Fabled wealth and commodities like spices and aromatic woods have made Indonesia a focal point for trade down through the centuries. Nearly four hundred years ago Chinese merchants, explorers, and adventurers came first to trade and then to settle.
The story of their assimilation, its costs as well as its successes and rewards is the subject of Indonesians of Chinese Origin: Assimilationand the Goal of “One Nation - One People” by Stuart William Greif. Professor Greif has interviewed a variety of Indonesians of Chinese background in order to tell the human aspects of their story.
Schools, cinema, media, as well as religion, and intermarriage have contributed to making one Indonesia. Although the trend seems to be towards the extinction of the Chinese language and other traditional aspects of their culture, those Chinese interviewed agreed that assimilation is important and that it is working.
So successful in fact has the process been during the past generation
that Professor Greif predicts that soon it will be impossible to distinguish
the racial origins of Indonesians. One nation - one people will be a reality.
STUART WILLIAM GREIF is a professor of Political Science at the
University of Otago, New Zealand. He has written several books in the field
of Chinese assimulation.
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