Political Change Reopening the Asimilasi vs Integrasi Debate: Ethnic Chinese Identity in Post-Suharto Indonesia

The debate within Indonesia's peranakan community around the question of integration or assimilation raged during the late 1950s and early 1960s, until it was abruptly ended by anti-Chinese violence in 1963 and anti-Communist purges in 1965-66. The platform of integration (integrasi) supported by Baperki, a Chinese organisation, included demands for the Chinese to be accepted as a suku (ethnic group) under the nationalist principles of 'Unity in Diversity' and cultural pluralism. At the time, such 'integrasi' leanings met serious opposition from other peranakan Chinese backed by the military, who were suspicious of Baperki's alleged links to the Indonesian Communist Party. Then, during Suharto's New Order, with Baperki closed down and its leaders imprisoned, pembauran (assimilation--the preferred 'New Order term') dominated official peranakan politics. Government policy promoted a solution to the 'Chinese Problem', which included banning Chinese cultural activities, names and language. In May 1998 the violence in Jakarta, Solo and other towns and cities made Chinese in Indonesia highly aware of their ethnicity and led to a reinvigorated interest in the debate about assimilation and integration. This article investigates these debates among various ethnic Chinese groups and intellectuals. There are those who have not shifted their position on assimilation, while others have been spurred to re-discover their ethnicity and fight for acceptance. In the past, the debate on asimilasi or integrasi was overrun by wider political agendas, both within the peranakan community itself and in the nation as a whole. In post-Suharto Indonesia, in a general political atmosphere committed to democracy, can this debate be resolved? A 'new' nationalism in which ethnic Chinese have rediscovered solidarity and faith in the Indonesian project, is a human rights-based vision that places issues of reconciliation and truth finding as high priorities. I argue that it is only within such a nationalist discourse that ethnic Chinese will have the opportunity to make uninhibited choices on asimilasi and integrasi , or indeed another alternative.