Ethnic tensions in Makassar Indonesia

Peace has returned to Makassar following protests triggered by a housemaid’s death at the hands of her Chinese-Indonesian employer, but there’s still an uneasy feeling in the air.

The reactions of residents and students have made many city residents, especially Chinese-Indonesians, feel uneasy. Chinese-Indonesians are a minority population numbering around 30,000 out of the city’s around 1.2 million residents.

Over the history of their 400-year presence, there have been several conflicts pitting Chinese-Indonesians against the native population.

The latest was in 1997. It was triggered by the murder of a girl, Anni Mujahidah, by a Chinese-Indonesian man, Benny Karre, who was suffering from a mental disorder. Soon after learning of the murder, residents went on a rampage — killing Benny and then moving on to other targets. They attacked and set fire to residences and stores belonging to the city’s Chinese-Indonesians, and some took advantage of the week-long chaos by looting.

Last week, Wandi Tandiawan’s abuse of his two maids in Makassar, resulting in the death of one, 20-year-old Hasniati, reignited the fire.

Locals and students went to the streets to protest the killing.

A student activist, Ibnu Hajar of the Alauddin State Islamic University in Makassar, claimed the protest reflected students’ disappointment with the alleged unfair treatment of locals by Chinese-Indonesians. “They (the Chinese-Indonesians) are newcomers, but they act however they like toward locals. We hope this case will make them behave properly toward locals, many of whom work as maids in their houses,” Ibnu charged.

Another student activist, Maulana, of Makassar State University, claimed the protest was a spontaneous act of solidarity aimed at pressing the police to thoroughly investigate the case instead of making “a backroom deal with the suspect”.

He claimed Hasniati was the third abuse victim. He said the previous cases had caused conflicts in the city and the students did not want such clashes to happen again.

“We don’t want this case to develop into a racial issue that might trigger another conflict. That’s why we want the police to handle the case thoroughly and transparently,” Maulana said.

The fear of such incidents has left its mark on Chinese-Indonesians in Makassar. Some prefer to limit their interactions with locals. Others trust high fences for protection.

This was not the case some 400 years ago, when Chinese-Indonesians first came to the city as traders and migrants, blending in with locals and other foreigners.

But the good relations turned sour when Dutch rulers implemented a policy of division in 1935. The policy split Makassar residents into three groups — locals, Europeans, and easterners, including Chinese, Indians and Arabs.

Each was placed in different parts of the city: locals in the south and in the northern outskirts, Europeans in the city center, and easterners in the north. The easterners were given easy access to the bureaucracy for purposes such as buying land that had belonged to the locals.

A sociologist from Makassar-based Hasanuddin University, Muhammad Darwis, said the unfair treatment became the root of the locals’ discontentment toward the Chinese-Indonesians, who slowly came to control the economic sector. The feeling was like a time bomb ready to explode, he added, especially since the local government nowadays also tends to keep its doors open for Chinese-Indonesian businesspeople.

Darwis, who has conducted a study of social interaction between the Chinese and Makassar’s Bugis people, said exclusivity among the Chinese-Indonesians was among the factors that could be blamed for their lack of interaction with the locals.

“Apart from their exclusivity and inability to interact with locals, there is also social jealousy since the Chinese-Indonesians, who are not as populous, control the economy and are favored by the administration.”

He said the locals are an open community who can tolerate differences.

But several Chinese-Indonesians said their exclusivity is born out of the situation, since they are busy with their businesses and still feel frightened by the previous incidents targeting them.

“We’re traumatized by past incidents because Chinese-Indonesians were always blamed and became the target of the locals’ anger,” said Yonggris, secretary of South Sulawesi United Communication Forum.

He said historically, Chinese-Indonesians are not exclusive by nature since they are traders who need to interact with their customers.

He admitted they could not reach the grassroots of the local culture, however, since there is a tendency among locals to see them as not being entirely Indonesian citizens.