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Today's Lesson: Tolerance Among All Indonesians
By Marjie Suanda
Photos by Fuad Erdansyah
Trained as a medical doctor, Sofyan Tan, an Indonesian of Chinese descent, has chosen to try instead to heal a disease that like a virus, may lay dormant for a while, but eats away at social relations and
erupts at times with a violence that threatens the Indonesian nation itself: The divisive ethnic tensions between indigenous Indonesians and those of Chinese descent.
Sofyan Tan's cure is to provide high quality education with an explicit focus on integration for children of all ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds. He stresses the need to educate the poor. "The children we teach today, in 25 years' time, I hope will not teach their children to distrust people of other groups," he said. "We must be able to live together peacefully as one nation."
The island country of Indonesia includes a rich mixture of ethnic, racial and religious groups brought together in their struggle to gain independence in 1945 after 350 years of Dutch colonial rule and Japanese occupation. Although the national motto is "Unity in Diversity," the frequency of violent ethnic and religious conflicts-most recently in Java, Ambon and Kalimantan-suggests that Indonesia has yet to embrace the potential of its pluralistic society.
The first major massacre of ethnic Chinese was committed in 1740 by the Dutch, who had come to the islands as traders and began to fear the competition of the skillful Chinese merchants. After the slaughter of thousands of Chinese, a system of segregation was put in place in the colony, not unlike the apartheid system installed
by Afrikaners in South Africa. The population was divided into three groups-Europeans, foreign "Orientals" (including those of Arab, Indian and Chinese ancestry) and "natives."
While the intermediary position of the Chinese between the Europeans and the "natives" afforded them a certain economic advantage, their role was strictly controlled by laws that forced them to live in segregated neighborhoods and required them to have passes to travel from one area to another. Segregation remained in place until 1905, and set the stage for future relations between the groups.
Massacres and Forced Assimilation
Although Chinese Indonesians took part in the struggle for independence and some held ministerial positions in Sukarno's government, many were killed in the violence that followed the economic downfall of his government and the coup of 1965. Thousands of people, Chinese and indigenous Indonesians alike, were killed because of their real or suspected association with the Indonesian Communist Party. For 32 years, from 1966 to 1998, Indonesia was governed by General Suharto, a master at putting into place policies that subtly undermined the democratic rights of the people.
Junior high school students at Yayasan Perguruan Sultan Iskandar Muda
One such policy-presented as a means of encouraging assimilation-was a ban on aspects of Chinese culture, including the use of Chinese characters for writing and public festivals. The Chinese dragon dances that had been enjoyed by entire communities, regardless of ethnic background, were forbidden. Chinese were strongly encouraged to change their three-syllable ancestral names to "Indonesianized" versions.
In the words of the social commentator Rahayu Ratnaningsih, "By banning all Chinese cultural icons, Suharto sowed the seeds of suspicion among racial and cultural groups in the country. This led to the perception that everything related to Chinese culture was a potential source of discord and catastrophe. The racism in Indonesia is not about a few isolated bigots. It is systematic and structural."
A Lesson From His Fathers
Sofyan Tan traces his desire to cure this sickness to the trauma he experienced as a young boy. The youngest of ten children, Sofyan grew up in impoverished Sunggal, eight kilometers from Medan, in North Sumatra. His father was a tailor who owned a simple shop, and had to struggle to pay for the children's education. When the massacres of Communists in Medan in 1966 focused on the Chinese, Sofyan – just seven years old – watched as houses surrounding his were burned by rioters.
As he ran to gather up his clothes and school books, he was surprised to see a group of indigenous youths protecting his home. The question he was faced with – Why was his family spared? – was resolved in his mind only when his father died in 1981. People from the community came to pay their respects, including Moslem neighbors who recited prayers from the Koran, even though his father was a Buddhist.
Sofyan Tan realized that his father had developed a mutual respect with his neighbors. He remembers his father often telling the family, "We were born and will die in Indonesia. Thus, you must make yourselves Indonesians."
Elementary school students at Yasayan Perguruan Sultan Iskandar Muda
Sofyan Tan today is convinced that education and respect for differences, not the stifling of any one culture, is the way to develop a truly integrated society. The ethnic tension and violence in Indonesia are rooted in economic as well as psychological factors. Restrictions have been placed upon the Chinese in other areas: It has been very difficult to enter the military and the civil service, which include academic posts at public universities (where there is also an unofficial quota system for Chinese students).
Because of such restrictions, the Chinese have turned to business and many indeed have prospered, and the widening economic gap has nurtured suspicion. Prejudice has fermented into stereotypical perceptions: Chinese are seen as controlling the economy while living an exclusive lifestyle behind high walls. Especially in Medan they prefer to speak Chinese. On the other hand, people of Chinese descent tend to view indigenous Indonesians as lazy and dishonest, demanding bribes from the Chinese for administrative services from identity cards to taxes.
Sofyan Tan's idea has been to establish a model of integrated education in which children of various ethnic groups are brought together and learn to see each other as individuals and to carry mutual respect throughout their lives. Essential to his idea has been a focus on providing quality education for the poor and marginalized. The poor have few options in education and are limited in their ability to compete in the job market, thus perpetuating a cycle of poverty.
Poverty combined with a lack of education can fuel the fires of ethnic distrust and hatred. Sofyan Tan supported himself through medical school by teaching high school and tutoring fellow students. He became a
skilled teacher and eagerly accepted the opportunity to serve as headmaster of a school in Sunggal that his father, together with several other Chinese concerned about education, had helped to found.
With Sofyan Tan as headmaster, the number of students increased steadily because of the quality of education and because he opened the school to indigenous Inonesians as well as Chinese students. Yet he was forced out by the school's governing board, whose members disagreed with his social mission and wanted the school to be run as a profitable business.
Rather than being discouraged, Sofyan Tan took this as a challenge to prove he could succeed with his ideas, though in this initial stage, he was isolated even by the wealthy Chinese community, which saw him as a traitor to his heritage. In 1988, with a bank loan he has still not paid off because of high interest rates and with 1,500 square meters of borrowed land in Sunggal, Sofyan Tan and his wife, Elinar, began building the first structure of their own school, consisting of seven classrooms for 171 students from kindergarten through high school.
The school has grown today to an impressive three-story structure with a computer lab, library, health clinic, sports field and a mini-bank where students put their economics lessons into practice. It is the home to 1,420 students. Some of the teachers followed Sofyan Tan from his first school because of their dedication to his vision.
De Facto School Segregation
Most Indonesian students go to state schools, which are not segregated by policy but tend to be of lower quality. In addition there are elite schools with mostly indigenous students, but they are usually private Islamic schools, just as there are elite Christian schools with mostly Chinese students.
Some consciously integrated schools do exist, but they also tend to be elite schools in urban centers that were once only for children of Chinese descent, but were forced by government policy to admit at least 10 percent of students from "native" backgrounds. In such schools there is a tendency for students to form groups with others of similar backgrounds, and issues related to race, ethnicity and religion are generally avoided on the principle: If you don't talk about them, the problems will go away.
Student performance
Sofyan Tan's school, Yayasan Sultan Iskandar Muda, named after the first Indonesian ruler to make contact with the outside world (China, as it happened), is unique in maintaining a nearly 50:50 ratio of students of Chinese background and indigenous Indonesians. More important is the explicit focus on integration in the curriculum and in all school activities. From the beginning of the school year, students from elementary school through high school sit two to a desk, as they do in most schools. But here, a Chinese and a non-Chinese student share each desk.
The student body and the staff reflect a rich mix of Moslems, Buddhists, Christians and Hindus. To help students learn about religions other than their own, all religious holidays are celebrated. On a plot of land behind the school, Sofyan Tan, with the community's support, has built a mosque. He already has the blueprints for a small church and a Buddhist temple on the same plot. To complete the four points he wants to build a pendopo, an open-sided structure in which the students can sit and look out at the three places of worship and hold informal discussions. Special classes and workshops explore the common negative stereotypes.
In one workshop, students write down adjectives that describe the positive and negative qualities of members of an ethnic group other than their own. They then discuss people they know and can see how these ideas of the "other" are often not true. In the safe environment created by the close contact and the openness to these issues fostered by the staff, the students are able to analyze the damage such notions cause. For students in the secondary school, guests are invited each month to discuss their work and ideas; speakers have included academics, judges, business leaders and religious teachers, many of whom have risen from poverty and have real-life success stories to share.
Cross-Cultural Parenting
An important component is the fact that the school brings together students of different economic backgrounds. Wealthy and middle-class parents choose the school either because they support its principles or they are attracted to the quality of education and the extracurricular programs.
Poor children are supported with reduced fees and an innovative foster-parent program. This program also improves ethnic relations: A foster parent of Chinese descent will be matched with a needy student from an indigenous family and vice versa.
The foster parents not only provide funds for school fees, books and uniforms; they are kept informed of their students' progress and are encouraged to meet with the student at least once a year for a discussion or an outing. Since this program began in 1990, 774 students have received assistance. One foster parent, Mulyanto Halim, has helped 19 children over the past three years and has offered those nearing graduation money to help with college and even jobs in his business.
Sofyan Tan (dark shirt), Mulyanto Halim (on Tan's left) and foster children
Students are selected not only for academic potential, but also their level of motivation. Yanti Simamora, a ninth grader who wants to be a doctor, described how her foster parent went bankrupt in the economic crisis. Sofyan Tan took over, and as Yanti puts it, "I am honored to be Dr. Sofyan's foster child."
Indroyani, a foster student in high school, read an emotional poem at the school's 12-year anniversary celebration:
We don't want to be poor in spirit,
Poor in knowledge,
We have been given hope,
A beacon to light our futures.
Recognition by Ashoka, followed in 1991 by visits from such high-profile individuals as Sarwono Kusumaatmadja, then the Minister of the Environment, who acts as a foster parent to a number of children, and B.J. Habibie, then Minister of Science and Technology and later President, has helped Sofyan Tan gain respect even among the Chinese who once ostracized him. Sofyan Tan is not about to slow down, and he sees the next 10 years as a time to establish more models to spread his ideas. One plan includes training high school students to lead workshops on the negative impact of stereotyping in other schools.
Sofyan Tan making home visit to motivate parents of students
By traveling to other areas of Indonesia, as he has in the past two years, he has had the opportunity to lead seminars and speak with parents and educators in other communities. This has been an effective way to stimulate others to think and act on his model. An important second element has been the exposure that he and his school have received in the mass media.
This is a time of change in Indonesia. It is a time when many fear that Indonesia as a nation is threatened with disintegration. People are stepping back and finally able to criticize the past regimes as they search for new answers. Among the students at Yayasan Sultan Islandar Muda, there is a very real sense of solidarity that comes from daring to step outside the mold, to ask the difficult questions and to escape the boxes society has locked us into.
Needs:
Books for the library or monetary contributions would be greatly appreciated. About $150 will cover a child's tuition, books and school clothes for one year, or could be used toward the construction of the small church and Buddhist temple, or could help Sofyan Tan pay back his original building loans, or subsidize his travels so he can spread his ideas on inter-ethnic understanding through education.
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