Merangkai SinoLogika: Bunga Rampai - Christine Susanna Tjhin

On 17 January 2005, the Fellowship of Indonesian Christians in America (FICA) published an interview with Christine Susanna Tjhin, a Chinese Indonesian who worked with an INTI relief team in Medan which was tasked with investigating “the validity of rumors of persecutions towards Indonesian Chinese minority”. Tjhin, who is a researcher for the Jakarta based Center for Strategic Studies (CSIS), told FICA that “information from the first hand sources” revealed “that these were just unsubstantiated issues”. Though Tjhin did not herself travel beyond Medan and into Aceh itself, she felt informed enough to advise FICA that the rumour of “an organized and collective persecution in Aceh against the Indonesian Chinese” “was simply untrue”. According to Tjhin, the most significant incidents of xenophobic and/or sectarian agitation that she did learn of were the work of outside Javanese Islamist organisations, and not of the local Acehnese. Some relevant extracts follow in detail:  ...

The Jakarta Post, 2 February 2006.  Chinese ornaments on sale in Glodok ahead of Chinese New Year. Often people identify the physical cultural symbols of others as a measurements of their level of identity. Less often, people go beyond symbols and seek actions, processes and outcomes. Imlek (Chinese New Year) may well be the annual climax of Chinese Indonesian identity expression -- regardless of who expresses it. I've been seeing red here and there, gold there and here. Gongxi Facai calligraphy, oriental ornaments, cheongsam in boutiques, barongsai dances, and many other things. It seems that Imlek gets increasingly festive with each passing year. Reactions to this are manifold, despite it being obvious that it is mainly the commercial sector that is providing the festive regalia. Money, perhaps, has no identity card. At one extreme, some claim that Imlek manifests the "Rise (or Victory) of the Chinese Indonesian". At the other extreme, "resinification"...

Kompas, 28 Januari 2006 Pedagang pernak-pernik Imlek di Glodok menjajakan barang dagangannya. (Foto: CNN Indonesia/Andry Novelino). Imlek di Indonesia dari tahun ke tahun kian meriah. Di pusat perbelanjaan, televisi, reklame, koran, majalah, ornamen oriental, dan kaligrafi, Gong Xi Fa Chai bertebaran. Suasana Imlek sering dijadikan salah satu ukuran guna menilai "kebangkitan etnis Tionghoa". Penilaian itu beragam, dari "kemenangan" hingga "kebablasan", bahkan "resinifikasi". Imlek dijadikan salah satu strategi esensialisme ( essentialism ), di mana simbol-simbol identitas Tionghoa kembali dihadirkan dalam proses politik pengakuan ( politics of recognition ). Politik pengakuan Charles Taylor (1992) menjelaskan, dinamika identitas tidak terlepas dari politik pengakuan yang memiliki karakter dialogis ( dialogical ). Identitas individu terbentuk melalui proses dialog antara individu itu dan individu atau kelompok lain. Di tataran publik, ...

PERSPEKTIF BARU BERSAMA WIMAR WITOELAR: Christine Susanna Tjhin adalah seorang peneliti di Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) sejak 2003. Kami sering mendengarkan pandangannya di forum umum dan tulisannya di berbagai media, terutama juga kehadirannya dalam forum riset. Tapi yang kami ingin sorot sekarang beberapa pandangannya mengenai topik pembawaan perilaku peran kaum turunan Tionghoa di Indonesia. Ini bukan hanya karena dia keturunan Tionghoa tapi minat pribadinya dan juga terkait banyak aspek seperti dirinya sebagai peneliti, aspek kelompok minoritas, dan aspek perkembangan demokrasi di Indonesia. Menurut Christine, kini sudah mulai ada pergeseran pandangan pada etnis Tionghoa untuk pengakuan. Mereka melihat tuntutan untuk mendapatkan keadilan terhadap kejadian Mei itu sudah tidak kena strateginya. Kini mereka sudah punya semacam pemahaman bahwa perjuangan pengakuan terhadap komunitas Tionghoa itu tidak cuma di sana. Selain itu, pada saat ini juga sudah muncul ...