is just one of six officially recognized national religions in Indonesia, and though it accounts for by far the biggest chunk of the population (something like 85 percent) there are big swaths in the east of the country which are Christian-majority (plus Bali, where most people are Hindu). And religious minorities tend to be disproportionally represented in major urban populations, as well as being disproportionally represented in the ranks of the middle classes, which gives a certain cosmopolitanism to the modern urban scene. But there’s also a vast diversity within the Muslim population itself—from those who take their faith very seriously indeed, to those for whom it’s nothing more than a word on their identity card. There is a minority of women who adopt conservative Muslim dress, but they’re massively outnumbered by those who match a simple headscarf with skinny jeans, or who wander around in shorts and tee-shirt with their head uncovered.
There are some regions of Indonesia where the local culture is more obviously and conservatively Muslim—the north of Sumatra, for example. But despite a definite conservative trend of late, when it comes to lifestyle and social norms, Indonesia is still often closer to the Buddhist-majority countries of mainland Southeast Asia than to the Middle East. So the next time you spot the phrase “the biggest Muslim country in the world”, reach for your red pen…
RELATIONS WITH THE OUTSIDE WORLD
Here’s the weird thing: almost everyone who visits Indonesia comes away with the impression that it’s one of the friendliest places on the planet; but this ultra-hospitable nation also has a long tradition of prickly relationships with its neighbors and lapses into xenophobic nationalism. It’s probably all down to history. During Indonesia’s early decades of independence from the Netherlands, the flamboyant first president, Sukarno, realized that one of the best ways to bind a vast and diverse nation together was to start a fight with someone else. He started fights with America, with Britain, and above all with Malaysia.
Those days of open confrontation are long gone, but the legacy remains. Nothing starts an Indonesian Twitter-storm more quickly than a perceived insult from a foreign nation. Malaysia, which has a lot in cultural common with Indonesia, comes in for a particularly large amount of flak, and relations with the other big neighbor, Australia, can get pretty testy at times too—over everything from the history of East Timor to the export of beef. None of this ever seems to impact on how most Indonesians respond to individual foreigners, which is refreshing, but that doesn’t mean that race isn’t an issue in Indonesia…
IS INDONESIA RACIST?
Some grumpy expats—and boy, can some expats be grumpy!—like to claim that “Indonesia is the most racist country on earth”. To my mind this is total hyperbole, and stems mostly from the fact that for the average Caucasian Westerner, living in Indonesia offers a first experience of routinely being viewed in terms of skin color—not something that any African-American or British Asian would find particularly unusual.
But if Indonesia isn’t the most racist country on earth, it’s certainly a place where the idea of “political correctness” hasn’t yet had much impact. Caucasians are routinely referred to using the slang racial designation bule, and people merrily make comments about the “frizzy hair” of Africans and the “slitty eyes” of Northeast Asians. There’s also a high degree of color-consciousness. As in many other Asian countries—as, indeed, in just about every country until comparatively recently—there’s an insidious connection between skin color and social status. Basically, if you’ve got darker skin it suggests that you’re poor. In Indonesia having a suntan doesn’t mean that you’ve just been on holiday; it suggests you’ve just been working in the fields.
Indonesia also has plenty of internal ethnic prejudices. People from the far east of the country, where dark-skinned, curly-haired Melanesian ethnicities dominate, are often subjected to condescending prejudice in western Indonesia, and the famously hard-working economic migrants from the island of Madura are routinely slandered as violent, foul-mouthed thugs—much as Irish migrant laborers were once viewed in Britain.
The single biggest racial issue in Indonesia, however, centers on the Chinese. Indonesia has been home to significant numbers of people of Chinese origin for centuries—and for centuries Chinese-Indonesians have been subjected to prejudice and sporadic hostility. Under the Suharto government during the last three decades of the 20th century, Chinese language, script, and cultural celebrations were officially banned, and Chinese-Indonesians were pushed to adopt “Indonesian”-sounding names.
Two versions of the intercultural encounter: Local kids watching with amusement as a tourist “roasts” herself on a Lombok beach and an Australian trainee teacher lending a hand in an Indonesian classroom.
There’s no getting away from the uncomfortable fact that, even today, Chinese-Indonesians are a disproportionately wealthy group compared to their pribumi counterparts (pribumi is itself a very loaded word, technically meaning “indigenous”, but to all intents and purposes meaning “non-Chinese”), so it’s inevitable that a certain amount of grumbling prejudice continues. But legal restrictions on Chinese language and culture are long gone; Chinese New Year is now a national holiday; and many educated Indonesians are now careful to use the term Tionghoa for Chinese-Indonesians, instead of the cruder Cina—a first step on the road to political correctness, perhaps.
Protesters in Jakarta getting hot and bothered over an international trade agreement.
Is “Bule” a Racist Word?
If you’re a Caucasian foreigner and you spend any time in Indonesia you’ll hear it: bule. It’s just two simple syllables (the pronunciation is “boo-lay”), but it’s a word powerfully primed for controversy. Bule originally meant “albino”, but in its modern colloquial sense it’s generally used for Caucasian foreigners. As far as I’m concerned the most accurate translation is simply “whitey”. So bule is unquestionably a racial designation, and some Caucasian expats get very upset by it. But is it actually a racist word?
Very few Indonesians are even aware of the idea that bule might be a contentious term. And if they do hear expats complaining they are usually defensive: “We don’t use it as an insult,” they protest; “It’s just a word for white people!” The response to this from those determined to be offended is that in 1900s Mississippi, in its average daily usage, the “N-word” wasn’t consciously used as an insult either; it was “just a word for black people”.
For what it’s worth, my personal take is that bule is not, of itself, a racist word. It’s almost never used with insulting intent. If Indonesia had a higher degree of “political correctness”, then it might justifiably be judged as problematic, but for the moment being called bule doesn’t bother me one bit, and I use the word myself. It all comes down to the fact that to be happy as a foreigner living or traveling in Indonesia, you need to remember that you are a foreigner, that you do look different. Keeping this all in perspective can be hard if you spend your time in tourist or expat hotspots. But I know that when I’m riding my motorbike through the hinterlands of Java and I spot another incongruous foreigner, even I find myself staring. In fact, I sometimes have to fight the urge to shout out as I pass — “Hello mister! Hello bule!”
THE OTHER SIDE: IDEAS ABOUT BULES
Some prejudices are just downright funny. The one that makes me
