Capstone: Who are the Chinese in Indonesia?

“They are a homogeneous and changeless group.
They exploit our economy and are rich.
They feel superior and are exclusive.
Their loyalty to Indonesia is questionable.
They are reluctant to assimilate.”

These are the stereotypes of the Chinese in Indonesia identified by Charles Coppel in his 1983 book, Indonesian Chinese in Crisis, written during the height of Suharto’s assimilationist policy, where the Chinese were marginalized and discriminated in all social spheres: culture, language, politics, and entrance to state-owned universities, public service and public employment.
In the today’s Indonesia, 16 years after the fall of Suharto, as we witness the first ever ethnic Chinese about to be sworn in as the governor of Jakarta, Chinese politicians voted into the parliament, and unrestricted expressions of Chinese culture and language; it is necessary to ask whether the stereotypes above still hold.

This seminar seeks to address the fundamental question, “Who are the Chinese Indonesia?”, through an exploration into the polysemic identity of the Chinese Indonesian from perspectives of history, politics, culture, identity, economics and business. It aims to provide a nuanced contextualization of the predicament of the Chinese in Indonesia with the hope that we will be able to better understand their current situation and make more informed projection of their future trajectory as a minority ethnic group in Indonesia.