the Indonesian
Middle
Class," Indonesia 56 (October 1993), pp. 1-37; and R. William
Liddle, "The Islamic Turn in Indonesia: A Political
Explanation,"
Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 55, No. 3 (August 1996), pp.
613-634.
21 See, for example, Draft Laporan Survai
Peristiwa Situbondo 10 Oktober 1996 (Yogyakarta: Institut
DIAN/Interfidei,
1997); Amuk Banjarmasin (Jakarta: Yayasan Lembaga Bantuan Hukum
Indonesia, 1997); Huru-Hara Rengasdengklok (Jakarta: Institut
Studi
Arus Informasi, 1997); Amuk Makassar (Jakarta: Institut Studi
Arus
Informasi, 1998).
22 See, for example, the articles on
'Operasi Naga Hijau' in Forum Keadilan, 12 Februari 1997, pp.
12-21.
23 See, for example, Heru Cahyono, Pangkopkamtib
Jenderal Soemitro dan Peristiwa 15 Januari '74 (Jakarta:
Pustaka
Sinar Harapan, 1998); P. Bambang Siswoyo, Huru Hara Solo
Semarang
(Solo: Bhakti Pertiwi, 1980).
24 Laporan Akhir Tim Gabungan Pencari
Fakta Peristiwa Tanggal 13-15 Mei 1998 (Jakarta, 23 October
1998).
25 See, for example, Laporan Akhir Tim
Gabungan Pencari Fakta Peristiwa Tanggal 13-15 Mei 1998; and
Tim
Pencari Fakta GP Ansor Jatim: Fakta dan Kesaksian Tragedi
Situbondo
(Surabaya: 1997).
26 James Siegel, "'I was not there,
but...'," Archipel 46 (1993), pp. 59-65.