Eyewitness - Indonesia

Bahasa Indonesia is the national language and was created to provide a trade and educational language that all peoples could have in common. Bahasa is basically Malay but with some changes made. Creating a common language was an ingenious way of finding neutral ground to help unify the nation and secure its place in the world.

Each ethnic group has its own mother tongue and culture. Through our RICE/Wb2 research we had found there to be around 15 major language groups within Indonesia – some of them, like the Sundanese (23 million), very large. The largest ethnic population is the Javanese. The view from Jakarta was that everyone in the country knew Bahasa and it was the national language – but the view from the provinces was quite the opposite. It was in their own languages that they expressed their culture and identity and found a sense of belonging. The development of broadcasts in the local languages was therefore of great importance and Samuel put his weight behind it.

In addition to the many indigenous ethnic peoples, there were a lot of Chinese living in Indonesia’s cities. Many of these had become Christians but, sadly, there was a history of riots against them. This negative attitude went back to the early days of independence, when Sukarno was president. It was believed that many of the Chinese were communist sympathisers, and major civil unrest saw many killed. Even in more recent years, there have been dark times when outrage against the Chinese has boiled over, especially during the turbulent years of 1997-8. Shopping malls and stores were torched, and angry Muslim mobs roamed the streets, seeking out Chinese women to rape and torture, sometimes going through entire apartment complexes. When I was in Jakarta for the dedication of the new Heartline FM station on the occasion of YASKI’s 29th anniversary in November 1998, there were tanks out on the streets and a curfew was declared. It became known as Black Friday and was very tense. (p. 159)

Here follow two excerpts….

The flight into Aceh was interesting. Many on board were relief workers going back into Banda Aceh after a few days’ respite. The man I sat next to described his experiences of helping people retrieve the bodies of loved ones from the mud and debris that covered everything. I gulped when I thought of the possibility that I might be called on to do the same. This was the reality – and a huge departure from watching the disaster on our TVs back home. Once on the ground, we were met and driven to our temporary accommodation. On the way, we passed one of the mass graves, where black plastic body bags were being off-loaded from trucks. Three weeks after the tsunami, which claimed an estimated 168,000 lives in North Sumatra, there were about 1200-1500 bodies per day being retrieved and buried. On the afternoon of our arrival, Mike and I took a tour of some of the devastation. It was depressing – everything was reduced to junk. Splintered wood, bedsteads, vehicles, white goods, personal items, photo albums – and the pervasive black mud that seemed to cover everything. It went on for mile after mile. “Desolation” was the word to sum it up – apocalyptic desolation. Where was any sign of hope? That night, I talked to God about it: “Please give me some sign that you are here and that you want to make your presence known.” The next day, I received a threefold response: a rainbow against a dark and threatening sky, the greenest shoot of a new banana tree pushing up through the black mud – and, last of all, a beautiful smile on the face of an Indonesia Red Cross worker. Thank you, God! You are here, and you share in the pain and suffering of your people. (p.166)