Race is a part of this class thingy. Certain ethnicities or sub ethnicities are perceived differently in the society (some are higher, some are lower). Mixed with other variables, it is pretty much a “jungle” in Indonesia.

I’ve lived in the United States for a decade and I see that babies are born without a class. Of course, this is my subjective point of view. He or she merely inherits his or her parent’s last name, which may open more doors if the parent is an influential person. In the end, the person him or herself must prove to the world how well he or she can perform, so he or she can earn his own class, regardless of his or her race/ethnicity.

Such thing is a rarity, if not non-existent in Indonesia. Just my humble two cents.

I’ve shown in polite company you can get away with anti-’Bule’ comments to a much greater degree than many other groups. I’ve been at dinner parties around Southeast Asia where stunning generalizations about Caucasians – some 1.2 billion or so people – are casually tossed around. Payback for a colonial era modern-day Bule have never known ? Just commentary on Australian ‘arrogance’ ? With Indonesians, it’s ‘orang bule this,’ or ‘orang bule that’.

Naughty-naughty Unspun even stirred the pot a while back with a posting on why ‘bule’ like women who look like ‘pembantu.’ In one post that skillfully ran the gauntlet, ‘the Hong Kong Ronin’, he talked about washed-up ‘Bules’ in the media. Mr. Unspun was fair in the ‘Ronin’ post, but the simple word-associations would have stirred some careless readers. (Aspiring stirrers like Achmad watched on in envy) .

Then there are the Javanese, Acehnese, Bugis, Balinese, Minangs, Melayus and everyone else laballed ‘pribumi.’ I think it was the late carmudgeon Mochtar Lubis who railed against Indonesian ethnic bigotry. One editor at a Jakarta newspaper from Aceh told me when he got to this city in the 1960s, people would just call him ‘Eh- Sumatra’. Doesn’t seem to have died. Mr. Kalla, no slouch on the bigotry front, admitted he couldn’t run for President because he wasn’t a Javanese. Indonesian racism, more of a primordial, subconcious thing, perhaps ?

Sex/gender makes a lot of difference in Indonesian society.

Legally and culturally speaking, there are too many double standards for women in Indonesia. Some examples:

- Matrimony Law (UU 1/1974): man is the head of the household and woman is the housewife. (It is an obsolete concept, now many women have to work as bread winners and men stay at home. Whoever stays at home must take care of the house, not only women.)

- Engaging in agreements: A married woman must have her husband as a co-signer or gives permission for a legal agreement to be valid. (What if that husband is a slacker? An abusive one? No marriage is perfect and this law has a loophole as big as the volcanoe’s.)

- Culturally, a woman must ask for permission from her husband to get a job. If he doesn’t allow it for whatever reason, it’s the end of discussion.

- More on the list.

I’m *not* a feminist, I simply believe in equality among all people (human rights equality).

It would be interesting to hear from others though on:
1. Are inter-racial relations better now than before in Indonesia?
2. Overall, does Indonesia have better inter-racial relations or Malaysia?

Is this one of your reasons too, Unspun, may I ask?