Burning jeep/rubble/fires
Music
01.53.22
Rioting Maher: During these past three months, a wave of violent ethnic rioting has struck Indonesia, the likes of which hasn’t been seen in decades.
02.10.08
Fuelled by their deep seated resentment towards the wealthy elite, and a strangled political voice, ordinary Indonesians have lashed out.
Poverty, racism and religion have found a convenient scapegoat - the country’s Chinese.
Map Indonesia
02.44.03
Rock band/nightclub
Man: Once again, we’re raw. We got to loosen up and have a little fun.
02.53.23
Music
Maher: Saturday night in Jakarta, and the city’s mega-rich are out on the town.
It’s the grand opening of the Fashion Cafe, opened by Indonesia’s wealthiest Chinese family.
Most of the guests rubbing shoulders with the super models are ethnic Chinese.
They’re the backbone of Indonesia’s business class and have lived here for centuries.
Men in nightclub
Although comprising just three per cent of the population, Chinese now control a staggering seventy per cent of the nation’s private wealth.
03.39.09
But as general resentment towards the wealth and cronyism of the Indonesian elite grows, ethnic Chinese have become a highly visible target.
Music
Protesters
Protester: Even in our village the Chinese take our livelihood. Mao Tse Tung and Kublai Khan colonised this land. Once colonisers, always colonisers.
04.06.14
Maher: On the outskirts of Jakarta, the village of Sawangan is a world away from the clubs and the mansions of the country’s elite.
The good times for Indonesia’s rich have delivered out here. These people have had their land taken away to make way for another housing project. The target of their anger isn’t their government, which approved the land grab, but the project’s Chinese developers.
Woman protester: How dare you say we have no right to this land. If this was not my parents’ land I wouldn’t be protesting here. How dare you say that!
Maher: Nasuti is here because her parents’ home has been lost. Bulldozed to make way for the development. Like the rest of the protesters, she’s a Muslim and a Pribumi, indigenous Indonesians who make up ninety-five per cent of the population.
04.59.15
But today Nasuti and the other villagers don’t get a chance to vent their anger with the Chinese developers. Just other Pribumi working for the construction company.
Man: You’re the one that started this! You are the guard here, aren’t you? Guard: This is our land now.
05.25.15
Land development site Maher: A few days later when passions had cooled, we went back to the site and found Nasuti.
05.45.02
Nasuti and Maher Nasuti: This is the land of Sawangan’s people that’s been taken over by the Chinese. Maher: All this? Nasuti: All this.
05.54.24
Maher: In Nasuti’s village, scores of people have lost their homes and land. Now many of them are unemployed. The land may have been seized with the permission of the local Pribumi Council and the military, but Nasuti says the Chinese are still to blame.
Nasuti: Over here everything is run by the Chinese - big or small.
Nasuti interview
People are dominated by the Chinese. Local government is nothing without the support of the Chinese. We still regard them as Chinese because if they’re Indonesian citizens why are we, the people of Sawangan - native Indonesians - neglected by them.
06.26.02
Golf game
Maher: Chipping away at his handicap, ethnic Chinese billionaire, Bob Hasan.
06.45.18
Three times a week, here at his private golf course, he plays golf with President Soeharto.
Chinese businessmen like Bob Hasan have gained their position in Indonesian society by becoming indispensable as deal makers, bankers and brokers.
Although the object of widespread hostility, they’re now an integral part of the economy and the country’s elite.
Hasan Interview in golf buggy
Super: BOB HASAN Ethnic Chinese Businessman Hasan: So when we play with the President, he usually feeds the fish. He likes to feed the fish, because it’s like feeding people, you know.
07.37.00
Hasan feeding fish
Maher: From his vantage point there are no tensions over Chinese domination of business, just a few agitators causing problems.
07.48.04
Hasan interview Hasan: No, no actually it is not anti-Chinese. It’s just, I think, Communist elements. They try to make disturbances. And then ending at rioting, burning, you know, and looting.
08.04.19
Maher: So you think this is motivated by Communists?
Hasan: It is more Communist motivated, trying to disrupt the government and so on. But this is small, small.
Golf game
Maher: But you don’t have to look far beyond the fairways to see a source of growing anti-Chinese sentiment which is neither small nor Communist.
08.30.10
Riots/burning buildings
08.41.18
Maher: For the Chinese of Rengengsklok in West Java, the terror was unleashed before dawn.
A group of Muslim youths went on the rampage after a Chinese woman complained about noise from a mosque.
As has been the case in other anti-Chinese riots over the past few months, many of the victims were neither powerful nor privileged.
Ordinary Chinese had their homes, businesses and places of worship destroyed.
Two members of their community were killed.
Maher and Man in burned out temple Once the smoke had cleared, one of the few Chinese prepared to venture outside took us back to the charred remains of the Buddhist temple he helped build. 09.48.05
Brebit Medatama’s house was also attacked by the mob. While he managed to save his home and helped his wife and children to escape, there was nothing he could do to save his temple.
Medatama: This is my first time seeing the place. Inside my heart is crying because the place I’m proud of and where I pray, has been burnt down. To rebuild this will take a long time. I feel very sad. I hope this won’t happen again. Let bygones be bygones.
Chinese in church
Singing
10.52.21
Maher: The Chinese Christians in town fared no better. We joined them as they prayed together at a makeshift service, and as they returned to survey the ruins of their church.
Chinese amongst burned out church
Man: I don’t know why they have to attack the Chinese and the churches. The houses of many of my congregation have been stoned. It’s very human for them to be afraid. But I haven’t talked to them all yet because some of them are in Jakarta - they’ve left town.
11.20.10
Maher: Why have they left?
Man: For their safety, of course.
Building with broken windows
Maher: For the Chinese who can’t leave Rengengsklok, the shock and fear remain. Even proclamation of the Muslim faith are unlikely to protect them should the mob return.
12.06.24
Muslim service
12.21.21
Maher: In an attempt to avoid increasing resentment, some Chinese have gone to great lengths in their search for acceptance.
At this mosque, Tri Widono, an ambitious young Chinese executive has chosen to join a more popular faith. Watched by his fiancee, who’s already a Muslim, Tri, a Buddhist, is converting to Islam.
Imam at microphone
Imam: The meaning of what he says will be a declaration that he is now a Muslim. Can you tell us the meaning? Tri: I testify that there is no god but Allah and Mohammad is his prophet.
12.54.18
Maher: The mosque’s leader, Chinese Muslim, Junus Jahja, believes if more follow Tri’s footsteps, the building backlash against the Chinese will be diffused.
Junus Super:
JUNUS JAHJA Chinese Moslem Leader
Junus: In Thailand they are all Buddhists, so there is no Chinese problem. In the Philippines, they are all Catholic, there is no Chinese problem. And the Chinese immigrating to America, they became Christians or Catholics. There’s no problem also. So I think in Indonesia, the process will be likewise. Later generations will decide whether I’m successful or not. Whether they think oh, Mr Junus is a bloody fool.
13.31.24
Golf game
Maher: Perhaps the most famous Chinese convert to Islam, is none other than tycoon, Bob Hasan. Nicknamed Haji Bob, after a highly publicised pilgrimage to Mecca, he says conversion has helped him make a contribution to his country.
13.54.09
Bob interview Bob: It all depends on yourself, you know, what you believe, you know. If you believe that your religion will be able to help you, why not?
14.17.11
Music
Jakarta Chinatown
Maher: But not all Chinese are willing to forsake their beliefs and customs. Although the Indonesian government has been pressuring them to do so for decades.
14.38.04
Maher in Chinatown This is the heart of Jakarta’s Chinatown. But it’s unlike most other Chinatowns around the world, there are hardly any Chinese signs or banners to be seen and public celebrations of festivals like the lunar New Year are banned. These restrictions are all part of government backed attempts to keep the Chinese as invisible as possible.
14.56.07
Back street of Chinatown
Teddy Lim works from the shop house he was born in 49 years ago. He’s a calligrapher and a rarity in Jakarta these days. He discreetly runs his business from a Chinatown back street.
15.13.08
Teddy Teddy: You can see here in our Chinatown that advertising boards are not allowed in Chinese characters. Likewise, brand names in Chinese are not allowed. It’s different if you’re in Sydney. There, Chinatown has Chinese characters. It’s good.
15.31.10
Teddy in shop Maher: Teddy Lim’s business survives despite the fact that the government has pushed the Chinese to abandon their language and take up Indonesian names - a legacy of a failed coup 30 years ago, allegedly engineered by Communists. In the crackdown that followed, ethnic Chinese branded as leftists, were among hundreds of thousands of people slaughtered. It’s this kind of history which has led most ordinary Chinese to keep a very low profile.
15.49.15
Teddy Teddy: Don’t talk about politics. It makes me uncomfortable. Talking about the government makes me afraid. I don’t understand why every time something happens it’s always we Chinese who become the victims.
16.20.04
Chinese temple Bell
16.43.16
Maher: For many Chinese who survived the blood lettings and trauma of the mid-1960s, the events of the past few months have been a chilling reminder, especially for those who live without bodyguards, high walls and high connections.
Despite being here for generations, Chinese like Teddy and his wife fear they may never be accepted as Indonesians, and may instead end up paying the price for the success of their Chinese compatriots.
Bell
Music
01.53.22
Rioting Maher: During these past three months, a wave of violent ethnic rioting has struck Indonesia, the likes of which hasn’t been seen in decades.
02.10.08
Fuelled by their deep seated resentment towards the wealthy elite, and a strangled political voice, ordinary Indonesians have lashed out.
Poverty, racism and religion have found a convenient scapegoat - the country’s Chinese.
Map Indonesia
02.44.03
Rock band/nightclub
Man: Once again, we’re raw. We got to loosen up and have a little fun.
02.53.23
Music
Maher: Saturday night in Jakarta, and the city’s mega-rich are out on the town.
It’s the grand opening of the Fashion Cafe, opened by Indonesia’s wealthiest Chinese family.
Most of the guests rubbing shoulders with the super models are ethnic Chinese.
They’re the backbone of Indonesia’s business class and have lived here for centuries.
Men in nightclub
Although comprising just three per cent of the population, Chinese now control a staggering seventy per cent of the nation’s private wealth.
03.39.09
But as general resentment towards the wealth and cronyism of the Indonesian elite grows, ethnic Chinese have become a highly visible target.
Music
Protesters
Protester: Even in our village the Chinese take our livelihood. Mao Tse Tung and Kublai Khan colonised this land. Once colonisers, always colonisers.
04.06.14
Maher: On the outskirts of Jakarta, the village of Sawangan is a world away from the clubs and the mansions of the country’s elite.
The good times for Indonesia’s rich have delivered out here. These people have had their land taken away to make way for another housing project. The target of their anger isn’t their government, which approved the land grab, but the project’s Chinese developers.
Woman protester: How dare you say we have no right to this land. If this was not my parents’ land I wouldn’t be protesting here. How dare you say that!
Maher: Nasuti is here because her parents’ home has been lost. Bulldozed to make way for the development. Like the rest of the protesters, she’s a Muslim and a Pribumi, indigenous Indonesians who make up ninety-five per cent of the population.
04.59.15
But today Nasuti and the other villagers don’t get a chance to vent their anger with the Chinese developers. Just other Pribumi working for the construction company.
Man: You’re the one that started this! You are the guard here, aren’t you? Guard: This is our land now.
05.25.15
Land development site Maher: A few days later when passions had cooled, we went back to the site and found Nasuti.
05.45.02
Nasuti and Maher Nasuti: This is the land of Sawangan’s people that’s been taken over by the Chinese. Maher: All this? Nasuti: All this.
05.54.24
Maher: In Nasuti’s village, scores of people have lost their homes and land. Now many of them are unemployed. The land may have been seized with the permission of the local Pribumi Council and the military, but Nasuti says the Chinese are still to blame.
Nasuti: Over here everything is run by the Chinese - big or small.
Nasuti interview
People are dominated by the Chinese. Local government is nothing without the support of the Chinese. We still regard them as Chinese because if they’re Indonesian citizens why are we, the people of Sawangan - native Indonesians - neglected by them.
06.26.02
Golf game
Maher: Chipping away at his handicap, ethnic Chinese billionaire, Bob Hasan.
06.45.18
Three times a week, here at his private golf course, he plays golf with President Soeharto.
Chinese businessmen like Bob Hasan have gained their position in Indonesian society by becoming indispensable as deal makers, bankers and brokers.
Although the object of widespread hostility, they’re now an integral part of the economy and the country’s elite.
Hasan Interview in golf buggy
Super: BOB HASAN Ethnic Chinese Businessman Hasan: So when we play with the President, he usually feeds the fish. He likes to feed the fish, because it’s like feeding people, you know.
07.37.00
Hasan feeding fish
Maher: From his vantage point there are no tensions over Chinese domination of business, just a few agitators causing problems.
07.48.04
Hasan interview Hasan: No, no actually it is not anti-Chinese. It’s just, I think, Communist elements. They try to make disturbances. And then ending at rioting, burning, you know, and looting.
08.04.19
Maher: So you think this is motivated by Communists?
Hasan: It is more Communist motivated, trying to disrupt the government and so on. But this is small, small.
Golf game
Maher: But you don’t have to look far beyond the fairways to see a source of growing anti-Chinese sentiment which is neither small nor Communist.
08.30.10
Riots/burning buildings
08.41.18
Maher: For the Chinese of Rengengsklok in West Java, the terror was unleashed before dawn.
A group of Muslim youths went on the rampage after a Chinese woman complained about noise from a mosque.
As has been the case in other anti-Chinese riots over the past few months, many of the victims were neither powerful nor privileged.
Ordinary Chinese had their homes, businesses and places of worship destroyed.
Two members of their community were killed.
Maher and Man in burned out temple Once the smoke had cleared, one of the few Chinese prepared to venture outside took us back to the charred remains of the Buddhist temple he helped build. 09.48.05
Brebit Medatama’s house was also attacked by the mob. While he managed to save his home and helped his wife and children to escape, there was nothing he could do to save his temple.
Medatama: This is my first time seeing the place. Inside my heart is crying because the place I’m proud of and where I pray, has been burnt down. To rebuild this will take a long time. I feel very sad. I hope this won’t happen again. Let bygones be bygones.
Chinese in church
Singing
10.52.21
Maher: The Chinese Christians in town fared no better. We joined them as they prayed together at a makeshift service, and as they returned to survey the ruins of their church.
Chinese amongst burned out church
Man: I don’t know why they have to attack the Chinese and the churches. The houses of many of my congregation have been stoned. It’s very human for them to be afraid. But I haven’t talked to them all yet because some of them are in Jakarta - they’ve left town.
11.20.10
Maher: Why have they left?
Man: For their safety, of course.
Building with broken windows
Maher: For the Chinese who can’t leave Rengengsklok, the shock and fear remain. Even proclamation of the Muslim faith are unlikely to protect them should the mob return.
12.06.24
Muslim service
12.21.21
Maher: In an attempt to avoid increasing resentment, some Chinese have gone to great lengths in their search for acceptance.
At this mosque, Tri Widono, an ambitious young Chinese executive has chosen to join a more popular faith. Watched by his fiancee, who’s already a Muslim, Tri, a Buddhist, is converting to Islam.
Imam at microphone
Imam: The meaning of what he says will be a declaration that he is now a Muslim. Can you tell us the meaning? Tri: I testify that there is no god but Allah and Mohammad is his prophet.
12.54.18
Maher: The mosque’s leader, Chinese Muslim, Junus Jahja, believes if more follow Tri’s footsteps, the building backlash against the Chinese will be diffused.
Junus Super:
JUNUS JAHJA Chinese Moslem Leader
Junus: In Thailand they are all Buddhists, so there is no Chinese problem. In the Philippines, they are all Catholic, there is no Chinese problem. And the Chinese immigrating to America, they became Christians or Catholics. There’s no problem also. So I think in Indonesia, the process will be likewise. Later generations will decide whether I’m successful or not. Whether they think oh, Mr Junus is a bloody fool.
13.31.24
Golf game
Maher: Perhaps the most famous Chinese convert to Islam, is none other than tycoon, Bob Hasan. Nicknamed Haji Bob, after a highly publicised pilgrimage to Mecca, he says conversion has helped him make a contribution to his country.
13.54.09
Bob interview Bob: It all depends on yourself, you know, what you believe, you know. If you believe that your religion will be able to help you, why not?
14.17.11
Music
Jakarta Chinatown
Maher: But not all Chinese are willing to forsake their beliefs and customs. Although the Indonesian government has been pressuring them to do so for decades.
14.38.04
Maher in Chinatown This is the heart of Jakarta’s Chinatown. But it’s unlike most other Chinatowns around the world, there are hardly any Chinese signs or banners to be seen and public celebrations of festivals like the lunar New Year are banned. These restrictions are all part of government backed attempts to keep the Chinese as invisible as possible.
14.56.07
Back street of Chinatown
Teddy Lim works from the shop house he was born in 49 years ago. He’s a calligrapher and a rarity in Jakarta these days. He discreetly runs his business from a Chinatown back street.
15.13.08
Teddy Teddy: You can see here in our Chinatown that advertising boards are not allowed in Chinese characters. Likewise, brand names in Chinese are not allowed. It’s different if you’re in Sydney. There, Chinatown has Chinese characters. It’s good.
15.31.10
Teddy in shop Maher: Teddy Lim’s business survives despite the fact that the government has pushed the Chinese to abandon their language and take up Indonesian names - a legacy of a failed coup 30 years ago, allegedly engineered by Communists. In the crackdown that followed, ethnic Chinese branded as leftists, were among hundreds of thousands of people slaughtered. It’s this kind of history which has led most ordinary Chinese to keep a very low profile.
15.49.15
Teddy Teddy: Don’t talk about politics. It makes me uncomfortable. Talking about the government makes me afraid. I don’t understand why every time something happens it’s always we Chinese who become the victims.
16.20.04
Chinese temple Bell
16.43.16
Maher: For many Chinese who survived the blood lettings and trauma of the mid-1960s, the events of the past few months have been a chilling reminder, especially for those who live without bodyguards, high walls and high connections.
Despite being here for generations, Chinese like Teddy and his wife fear they may never be accepted as Indonesians, and may instead end up paying the price for the success of their Chinese compatriots.
Bell