Jakarta. It was a leap of faith for Valentina Suhendra, a director at professional services company KPMG, when she took out a loan to start her first charity Yayasan Kechara Indonesia four years ago.

“When I started YKI, I did not have enough money. So I borrowed [Rp] 70 million [$5,195],” she said, reminiscing.

When it was time to pay off the loan in 2012, one of her friends and a volunteer at YKI, Shio Wei Hau, suggested a mountain hike as a way to raise funds. Hau decided on a solo climb of Mt. Peclet in France.

“I’d made up my mind to go climbing anyway that year, so why not do it for a worthwhile cause? Basically I  paid for the trip to France but I also told people I was doing it for charity. So we got people to sponsor my hike, people who wanted to give something back to society, and I gave the money to Kechara,” Hau said.

YKI has come a long way since its early days distributing less than 20 packets of food at weekends in 2010. Nowadays it has enough regular donors to hand out around 400 food packets every weekend in areas such as Kota Bambu Utara and Petamburan in West Jakarta, and Cipete in South Jakarta.

“We started out with food distribution for the needy because my spiritual guru Tsem Rinpoche had asked me to set it up,” Valentina said.

As a follower of Tibetan Buddhism, she trusted her guru’s guiding hand. Rinpoche also introduced her to the practice of Dorje Shugden, an ancient Tibetan protection deity.

“Dorje Shugden plays a big role in my life.  So when in January 2011, Rinpoche asked me to establish YKI, he advised me to rely on Dorje Shugden and he also said if my motivation was pure, I would get help.”

On the other hand, the deity has become a controversial figure in Tibetan Buddhism since the Dalai Lama spoke against his practice in 1996. But for devotees like Valentina, Shugden has inspired her to do nothing but good.

“I believe people should be allowed to practice their religion and faith as they see fit as long as it does not harm others.  This is not the time nor place to discriminate against people based on their belief. That is what we are trying to demonstrate with YKI motto – compassion knows no barrier.”

YKI also runs other charity projects in addition to food distribution, such as education sponsorships for students in Jakarta and providing stationery, spectacles and even school uniforms for the underprivileged.

Evalia Meilviyani Madjid, daughter-in-law of the late prominent Muslim intellectual Dr. Nurcholish Madjid, is a great supporter of YKI.

“I’ve been a regular donor since Valentina started YKI. I’m pleased and proud of the way the charity is organized along professional and transparent lines,” Evalia said.

Valentina explained that accountability is an important part of YKI’s operation.

“We always keep our donors informed on what their funds are used for. We also hire professional auditors to look into our finances. ”

Evalia professed she was beyond satisfied that YKI never takes into account the gender, belief or ethnicity of the people it helps.

“I’m aware YKI was founded by a Tibetan Buddhist but I know this doesn’t affect the way Kechara operates. I participate in the school sponsorship program and I get regular reports and updates on the students I sponsor,” she explained.

Riki, 22, and Nizar Winarsin Aswin, 21, are university students studying in Jakarta who have been sponsored by the foundation since they were in high school. The two are currently finishing their tertiary education while also working at YKI as staff members.

“I was in the second year at State Senior High School 19 and I had accumulated quite a sum in unpaid school fees. So when I was asked if I’d let Kechara pay for my education, I leapt at the chance. I was living with my sister and she was so thrilled,” Riki said.

Nizar’s experience with YKI is similar to Riki’s. When asked what it was like to work for YKI he replied, “The experience has been a positive one for me. Imagine being able to earn money and to feel spiritually gratified, knowing that we are helping so many people.”

Another YKI regular donor, Hyang Augustiana, who also sits on YKI’s working committee said: “I am a practicing Muslim but I feel very comfortable working with Kechara. It was always my dream to be involved with a charity.”

In 2014, Kechara was awarded a prize by the municipal government of West Jakarta for its contribution to society.

Emayati, head of the Palmerah district’s social department in Wests Jakarta said that she had been working with YKI on a number of projects.

“I understand Kechara’s activities are spread across Jakarta but in Palmerah they are our partner in helping out with Kampung Boncos, which is a notorious area where drug dealers and addicts live,” she said.

“Kechara has also sponsored a playground with the theme of a herbal garden for the children Palmerah. They also pay for several adult residents there to participate in the Kejar Paket C initiative,” she added, referring to a government schooling program aimed at adults who missed out on formal education.

Asked what YKI’s next big project was, Valentina said, “We’re doing the annual mountain hike again between Aug. 15 and 17 on Mt. Agung in Bali.

“We have seven participants for the climb, including myself, all of whom will get their respective sponsors. We would welcome more people to sponsor us for this event.”

Yayasan Kechara Indonesia
Website: Kecharaindonesia.org
E-mail: kecharaindonesia@gmail.com
Tel: (021) 536 0966

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During a recent lecture at the National Resilience Institute (Lemhanas), the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) chairwoman, Megawati Sukarnoputri, floated an old idea of having the Indonesian  capital  moved to Palangkaraya in Central Kalimantan. She reminded her audience  that it was her father, the nations founding president Sukarno, who first recommended that location as the new capital, and she went on to list the advantages of the scheme, such as the low probability of earthquakes in Kalimantan.

On July 17, 1957, Sukarno unveiled a new monument comprising 17 pillars to mark the start of construction work on the new city of Palangkaraya, observing  that the number 17 represented the date of Indonesia’s independence in August 1945. The central ninth pentagonal pillar, tipped with the representation of a flame, he explained, symbolized the five points of the state ideology, Pancasila, while the eternal fire spoke of the nation’s undying hunger for independence and development.

Sukarno’s penchant for symbolism was clearly apparent here. For someone who often drew inspiration from ancient Javanese Hindu mythology, this was perhaps to be expected. Nevertheless, the new outside-Java capital initiative was probably not Sukarno’s own idea.

The adviser responsible for championing Palangkaraya was Semaun, the first chairman of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), who had returned to the country from a  30-year exile in the Soviet Union in 1953. The employment of Soviet architects and engineers during the construction of Palangkaraya must have been  the result of Semaun’s influence, too, though by this time he had left the PKI. He later even joined the anti-communist Murba Party. Labor activist Edi Cahyono wrote in his 2003 essay “From Left to Right: The Ideological Shift of Semaun” that Semaun came back from the Soviet Union “a different man.”

Indonesia’s literary giant, Pramoedya Ananta Toer, also wrote in his “My Apologies, in the Name of Experience” that Semaun “once offered [Sukarno] therapy for this genetic defect: move the capital out of Java, to Palangkaraya, in central Kalimantan.” Pramoedya’s “genetic defect” was the apparent continuation of colonial policies in the nascent republic. Facing separatist movements in 1950s, the government, according to Pramoedya, resorted to “the colonial tradition, that is, with two Javanese exports: armed mercenaries and Javanese with hoes.” He then suggested Sukarno was deeply conflicted because of this.

So Sukarno’s yearning for a new capital was partially based on the symbolic importance of cutting cut ties with the country’s colonial past. Jakarta, previously Batavia, had been the capital chosen by the Dutch for the Netherlands East Indies. The State Palace in Jakarta was the former residence of the Dutch governor general while the palace in Bogor, known as Buitenzorg under the Dutch, was the top colonial official’s stately country retreat.

Ironically, the new capital would not really have freed the republic from its past, however. Despite Pramoedya’s condemnation of the old colonial export of “Javanese with hoes,” transmigration seemed to have been integral to Semaun’s plans for the new capital. Even Semaun was unable to see how the new capital could flourish without the necessary transmigration and rapid industrialization that he envisaged in his “Manpower as Postulate in the Theory of Guided Economy.”

Palangkaraya is one of the few cities in Indonesia established for a specific purpose, much in the same way that Canberra and Ottawa were chosen. The site was originally known as the village of Pahandut. The new name came from the Dayak word “palangka,” meaning sacred place, and the Sanskrit “raya,” which means great. In the Sundanese tradition, the word palangka can also mean “throne” or “seat.”

Sukarno’s Palangkaraya may have been the great esoteric catalyst or the symbolic axe with which the president meant to cut Indonesia’s ‘karmic cycle.’ In the end, time ran out before Sukarno could do anything with the city.

Almost 60 years on, how practical would it be to relocate the capital  to Central Kalimantan, a region whose infrastructure, both in terms of quantity and quality, is decades behind Jakarta’s?

Most of our officials and public servants in Jakarta reside in Java. Would they be expected to live permanently in Central Kalimantan? Or would most of the new capital’s residents be absentees used  to flying back each weekend to Java — perhaps even tripping off to Malaysia for a holiday?

From a strategic point of view, is it wise to situate the capital city on an island shared with two other countries, Brunei and Malaysia? Furthermore, how could having a capital that is landlocked  be in harmony with President Joko Widodo’s doctrine of “a maritime fulcrum”?

Given the role of political patronage in conducting business in Indonesia, would private companies be forced to relocate their headquarters to the new capital and re-create the traffic chaos that often characterizes  Jakarta?

Whatever Indonesia’s decision is regarding the new capital initiative, let’s make sure that we don’t end up with more problems than we have now.

Johannes Nugroho is a writer from Surabaya. He can be contacted at johannes@nonacris.com.

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The plight of Myanmar’s pariah Rohingya community has become a major headache for several countries in Southeast Asia. Persecuted by their own government and harassed by the majority Burmese, the Rohingya have taken to the sea in rickety boats in the hope of finding a safe haven.

Indonesia and Malaysia recently agreed to provide temporary shelter to the refugees, but a permanent solution is needed. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the organization to which all the countries affected by this crisis except Bangladesh belong, is conspicuous by its absence.

Instead of trying to solve the Rohingya problem within an Asean framework, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand have consulted one another and agreed to hold a meeting on Friday in Thailand, to which Myanmar has been pressured to send a representative.

The Rohingya crisis is but the latest issue to show Asean’s irrelevance in solving difficult regional problems. Stubbornly clinging to the hallowed principle of “non-interference” in the internal affairs of member states, the ten Asean countries have proved resistant to change.

Asean does not aspire to develop into a supranational entity like the European Union in the near future, but the Asean Economic Community, scheduled to take effect at the end of the year, is a big step in that direction. For the sake of its own credibility, Asean should be able to respond to urgent issues affecting Southeast Asia.

The Rohingya problem first became internationally known in 2012 with the outbreak of the Rakhine state riots. Asean has persistently chosen to treat the issue as Myanmar’s internal matter. But the recent exposure of jungle camps in Thailand where abducted Rohingya refugees were held in appalling conditions until their families agreed to pay ransom for their release is one example that the crisis hasn’t been limited to Myanmar for a while. It is wishful thinking to believe that this humanitarian, cross-border crisis does not have regional implications.

For many years, most Asean countries’ reluctance to “regionalize” the South China Sea question played into China’s hands. As a result, skirmishes took place in 2014 between China and, respectively, the Philippines and Vietnam. At long last, Beijing’s land-reclamation projects prompted an Asean statement in April, in which the ten member states expressed “serious concern” over China’s latest unilateral action.

The April statement contained the strongest language Asean had ever used in relation to the South China Sea. China predictably replied that it had no quarrel with Asean and would rather settle disputes bilaterally, an approach which allows China to play one Asean state against another. Similarly, last year China rejected a proposal to discuss the South China Sea in the November forum of the Asean Defense Ministers Meeting (ADMM-Plus), which includes eight non-members of Asean.

It is too early to see whether Asean states can create lasting unity and solidarity among themselves on the South China Sea issue, but a regional approach is likely to work better than any alternative. So it goes with the Rohingya. The start of a solution would be an admission by Myanmar that the problem started there.

This will be a test case for Asean. If it fails to persuade Myanmar to accept ownership of the Rohingya issue, how can Asean hope to force China to agree to a Code of Conduct for the South China Sea?

Asean needs a more flexible and adaptable approach. Perhaps the principles of “non-interference” and “respect for individual states’ sovereignty” were appropriate for Southeast Asia in the late 1960s, when Asean was formed. Indonesia had just ended its “confrontation” with Malaysia and President Suharto was keen to assure the neighboring states that Indonesia was no longer expansionist. Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines were also eager to see Indonesia behave responsibly and perhaps believed that a new regional organization might help it stay that way.

Meanwhile, the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union was still on. China was then self-destructively absorbed in its Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, and was a decade away from starting its economic modernization, let alone acquiring regional hegemon status.

The situation is different today. Vietnam is keen on strengthening its ties with the United States, while the Philippines likewise wants a strong US naval presence to offset China. Four Asean member countries, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, have territorial claims in the South China Sea, while China’s nine-dash-line impinges on Indonesia’s EEZ. In these circumstances, should “non-interference” still hold sway?

Indonesia can play a key role in brokering an Asean solution, but it must pressure the Myanmar government in order to do so. Passing the buck to other countries, whether Asean member states or otherwise, will not show Indonesia’s pre-eminence in Southeast Asia.

Johannes Nugroho is a writer from Surabaya. He can be contacted at johannes@nonacris.com.

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This Thursday, on May 21, Indonesia’s post-Suharto democracy will mark its 17th birthday. In those seventeen years, the country has seen five legislative and three direct presidential elections. Some central government powers have been devolved to the provinces and Suharto’s three-party system has been opened up. So how do things stand now?

Indonesia possesses all the structures of a typical representative democracy. Institutions central to effective democratic performance have been reformed, if not created from scratch, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) being a notable example. The House of Representatives (DPR) is no longer a rubber stamp, thanks to a series of constitutional amendments.

In theory, a strong legislative body should maximize the government’s accountability to the people. However, a nationwide survey conducted by Populi Center last January found that the House was perceived as the most corrupt state institution and that most respondents doubted its capacity to represent the people.

The lack of public trust in the DPR is indeed a serious defect in Indonesia’s reformed democracy. Trust is the last thing the House is likely to receive when many of its members are regularly implicated in various corruption scandals.

But the legislators are not the only rotten apples. It cannot be denied that the people connive in the corruption of their representatives, even before their election. Hence it is unrealistic for the people to demand high standards from the lawmakers when many of them expect to have their votes “bought” by candidates at election time. No fewer than 52 percent of the reported violations during the 2014 legislative elections comprised instances where campaigning candidates distributed money to their constituents. The actual percentage could be higher if unreported cases were to be taken into account.

While the president is now directly elected by the people, there are signs that the quality of the election process has diminished. When the country held its first presidential election in 2004, there were five presidential candidates with their respective running mates. Five years later, only three presidential candidates entered the fray while in 2014 the number went down to two.

Admittedly, the 2004 presidential election was different in the sense that the threshold required for a political party or coalition to nominate a candidate was 5 percent of the popular vote, while by the next election in 2009, it had been altered to 20 percent. The threshold was the same in 2014.

As Indonesia doesn’t have a two-party system like, for example, the United States, the lack of choice in the last presidential election represented an attenuation of quality in a political system, suggesting a failure in effecting regeneration. Both the lack of public trust in the legislature, and the stunted regeneration of political leadership reflect the country’s parochial political culture, essentially unchanged from Suharto’s reign.

It was only last week that the Democratic Party’s fourth congress in Surabaya unanimously elected former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as its chairman, an inevitable outcome when there was no other contender.

Yudhoyono’s election as chairman was perhaps a foregone conclusion even before the congress, given his family’s powerful influence within the party. It was also unthinkable that the only president the party has ever produced should fail to be re-elected as chairman. However, one can’t help thinking that SBY’s sole candidacy came about through machination, designed to spare the somewhat sensitive leader the “indignity” of having to win through a voting mechanism.

Curiously, the allergy to voting is a widespread phenomenon in Indonesian politics since, prior to her re-election as chairwoman of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Megawati Soekarnoputri lambasted voting as an “imported Western custom.” In apparent disdain of Western-style democracy, the PDI-P even skipped the nominal election process and went on to re-install Megawati unanimously as chairwoman for the fourth consecutive term since 1998.

Megawati also said the “Indonesian” way of reaching decisions is through “musyawarah untuk mufakat” (deliberation towards consensus) and “gotong royong” (communal effort), both of which were two of the concepts Suharto used to silence his critics and impose his autocratic will on the nation for three decades.

Suharto’s definition of consensus is markedly differed from that of the former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who mocked it as “something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects.” His “mufakat” was closer to “something in which he believed, but no one else dared dispute.” It remains unclear what Megawati’s own understanding of the concept is, but given her professed aversion to anything Western, it’s doubtful she had Thatcher’s in mind.

Seventeen years on, Indonesia’s venture into democracy has resulted in very little change in the country’s political culture or any decline in rampant corruption. It’s not the political structures that fail the nation; rather it is the political culture. Perhaps Reformasi’s only saving grace is the greater press freedom Indonesians enjoy today. Let’s hope it stays that way.

Johannes Nugroho is a writer from Surabaya. He can be contacted at johannes@nonacris.com.

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A 2014 statistic put the number of Indonesian Facebook users at 69 million, with another saying 96 percent of the nation’s netizens use social media. The sheer popularity of social media in Indonesia has also been instrumental in encouraging the growth of online media in the Indonesian language. While its proliferation means that Indonesians now have a wide range of news sources to choose from, the issues of ethics and accuracy, or the lack thereof, remain the main hurdles to quality online journalism in the country.

The government’s recent crackdown on radical Muslim media websites deemed to be spreading religious extremism signifies the extent of the problem. Another major, yet less talked-about problem is the widespread lack of accuracy in the content of articles glutting Indonesia’s online media, most of which are culled from various international sources.

Mistranslation is perhaps the most common and recurring problem. A recent example is an article in Indonesian titled “Bloomberg: Jauh Berbeda dari SBY, Jokowi adalah pengamat canggih peristiwa international,” uploaded on April 24. The article claimed that the US media company Bloomberg eulogized President Joko Widodo as a consummate observer of international politics. Upon cross-checking, the Bloomberg piece is an article published on the same day with the title “Indonesia under Widodo shifts from ‘zero-enemies’ diplomacy.”

The Indonesian article is not a word-by-word translation of the original Bloomberg news report. Rather, the author used it to form the basis of his or her highly nationalistic, if inaccurate, opinion article. The first few paragraphs, apart from prophesying a “new order” ushered in by Jokowi, praises the president’s insistence on being seated prominently at international summits as an expression of national pride.

Dismissive of former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY)’s legacy in foreign affairs, portrayed as weak and subservient to foreign interests, the article surmises that Indonesia only received “a piddly bag of peanuts” (recehan) under Yudhoyono.

Linguistically, the Indonesian used in the article is less than eloquent, often relying on English terminology and Indonesianized English words in a bid to make the piece sound intellectual. Ironically, almost all the English expressions used are either wrongly rendered, such as “deal per deal basis” or even nonsensical, such as “agresif profit.”

What is more damning, the author took great liberties with the original Bloomberg article. The grossest inaccuracy lies in the title, clearly based on a quote by an Australian academic used in the original report, “My sense is that Jokowi is a very unsophisticated observer of international events but has strong ideas about how the world works.”

The fatal mistake occurs as “very unsophisticated” is translated as “sangat canggih,” which has the complete opposite meaning. The adjective “sophisticated” can indeed be translated as “canggih” in Indonesian but the complete disregard for the prefix un- suggests both utter incompetence and irresponsibility. Unfortunately, the article was widely shared on social media and even had a re-run in Kompasiana.

Apart from the mistranslation, there is evidence that suggests that the author failed to understand the subtleties of the English language, having missed the slightly sarcastic nature of the second half of the quote, “… but has strong ideas about how the world works.”

The reference to president Sukarno in the original source also prompted the author to launch into a patriotic narrative listing the virtues of Indonesia’s first president. Though Sukarno seems almost unavoidable in any rhetoric on Indonesian nationalism, here again the author failed to grasp the reference to Sukarno was not adulatory in intent.

The confusion over Sukarno also highlights the distorted view of history common among Indonesians. As Indonesian netizens embrace globalization, they may be in for a rude awakening, discovering a great discrepancy between what is taught in Indonesian history classes and what scholarly research reveals about our history.

Both Indonesia’s first and second presidents, Sukarno and Suharto, were known to have intervened in the writing of our history. Early on, Sukarno sought to codify Indonesian history to effect “nation-building” by way of exaggerating certain details in history whilst ignoring others, a process discussed in scholarly works such as Rommel Curaming’s “Towards Reinventing Indonesian Nationalist Historiography.”

Both Sukarno and Suharto also made a habit of revising historical details for political purposes. The latter’s political affinity with the military, as historian Katherine McGregor wrote in her “History in Uniform: Military Ideology and the Construction of Indonesia’s Past,” led to historical narratives that established the Indonesian Military’s prominence in the nation’s history.

However, this phenomenon is not taught in Indonesian schools; nor is it widely discussed. To most Indonesians today, Sukarno was a founder of the republic who succeeded in making the country “great” and “formidable” in the eyes of the world. Yet, unbeknown to many Indonesians, he was also a rabid jingoist with an expansionist agenda.

It is crucial that we tackle the intellectual issues that plague our proliferating online media. An independent press ombudsman office may be needed to warn against inaccuracy and irresponsible bias in the media. Unpalatable as it may sound to our nationalists, we must pause to reflect on the intellectual damage caused by past manipulations of history. An anti-history brand of nationalism is after all as dangerous as religious extremism.

Johannes Nugroho is a writer from Surabaya. He can be contacted at johannes@nonacris.com.

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Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, better known by his Chinese Hokkien short name Ahok, is no stranger to controversy. His latest row with the capital’s legislative body, or DPRD,  degenerated into name-calling at a meeting mediated by the Ministry of Home Affairs last month. The dissent started when both the executive and the legislative submitted their own versions of the 2015 budget to the ministry. The governor then told the press there were obvious “markups” in the DPRD version, which prompted a chorus of protests and threats from the latter.

Ahok’s in-your-face bravado ─ a novelty in Indonesian politics, unheard of coming from a Chinese Indonesian ─ has earned him both admirers and detractors. A recent high-profile critic of his style of leadership was Jaya Suprana, a tycoon, musician and founder of the local version of the Guinness book of world records, or MURI. He had his open letter to Ahok published by the Sinar Harapan daily. In the letter, Suprana, a Chinese Indonesian himself, urged Ahok to be more “courteous” in his conduct as governor, obviously alluding to the latter’s penchant for plain speaking.

Recalling that his own family members fell victim to ethnic violence in the past, he argued that Ahok’s “lack of refinement” would only serve to encourage racial hatred towards Chinese Indonesians. What is noteworthy, Suprana, disarmingly admitted he was afraid (takut) and that he wasn’t as brave as Ahok. But there was a sardonic tone to the way he expressed his fear, as if it was normal while Ahok’s courage was anything but.

His “admission” of fear was evidently intended to prompt Ahok to see the error of his way, at least in part. But his was probably genuine, too. Doubtless, both Ahok and Suprana are aware that racism against Chinese Indonesians is still very much alive in the country, despite the progress made in removing the old structural discrimination such as the ban on public celebration of Chinese New Year under Suharto.

However, both men obviously have chosen to tackle the issue in different ways. Growing up in the Central Javanese culture, Suprana may have adopted the Javanese non-confrontational approach, as opposed to the more outspoken Belitung culture in which Ahok was raised. Cultural values aside, the contrast in their attitudes towards racial bigotry may also stem from the generational gap that exists between the two.

For the almost 70-year-old Suprana, the trauma of witnessing and experiencing the raw expressions of racial hatred and violence for the past few decades must have been all too real. His was a different era, during which public expressions of anti-Chinese sentiments were not necessarily frowned upon by the state or the media. Since Reformasi in 1998, such blatant racism in public spaces has abated, even if the more private expressions endure.

The much younger Ahok, on the other hand, emboldened by the greater visibility of the ethnic Chinese in public life, is unwilling to tolerate — let alone accommodate — racism. In response to Suprana’s letter, he said he regretted that his critic “still thinks like a second-class citizen.”

Suprana is counseling for more circumspection and probably false modesty for all Chinese Indonesians, in a bid to keep the peace. By contrast Ahok, uncowed by discrimination, demands that he be treated and judged equally as any other Indonesian citizen regardless of race.

After all, last year Surabaya Mayor Tri Rismaharini was also caught on camera cursing the representatives of ice cream producer Wall’s for failing to keep its public giveaway event organized, which ended up in a stampede, destroying much of the well-tended Bungkul Park. Despite her clearly audible expletives, Risma didn’t have her ethnic background insulted, a far cry from the moment when Ahok was berated by one of the Jakarta lawmakers — using an ethnic slur and calling the governor a “dog” — for “behaving rudely” when he told them to “use their brains.”

Both Suprana and Ahok are clearly at loggerheads as to how Chinese Indonesians should behave. But, amid their differences, fear is and has been the common denominator of Indonesian racism.

For Suprana, the fear lies in witnessing a high-profile Chinese Indonesian behave in a way which would not have amused the late President Suharto. For Ahok and other Indonesians fighting against discrimination, there’s palpable fear that racism might prevail against common sense.

Let’s hope that Indonesians today can disprove the dire diagnosis author Andre Vltchek once made of the country: “Fear is a very powerful force in Indonesia … There is the fear of admitting to the world one’s victimhood. There is the fear of belonging to a minority — racial, ethnic or religious — as in Indonesia the majority rules no matter what, often reasserting its dominance by brutalizing and oppressing minorities.”

Johannes Nugroho is a writer from Surabaya. He can be contacted at johannes@nonacris.com.

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