The day my Chinese dad was declared a ‘bona fide’ Indonesian and given a new name
Stanley Widianto is too young to recall the last time Indonesians turned on their Chinese neighbours, but seeing Jakarta’s Chinese Indonesian governor jailed by a court this year was a jolting reminder of the official prejudice his own father had to overcome
When Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan used the word pribumi in his inaugural address on October 16, it left the people he will serve for the next five years divided. He had just been elected in a race for governor against Chinese Christian incumbent Basuki “Ahok” Purnama, who had earlier been sentenced to imprisonment by the North Jakarta District Court.
The opposition camp criticised Anies for his use of the discriminatory word – which translates to “indigenous Indonesians” and implies that Chinese Indonesians are not natives. His followers defended him, claiming the country had moved on and the word was no longer offensive.
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It reminded me of another Chinese Indonesian who went to court in November 1984, and that was my father.
At a courthouse in East Jakarta, the then 23-year old Wong Se Kong presented himself with all the necessary documents and paid the fees required to reject his former alien status and become a “bona fide” Indonesian. If he had not, he would not have been permitted to graduate from the college he was attending.
Regarding it as just another bureaucratic hurdle, he fixed the “problem”. Thereafter he had a new name, which would appear on his ID card, marriage certificate, and the birth certificates of his three children: Surya Widianto Wong.
