From: Wenbiao Zhang <wzhang at cs.sfu.ca>
Date: Fri, 3 Jul 1998 23:39:15 -0700 (PDT)
Reference web site: http://www.huaren.org
Dear friends,
Please read this long e-mail with your sympathy and patience. Try to imagine how painful our people are suffering in Indonesia.
As Chinese, we all should stand up and take some actions.
Subject: "THE INDONESIAN CHINESE ARE THE VICTIMS, THE INDONESIAN PRIBUMIS ARE THE PERPETRATORS"
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 21:40:00 -1000 _From: "dodol" <dodol at yahoo.com>
"THE INDONESIAN CHINESE ARE THE VICTIMS, THE INDONESIAN PRIBUMIS ARE THE PERPETRATORS"
If you have watched TV, read newspapers, or turned on the radio this past several days, you may hear of the riots in Indonesia.
News media are telling us the Indonesian Pribumis (Malay) people are rising up against the Suharto dictatorship. We are told that the Indonesia poor Malay suffered a lot under Suharto's corrupted regime, and they wanted change.
The Indonesia Pribumis (Malay) comprises over 80% of the total population. Most of them are Muslims. The Indonesian ethnic Chinese minority are mostly Buddhist or Christian.
The news media portrayed the Indonesian Malay as honest, decent, peace loving people who rioted because they were hungry, they were poor, and they were victimized by Suharto, and his filthy-rich Indonesian Chinese allies.
Who is Suharto? Is Suharto an Indonesian Pribumi (Malay,) or is he an Indonesian Chinese? Is Suharto a Muslim, or is he a Christian or a Buddhist?
Aren't you curious that almost all reports about the Indonesian rioters savagely attacking businesses owned by the Indonesian ethnic Chinese minority come with the DISCLAIMER-like pseudo-economic news attachment that reminds us of the "disproportion wealth gap" between the Chinese and the Malay in Indonesia?
A disclaimer-like news attachment usually looks like this: The Indonesian ethnic Chinese minority only comprises less than 4% of the Indonesian population, but they controlled more than (70%, 75%, 80%, 85%, 90%, take your pick) of the entire Indonesian economy."
Don't you find it strange the news media attach an ECONOMIC disclaimer whenever they report the BLATANTLY RACIST RIOTS in Indonesia perpetrated by people from the MAJORITY RACE against people of the MINORITY RACE?
Could it be possible that 4% of the population controlling over 90% of the economy? Suharto and his family are reported to have accumulated up to 40 BILLION US$ in wealth.
Is Suharto and his family counted among the 4% of the population?
Is Suharto and his family ethnically CHINESE?
Is the World Press reporting from Indonesia consistent with their reporting from elsewhere around the world?
Here are several recent world events, as reported to us by the same International Media:
In Rwanda, when the MAJORITY Hutus attacked and massacre the minority Tutsis, the World Press reported it as a racial-based tragedy. There was no mention of the economic differences.
In Bosnia, when the MAJORITY Serbs and/or the Croats attacked and massacred the Bosnia Muslims, the International Media told us it was religious-based.
The conflicts between the Albanian and Serbs in Kosovo are being reported as race-based conflicts.
Why then, whenever the Indonesian Malay MAJORITY savagely attacked the Indonesian Chinese minority, the World Media kept on insisting that the attacks motivated by RACIST hatred were ECONOMIC-related riots?
Have you heard any single news story that portrayed the Indonesian Malay as racists for their attack on Chinese-owned businesses?
Have you wonder why the Indonesian Malay only attacked the Chinese shops, and not the Malay, American, British, or Arabian businesses?
Are ALL Indonesian Chinese FILTHY-RICH? Of the Indonesian Chinese, only 5% can be classified as wealthy. The rest of them - NINETY-FIVE PERCENT (95%) - of them are either in the medium or lower-income strata of the Indonesian economy.
Today, many Indonesian ethnic Chinese are still living in wooden shacks because they can NOT afford brick houses. Many of the poor Indonesian Chinese worked very hard but they still find it extremely difficult to make enough money to feed and house their family.
Most of the really wealthy Indonesian Chinese already LEFT Indonesia. Those stayed behind in Indonesia are the poor Chinese who don't have the economic means to escape. And they are whose businesses are being LOOTED, whose merchandizes are being PLUNDERED, whose buildings are being TORCHED, whose women are being RAPED, and whose children are being BRUTALLY SLAUGHTERED.
They are the ones made homeless by the Pribumis savagery attacks, they are made even poorer for having their small business totally destroyed by the rioters and looters.
The shops that were destroyed and looted were mostly mom-and-pop types of small business. With their shops burnt to the ground, those already poor Chinese gotten even POORER. They lost not only their businesses, they lost their home, and they lost many of their family members who were killed by the Indonesian Malay rioters. Or even their daughters and wives had been raped by the rioters and looters.
How many of the news reports you have read regarding the Indonesian riots mentioned all these facts?
What is the percentage of those news reports even talked about the Chinese who were BRUTALLY BUTCHERED by the rioters?
Think back for a minute, of the many of the news reports you have read about Indonesia, can you think of one which mentioned the number of Chinese killed in by the Malay rioters?
How many of those news reports focused on the plight of the Indonesian ethnic Chinese minority?
Did the News Media ever tell us how many Chinese were hurt?
Did they tell us how many Chinese women were RAPED?
Did they tell us how many Chinese were SLAUGHTERED?
Did they describe to us what type of HORRIBLE DEATHS the Chinese had suffered by the hands of the BRUTAL HANDS of the Malay (Indonesian pribumi) rioters?
Do you know the story of the innocent THREE-YEAR-OLD Chinese GIRL who was BRUTALLY BUTCHERED by the Indonesian Malay rioters when they broke into her parent's house, in Tanjong Pinang, Sumatra Island, Indonesia?
The rioters first broke into her parents' house. they KILLED her grandmother. Then the rioters RAPED and BUTCHERED her mother. Finally they MURDERED this INNOCENT 3 year-old Chinese GIRL, by smashed open her skull with a metal pipe. Has CNN reported this news? Has BBC covered this event? Why? Has AP, UPI, or Reuters distributed this story?
Wonder why none of the Wold Press is interested in reporting the horrible death of an INNOCENT 3-year-old GIRL? Was it because the little girl is from the Indonesia ethnic Chinese minority background? Was it because her family is definitely NOT RICH, which may jeopardize the "Indonesian Chinese = FILTHY-RICH" image painted by so many journalists reporting from Indonesia, for the World Media?
Was it because she was a innocently sweet little girl, unlike the "Indonesian Chinese = COLD-HEARTED, EVIL BUSNESSMEN" image so many journalists would have us believed?
Was it because her INNOCENCE may proved to us that the Indonesian Chinese are flesh-and-blood human beings, much like the rest of the humanities, which again, may smash the "Indonesian Chinese=NON-HUMAN" image many members