By
Kazi Mahmood, IOL Correspondent
JAKARTA,
Aug 11 (IslamOnline) - The People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) or the
Assembly, the highest judicial body in Indonesia, became the target of
criticism Saturday, August 10, and was accused of being racist by
several quarters, news agencies reported Sunday August 11, 2002.
The
MPR was also accused of discrimination for agreeing to include the
word “pribumi” (indigenous Indonesian or non-immigrant) in a draft
decree on economic recovery.
Fears
are that Indonesia may be heading just like Malaysia where the
indigenous Malays are given special economic grants and facilities
under a similar concept as the “pribumi”.
Opposition
came from businessmen, students and legislators who joined hands in
their demand for legislators to take out the racist and discriminative
word from the draft decree, the Jakarta Post said.
Assembly
Speaker Amien Rais joined the chorus, advising the MPR to avoid the
use of the word, calling it outdated.
He
said the word would create an image that after “living as a free
nation for more than half a century, we still differentiate between
indigenous and non indigenous Indonesians.”
Indonesia
has a multi-racial and multi-cultural geographical component. Javanese
Malays are considered indigenous residents of the Java archipelago.
They
form more than half of the Indonesian population of 215 million, 80
percent of whom are Muslims.
In
the event Indonesia was to follow the Malaysian example of Affirmative
Action plan favoring the indigenous people and discarding the
immigrants, the country could face a social-political disaster,
observers warned.
It
will not only create an unfair distinction between the different races
and cultures, it will also divide the Muslims widely on the economic
level.
A
huge number of the 175 million Muslims of Indonesia are immigrants
from different continents, including the Middle East, Thailand and
India.
