Remembering or Forgiveness: Aftermath of May 1998 Riots in Indonesia

Abstract

"Chinese Indonesians have lived in Indonesia for many years. They are immersed in Indonesian culture, but also, they have also experienced discrimination and violence, so they treat the land and people with complicated emotions and feelings, not just resentment. In this paper, I not only explored the resentments of Chinese Indonesians, I interviewed them and listened to the life stories of Chinese Indonesians of different ages, and from these narratives, I gradually understood how they identify themselves and their attitudes towards Chinese culture and Indonesian culture. In this paper, I argue that Different generations of Chinese Indonesians have different attitudes and sentiments towards Indonesian society. Resentment still exists among the older generation who experienced the anti-Chinese conflict. Born before the Suharto period, they speak Chinese as their first language and have strong Chinese cultural roots, while subsequently experiencing Suharto's discrimination and suppression of the Chinese and therefore having to integrate into Indonesian culture. They have retained much of their Chinese culture and have had a harder time integrating into Indonesian culture. The younger generation who was born during or after the New Order period, speak Bahasa Indonesian and different dialects. They learned about the anti-Chinese conflict in Indonesia from their parents. Apparently, resentment is hard to find among them. They still retain a part of their Chinese culture but are better integrated into Indonesian society than the older generation of Chinese. Compared to Sukarno's more relaxed policy on discourse, the suppression of Chinese during the Suharto period also deeply affected the young Chinese Indonesians, who had few opportunities to get in touch with Chinese culture and learn the Chinese language as the older generation did in Sukarno period."