Ester Indahyani Jusuf

In Indonesia’s richly plural society, ethnic prejudices often considered too sensitive to discuss are deeply embedded both in social attitudes and in the laws. Ester is leading the way to raise public awareness about this problem and encourage the revision of discriminatory laws and regulations.

Ester is campaigning to change people’s attitudes towards members of minority groups while pioneering change in discriminatory laws and regulations in the Indonesian legal system. By engaging various forms of media, such as film and radio, and public events, Ester is spreading awareness of how socially divisive and potentially dangerous prejudices and discrimination can be. She is encouraging public discourse on a topic that has long been avoided in the past. In a country where there has been a pattern of impunity for human rights abusers and a tendency to cover up important cases, Ester is working to change that pattern by leading investigations and documentations of important cases related to discrimination.
Ester is seeking the enactment of new legislation that would nullify all existing race- or ethnicity-based regulations and penalize discriminatory acts based on race and ethnicity. A proposed law she has drafted with those ends in view is currently under ministerial consideration. Ester and her associates are engaged in ongoing efforts to mobilize public support throughout Indonesia and internationally for the ratification of this crucial legal reform.
Ester has chosen to strategically focus her work on the systemic discrimination against Chinese Indonesians, as they are the group most explicitly targeted by discriminatory laws and regulations. The increased openness currently being experienced in Indonesia provides a chance for widespread change in both the system and in people’s attitudes. Groups that used to fear the discussion of this sensitive topic are increasingly supportive of her work. The relative freedom currently afforded the media and publishing industry is an opportunity to document and expose historic and recent injustices to influence public opinion and change attitudes.

Prejudice against the ethnic Chinese in Indonesia is basically rooted in the perception that members of this minority group, comprising approximately 3 percent of the population or about seven million people, enjoy highly favorable economic conditions compared to ordinary Indonesians. This perception is based to a certain extent on the disproportionate number of very wealthy Chinese business tycoons, and historically to the discriminatory treatment of ethnic groups in Indonesia dating back to the early 18th century. The Dutch colonial government was eager to infiltrate and control the trade networks of the ethnic Chinese living in the islands, so they separated the inhabitants into three groups: Europeans, East Asians (including the Chinese) and Natives (including all other ethnic groups). Those in the native group felt the Chinese were given special privileges and economic benefits which led to jealousy and hatred towards them. Yet in fact, the colonial administration forced the Chinese to live in walled neighborhoods and restricted their travel to other areas.
Government policies supporting discriminatory measures both officially and unofficially continued after independence. Under the first President, Soekarno, regulations were enacted in 1959 forbidding foreigners (aimed at the ethnic Chinese who were still labeled as such) to be merchants in rural regions. Ethnic Chinese in Indonesia were also required to make a declaration of their citizenship. As a result of ambiguities in the text and interpretation of those regulations, many ethnic Chinese throughout Indonesia were not considered to be Indonesian citizens and were forced out of their homes and shops while their property was appropriated by the military. Chinese Indonesians were also widely targeted in the massacres of 1965 to 1966, and their assumed support for the Communist party and the People’s Republic of China was often used as an excuse for imprisonment, murder, and seizure of property. During Soeharto’s regime, discrimination was further embedded in the legal system with regulations prohibiting Chinese language, culture, and beliefs. Chinese characters, language schools, and medicines were banned. Quotas limited access for Chinese students to university. The Chinese were expected to assimilate by changing their names to “Indonesianized” versions. They were still forced to obtain a special document to establish their citizenship and pay extra fees when processing identity cards, passports, and marriage certificates. The ethnic Chinese were especially targeted in May 1998 when, as economic conditions worsened, violent riots broke out in Jakarta and cities throughout Indonesia. The perpetrators of the violence, reported to include mass rapes of Chinese women and girls, have yet to be brought to justice.
People’s attitudes and thinking have been shaped by generations of practices, beliefs, and commentary based on prejudice and suspicion of “others”. While the impact is felt by all ethnic and racial minorities, the Chinese are often explicitly targeted. Throughout Indonesian history, the Chinese have often been the scapegoats of violent social conflicts. Conscious of their tenuous position within society, few ethnic Chinese have dared to speak out about discrimination. And because the issue is considered dangerously sensitive, until very recently, there has been a serious lack of public discourse. Laws and regulations remain on the statutes that are still supportive of discrimination.
There has been some change initiated during the post-Soeharto reform period, but much of this has been superficial, such as recognition of holidays, rather than substantial legal reform. The lack of judicial resolution in numerous cases of human rights abuses also relates to the problem of discriminatory practices deeply embedded in the system.

Ester is working to change attitudes both in the general public and within the communities that have so often been the targets of discrimination. She is combining concrete steps towards legal reform with encouraging public discourse on the problem of discrimination. In 1998, to support these efforts, Ester, together with a number of concerned activists and young lawyers (including her late husband) established the organization Solidaritas Nusa Bangsa (SNB, Solidarity of the Nation). Although Ester now limits the full time staff of the organization to keep administrative costs down, she has been able to engage a wide network of organizations, part time consultants, and volunteers to support their work. SNB has volunteer representatives in Europe, the U.S., and Australia who serve to spread information from Indonesia and also help find funding for SNB programs. Ester is active in networks of human rights organizations both nationally and internationally.
In her campaign to raise public awareness of the need for change in discrimination supported by the state, Ester is undertaking investigations into several unresolved human rights cases in Indonesia. She has been leading investigations into the riots of May 1998, the largest racially motivated case in recent history. Ester has gathered a vast amount of evidence from victims and eyewitnesses, and has employed a team of artists to make sketches to reconstruct the events and faces of the perpetrators. Ester is convinced that if people learn the truth of what happened in such a tragedy, it is a step towards changing attitudes to prevent it from happening again. She and her network of activists are also working together with the families of victims to uncover mass graves from the massacres of 1965 to 1966. Working with communities, and a team of experts including geologists and forensic specialists, Ester has led efforts for the excavation of such graves in several locations, later presenting the findings to the National Commission on Human Rights. Ester sees the events of 1965 as a crucial unresolved case in which people were killed or imprisoned based upon their ethnicity and/or their ideological beliefs.
Ester and her team are actively disseminating information through books, articles, films, radio programs, and other media. To assist in the endeavor, Ester has engaged editors and press activists (from the Jakarta Post, Tempo magazine and newspaper, and other media services) as advisors and, on occasion, part-time staff. Internationally, she has been a regular contributor and advisor to Indonesia Media, a magazine produced for the Indonesian community in the U.S. Her articles also appear in English on Web sites and mailing lists. In an effort to reach a broader and more distant audience than those which she and her colleagues can address directly, Ester is making increasing use of documentary films. A group with which she works closely have already produced thirteen documentary films, including several of Ester speaking with various communities about the draft anti-discrimination legislation, the documentation of investigation into human rights abuse cases related to discrimination, and the documentation of several key community events. Some of these films have been shown on national television and in schools. They are also being widely distributed to SNB’s network of organizations.
Ester has played an important role in enabling others to speak out as well. She recently co-founded ELKASA, a group whose membership includes Chinese Indonesian academics, activists, and supporters from the business community. Members of ELKASA publish books, newspaper and magazine articles, and host public events, to help relay significant and historical information including the impact of discrimination on Chinese Indonesians.
Within the context of changing attitudes and building bridges between groups, Ester has been meeting with leading pesantren (Islamic boarding schools) in West and Central Java, and set out plans for including the ideas of pluralism and respect for diversity in their education system. These communities have been traditionally closed to outsiders, but Ester has been accepted and sees the strategic potential of communicating with and influencing their vast networks of followers. She plans to incorporate her work with education in pesantren with her future work on education modules for public schools.
With her colleagues in Solidaritas Nusa Bangsa, Ester has been working since 1998 to rid Indonesian statute books and government practices of laws and regulations with racist and ethnically discriminatory provisions. With that end in view, the SNB team first identified 62 ethnically discriminatory laws, decrees, and regulations. They then developed a multistage strategy with the objective of enacting a new law nullifying the discriminatory measures and prohibiting any further prejudice on racial or ethnic grounds. In drafting the proposed legislation, the SNB team worked with academics, members of the National Commission on Human Rights, religious and community leaders, members of congress, and the general public. Ester utilized her networking capabilities to help gather a critical mass of legislators to lobby for this new law. To reach out to the public, Ester and team members traveled widely throughout Indonesia to lead seminars and workshops to gather people’s feedback and ideas. Input and support were also gathered from international groups, including U.N. commissions and individuals through discussions and a mailing list. Leaflets, articles, and finally a book on the draft legislation have been published and distributed. Ester is still involved in lobbying members of the new parliament and continues her efforts to create a legal basis to protect the civil rights of all Indonesians.

Ester was born in Malang, East Java, where she was given the name Sim Ai Ling. Although she mixed with children of other backgrounds in her home neighborhood, she became aware, at a very young age, of racist attitudes and of being treated as “different.” In the 1980s, her family moved to Jakarta, where Ester attended senior high school and became involved in student activism. She chose to study law at the University of Indonesia with the blessings of her father, a progressive-minded teacher who encouraged her to work to defend the poor.
After completing her university studies, Ester joined the staff of Lembaga Bantuan Hukum (LBH) in Jakarta, the leading organization in Indonesia using the law and legal services to promote human rights. At LBH, she became deeply involved in a case concerning the brutal assault upon the headquarters of the opposition party in July 1997. The attack was believed to have been supported by the Soeharto regime. However, under the conditions that then prevailed, the state’s culpability could not be proven in court. As Ester pursued her work at LBH, it became increasingly clear to her that the laws themselves were unjust, and that her calling was to work for true legal reform resulting in an equitable legal framework.
When violent riots broke out in Jakarta and other cities in 1998 targeting the ethnic Chinese, Ester and her late husband, activist Arnold Purba, decided to devote their energy towards working to change the paradigm of racism and discrimination embedded in the legal, political, and social systems of Indonesia. They established the organization, Solidaritas Nusa Bangsa and began a wide range of activities. Arnold died suddenly in 2001, and Ester has continued the struggle. As Ester matured at the forefront of this struggle, she developed a strategy based upon working inclusively and reaching out across barriers to many communities. She has engaged a wide range of groups, from Indonesian legislators who once saw these issues as too sensitive to discuss, to Chinese business people who were wary of political activism, to Islamic leaders who once preached against interaction with other groups.
Ester’s courage to speak out against the injustice of discrimination has made her an icon among the young, ethnic Chinese who have traditionally been sheltered and steered far from activism and the political arena by their families. Ester has traveled throughout Indonesia giving seminars and workshops to socialize the draft legislation and gain input from a wide group of audiences. She has also traveled internationally for the same purpose, and has participated in several international conferences on racism. She is a prolific writer and has produced numerous articles and books on this topic. Her work and her personal commitment have been recognized with several awards including the prestigious Yap Thiam Hien Award for leading proponents of human rights.