3 Comments on “Regional Tribalism”

1. Fanglong Says:
   September 1st, 2006 at 6:53 pm

   Are a being chief and being an owner the same ?
   Real diversity in non-fascist unity would be great !
   But look at Acheh, for instance ! Intricate !
   Please, no more “New Order”. It sounds so… mussolinian !

2. Tomaculum Says:
   March 25th, 2007 at 7:16 pm

   1. People waiting simply for better life after the autonomy. And what is happened? Other matters are treated preferential, like “moral”, religion etc. Meanwhile the people are getting more and more hungry. And the same old song of corruption, collusion and nepotism is still being sung but in a little bit other way (”recover version”?).

   2. Tribalism exist already in the past and will further exist with or without autonomy. The problem is still the same: the unfair allocation of the national “money”. And recently the tribalism is used by some figures to stabilize their seats and many of them cover this misuse cleverly as religious matters.

   3. “Tolerant toward (Indonesian) migrant workers in your area? No 38%, Yes 62%.”
   This is also an old song. Look the antipathy between Sundanese and Javanese. And look how the rest of Indonesia looks down on their Papuan “brothers”.

   Solution? Unity through one religion?

3. Ibuchat Says:
   March 26th, 2007 at 10:47 am

   “Solution? Unity through one religion?”

   How would you propose getting everyone to adopt the one religion? Surely this would just cause even more hostility and resentment?

   Unfortunately people will always find a way to differentiate themselves from one another - if not on religious, then on some other grounds, eg, for being kampungan or OKB or whatever.

   Anyone else remember Jane Elliots’ Blue Eyed/Brown Eyed studies:

   http://www.janeelliott.com/videos.htm

   I think the lesson from this is that it is the prejudice itself that needs to be attacked and dismantled, not the differences between us (which will always exist).

   I think this is probably true the world over, not just in Indonesia which to my mind has always seemed a remarkably tolerant society in lots of ways (not denying those divisions that Tomaculum mentions).

   How many other countries are there in the world that have as many different cultures/languages as Indonesia does?

   Sure it doesn’t always work perfectly but in general people from different ethnic/religious/cultural backgrounds seem to coexist a lot more harmoniously in Indonesia than they do in some other parts of the world (eg, the former Yugoslavia).

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