Chinezenmoord now an annual national remembrance holiday
And why this will change practically everything
Alexandros Rex | Editor-in-Chief
12 July 2016 | Jakarta, Hindia Belanda
The massacre of Chinese prisoners under Governor-General Valckenier in Batavia (now Jakarta)
Everyone who didn’t skip history class, or managed to remain awake during the class should be familiar with the harrowing story — told countless of times by our favourite history teachers — of the Chinezenmoord. Commonly known in the Indonesian language as the Pembunuhan Pacinan, the incident was too pivotal and damaging to the fabrics of Hindia Belandan society that its impact can still be felt to this day, some 260 years after.
Of course, the term ‘Chinezenmoord’ not only refers to a single incident in 1740 but rather, a series of repeating incidents thereafter, with the 1933 Fifteen Days Revolt being the bloodiest and most notorious. Sources differ on how many ethnic Chinese were massacred in the series of Chinese Killings that defined an era of terror in the archipelago. In total, there were estimated 83,932 victims who died during the era of terror — at least half of the killings was sponsored by the colonial government with help from native rulers.
Some Hindia Belandans say that the 1740 pogrom was the flashpoint from which the racial rift between native Malays and ethnic Chinese, whose intensity had only began to diminish in the 1970s, sprung up. But everyone would agree that the incidents left a seemingly enduring scar among the populace, tirelessly concealed by the myriad of Anti-Discrimination legislation and a dangerous inclination of the general public to ‘forget and let go’.
Letting go is another story for the thousands of ethnic Chinese, whose families and those who came before them had to wear a ‘mark of shame’ akin to the Star of David, given mandatorily to Jews under Nazi Germany. The Proof of Hindia Belandan Citizenship, as the document was called, was an abominable and oppressive instrument with which ethnic Chinese must be issued — the document must be shown on a daily basis to whoever demands to see their proof of citizenship. Anyone who had this document was guaranteed total exclusion from the upward mobility enjoyed by the rest of the population.
Sure, if you asked any Hindia Belandan, be they ethnic Chinese, Malay or European, whether the impact of the Chinezenmoord can still be felt today, they would be quick to dismiss the notion and say “No, we are united and one. We are all Hindia Belandan”. That same rhetoric is repeated every day by almost everyone across the archipelago, but does it hold any meaning? We never really addressed the issue, we never bothered to ask our fellow Hindia Belandan whether they are secretly still hurting beneath their façade. We never asked if their parents or grandparents had suffered during the killings. Instead, we act as if nothing happened and that the Killings were but a blank period in our history.
Even today, not even the Netherlands or our own government has ever issued a formal apology for the killings. And when they are forced to answer the question, their trademark responses range from "but the 1740 killings were perpetrated by the Dutch East India Company, not our government!" to "there is a statute of limitation on which cases can be brought forward for a hearing in the courts". So one shouldn't wonder as to why racial tension has never really made its departure, after all these years.
A royal commission in 2002 found that discrimination against ethnic Chinese still prevailed albeit at a very smaller scale and often covert manner, in the workplace and in public life. But a plea to initiate a national discourse on the subject the very next day fell on deaf ears. We were so quick to forget that we also forgot how repressed sentiment, however successfully we repress it, will eventually resurface as a new monster.
So when Prime Minister Susilo, accompanied by cross-party leaders, announced in the Dewan Deputi this morning that 22 October is to be designated as an annual national remembrance holiday to commemorate the Chinezenmoord, Hindia Belanda suddenly became alive as if waking up from a long, noxious slumber. It was a scene too alien and foreign for any Hindia Belandan to witness; it successfully prevented the monster from resurfacing. By acknowledging publicly and honestly that the Chinezenmoord did happen and how it became a catalyst in our downward spiral to a relatively racist and discriminative society, we can begin to rise together from the ruins of our past.
Does this magically end the hinted rift that is still present between the races in Hindia Belanda overnight? Maybe no. But it surely would provide a stepping stone for the nation, so torn and divided by decades of harmful colonial policies and lingering remnants of a scorned past, to heal and unite. A nation cannot reconcile if the horrors of the past — however far apart they are to the present day — have not yet been acknowledged, lest history repeats itself.
Correction: the article originally said that the PM and cross-party leaders made the announcement in the Dewan Bangsawan, when in fact it was made in the Dewan Deputi.
Alexandros Malik is the editor-in-chief of the Jakarta Tribune. The author spends his day covering news as they unfold and writing about them for the public to consume. He lives in Jakarta but sometimes take a month or two away in Europe.
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