Origins

The Indonesian community in Canada reflects the diversity of the populations and cultures in the homeland, although the proportions diverge substantially. Indonesia is a country of over 6,000 inhabited islands (out of over 17,508), which are scattered across the sea between the Malay peninsula and Australia. The largest of the islands include Sumatra (Sumatera), Java (Djawa), Bali, and the Lesser Sundas (Nusa Tenggara), which face the Indian Ocean, and southern and eastern Borneo (Kalimantan), Celebes (Sulawesi), the Moluccas (Malukus), and western New Guinea (Irian Jaya), which look out onto the Pacific Ocean. Stretching from west to east for over 4,800 kilometres, and encompassing nearly 2 million square kilometres of land, Indonesia accounts for about one-eighth of the globe’s circumference. It is also the fourth most populous country in the world with 195 million inhabitants (1992).

Indonesia’s enormous size is matched by its ethnic diversity. There are more 300 peoples speaking 250 distinct languages. The Javanese are numerically the largest indigenous group (45 percent). They set much of the country’s political and cultural tone and tend to be dominant in government and civil service. Other large groups include the Sundanese (14 percent), the Muslim Madurese (7.5 percent), and Malays (7.5 percent).

In terms of religion, the country is relatively less diverse. An estimated 87 percent of the population are Sunni Muslims. About 9 percent are Christians, including Roman Catholics and Protestants. The latter were originally associated primarily with the Dutch Reformed and Lutheran churches, although in recent years it is the Pentecostals who have been the most dynamic among Protestant groups. There are also Hindus (mainly Balinese) and Buddhists (mainly Chinese).

With the exception of the Papuans in western New Guinea and some peoples in the Moluccas, all the peoples of Indonesia speak Malayo-Polynesian languages. Malay had traditionally served as a common language (lingua franca) of trade and commerce, and a version of Malay called Bahasa Indonesia is the national language of the country.

The creation of a political entity from lands of great geographic and human diversity is the result of European overseas colonization. Although in the sixteenth century the Portuguese were the first Europeans to establish trading posts in what later became Indonesia, it was the Netherlands and their Dutch East India Company that were to have the most lasting impact. Beginning in Java in the early seventeenth century, the Dutch gradually expanded to other Indonesian islands where they created a plantation economy to supply spices, tea, and coffee for its lucrative European market. Dutch control of Indonesia was, with a few brief interruptions, to last until the occupation of the country by Japan during World War II.

In 1945, after Japan surrendered to the Allied powers, Indonesian nationalists, who were led by Achmad Sukarno and who were already active before the war, proclaimed an independent Republic of Indonesia. Dutch tried to re-establish control over the country but, after five years of conflict, in 1949 they recognized an independent state headed by Sukarno. Colonial rule came to an end everywhere but in East Timor (Timur), the easternmost of the Lesser Sunda islands which remained a Portuguese colony until ceded to Indonesia in 1976. Since that time relations between East Timor and the central government of Indonesia have been marked by tension and violent confrontations that have led to the death of an estimated quarter of the region’s 700,000 residents.

During the period of Dutch colonial rule, a flourishing minority of ethnic Chinese made a home in Indonesia, and since then they have been mostly engaged in trading, small business, and crafts. The Chinese, who today number about three million (2–3 percent of the total population of Indonesia), have tended to remain socially, if not culturally, distinct. They are often resented by other Indonesians, who are referred to collectively as the pribumi, or indigenous “sons of the soil.” In actual fact, some older Chinese families with a history and residence of many generations in Indonesia have become largely assimilated to Indonesian language(s) and culture. Known as peranakan (“local-born”), many no longer speak any Chinese or practise Chinese customs. Nevertheless, they still remain socially separate from the pribumi. Another category of Chinese are the totok, who are either born in China themselves or are the children of immigrants raised according to Chinese custom and whose principal language is Mandarin or some other Chinese language. The totok have remained China-oriented, and many never even obtained Indonesian citizenship. Some totok who have arrived in Canada are listed as stateless persons.

By the end of his first decade of rule, Sukarno had created an increasingly dictatorial regime (becoming president for life) that appropriated foreign-owned plantations and that encouraged the growth of the Indonesian Communist party. In response to an attempted coup d’état by the party in 1965, the head of the army, Thojib Suharto, quelled the rebellion brutally, leaving between 200,000 and 300,000 people (mostly Communists and leftists) dead. In 1967 Suharto became Indonesia’s president and, during his next three decades in power, he instituted the so-called New Order, an economic plan that encouraged Western investment and large-scale industrial development.

Among the hundreds of thousands killed and persecuted during the late 1960s were many ethnic Chinese. Suharto’s anti-Communist government implemented a vigourous program of forced assimilation and “indonesianization” that called for the exclusive use of the national language (Bahasa Indonesia). During this campaign, special measures were directed at the Chinese, who were encouraged to adopt Indonesian surnames. Also, the public use of Chinese script was prohibited, Chinese-language schools were banned, and Chinese businesses were required to employ more pribumi workers and managers. Partly for self-protection, some Chinese publicly converted to a religion not traditionally associated with Chinese culture, such as Islam or Christianity. Thus today, most middle-aged Indonesian Chinese are more distanced from their ancestral culture than other overseas Chinese. Although the Chinese in Indonesia remain overall relatively prosperous as a community, many feel that their opportunities are increasingly limited in Indonesia’s pribumidominated political and economic system unless they can form partnerships with pribumis. Those who can afford it make substantial investments offshore and send their offspring overseas for education, after which many do not return.