Chinese Indonesian People Discrimination - Essay Example

In the year 1998, the Reformation Era of Indonesia, comprising mainly of native Indonesian people, took action against all those belonging to the Chinese Indonesian background. This year was a big disaster for all the people belonging to a Chinese Indonesian background because the angry mob often threw rocks at our homes and burned our businesses down. Most of us would even get robbed, ripped, and killed without a specific and significant reason. This memory is remembered even today as an extremely livid nightmare in the minds of all Chinese Indonesian people, victims of discrimination.

As a 6 year-old girl, I remember feeling helpless as I saw my parents shaking when the mob was in the vicinity of our house. They tried to keep a watch on the movements of mob through the radio and television fearing something would happen to our family if we did not keep a close vigil, while I sat dumbfounded, not knowing what to do and how to react. The most we could do was just sit and wait till the mob calmed down and stopped indulging in the kind of heinous activities that they were. Despite this entire situation, the reason behind the action was unclear because even though some said that it was because of genocide toward Chinese Indonesian who monopolized the economy in Indonesia, but no one knows the actual truth.

However, fourteen years have passed since that nightmare, but discrimination is still a big problem in Indonesia. Even though the state is not as anarchist in nature, the hatred between these two ethnicities is still visible. They tend to make misconceptions about each other beforethey really look at each individual. This bad habit can be seen in almost all walks o life including both politics and education; discrimination is very deep rooted in Indonesia. Dealing with this kind of hatred becomes extremely difficult because people are not willing to live with one another and adjust to the other’s needs.

Today, people need to understand that whatever war had to take place in the past is over for a reason that the struggle does not take place again in the present. Discrimination on the basis of an ethnic group is a very saddening thing that forces the minority to live within a powerless bubble. Discrimination makes every aspect of life extremely unfair; I can make this statement with evidence after having been a part of the mass struggle within my country and trying to fight for my rights as a Chinese Indonesian.

On a much bigger level, such aspects of discrimination affect every member within a particular community or household because they are denied the rights to attain health and education facilities as well as lack equality within job opportunities. In the modern day and age, aspects like these should not be looked differently upon because people are trying to sustain themselves within a rapidly growing economic environment. People do not forgive each other easily and one mistake that a member of an ethnic group makes can become a problem for the whole group.

This of course can lead to deeper hatred among people in Indonesia because they need to realize that the past is a precedent to learn from and that the violence that took place then should not be repeated again so that people may live together in peace and harmony.