Chinese people getting involved in politics, and inter-marrying.

Eddie Lembong, the head of the Chinese-Indonesian Association (INTI), says Chinese Indonesians should get more involved in politics, but not to the point of establishing their own political party. Eddie told the Jakarta Post:

Chinese Indonesians need to learn the science of politics, to be a knowledge-based politician in that sense. However, I do not agree with establishing an ethnic-based political party.

Most Chinese-Indonesians still regard politics as a taboo matter. They fear talking about politics, let alone being involved in it.

Speaking at a seventh anniversary event for the Indonesia Shang Bao daily newspaper, Eddie, whose other name is Wang Youshan, said this fear was related to traumas that Chinese-Indonesians have experienced since the Dutch colonial era, because the Dutch discriminated against the Chinese and set up separate laws for them (see Islam & Chinese).

Kwik Kian Gie, a Chinese politician.

This system of discrimination was then continued in part by Indonesian governments post-independence in the form of the citizenship law and the civil registry law.

However, Eddie said things were much different today for Chinese-Indonesians, and other minorities like westerners and Christians:

After the enactment of the new citizenship law and civil registry law, both in 2006, the root of all discriminatory treatment against Caucasians, Chinese-Indonesians and Christian Indonesians was formally removed.

Eddie, a pharmacist by trade, said Chinese-Indonesians should first start studying political theory, the history of democracy and the republic, as well as about the nature of nationalism.

It is more important to master the knowledge of politics than to merely jump into practical politics by establishing or entering a political party.

He said that ethnic Chinese make up only 3% of the population.

So a political party should not be established based on ethnicity, but rather on an ideology supported by the people.

Also speaking at the event was House of Representatives Deputy Speaker AM Fatwa. Fatwa said that there were now legal punishments for bureaucrats who still insisted on Chinese-Indonesians having Indonesian Citizenship Letters (SKBRI).

Eddie Lembong, former president Gus Dur, & businessman Sugeng Sarjadi.

Some public officials still asked for the SKBRI, Fatwa said, and he blamed this on their mentalities and their lack of awareness of the new law.

Fatwa also said that mixed-race marriages were a good way to bring about the assimilation of various ethnic groups. Eddie partly disagreed, however, saying that inter-ethnic marriages were not a means to solve problems generally but could have a positive affect on inter-ethnic relations.