Copyrighted materials of the authors.
------------------------AA 研フォーラム
日時：平成 26 年 2 月 13 日（木） 14:00～15:00
場所：AA 研 304 室
報告者名: トゥファイル，ファジャール・イブヌ（AA 研外国人研究員）
報告タイトル："Figure of the Chinese: The May 1998 Riots in Indonesia and Its
Investigative Process"Figures of the Chinese and Urban Riots in Indonesia, 1970s – 1990s
Fadjar Ibnu Thufail

Abstract:
Since Indonesia gained independence in 1945, the country has witnessed
numerous urban riots, some of which called ethnic conflicts, others religious conflicts,and quite a few of them called “anti-Chinese” riots. My research seeks to answer whysome urban riots are called “anti-Chinese” violence. In other words, it seeks toexamine why and how interpretations of the events highlight the Chinese as a social
category of ethnic group. To answer the question, I am analyzing the production ofsocial figure in the discourses of urban riots in Palu and Bandung in 1973, Ujung
Pandang (Makassar) and Solo in 1980, and Jakarta and Solo in 1998. The study
critically examines how the signification of narrative and visual representations of theriots returns to a figure of etnik Cina (ethnic Chinese). I suggest that the figure
recounted in the riot narratives and depicted in the visual representations embodies anidea of a frightening, ambiguous, but at the same time a desired state. Such ideas ofthe state emerge around critical events in the 1970s and the 1980s when the New
Order sought to consolidate its political power, also in 1998 when it gradually lost thepower. Drawing on the concept of “sacrifical crisis” developed by Rene Girard and“critical event” by Veena Das I argue that the figure of the etnik Cina signifies ananxiety over the collapsing of differences and boundary between the legal and “illegal”
citizen within the Indonesian national fold. At the same time, it also masks theinability of the state to exercise sovereign power to control and domesticate its subject.
My talk draws on a chapter of a book manuscript that I am writing on the etnik
Cina as a social figure in the riots. In the talk I discuss the theoretical perspective of
the state as an idea and suggests how the perspective sheds light on the state as animportant political construct and social imaginary in the time of critical events andsacrifical crisis. I also discussed approaches to theorize state sovereignty throughsocial figure. Then I describe the May 1998 riots taking place in Jakarta and Solo andanalyze the work of the Joint Fact Finding Team (TGPF), an official fact finding teamcreated by the Indonesian government to investigate the riots and the allegation ofmass rape against the Chinese women. I examine the narrative practice of the TGPF
by focusing on a “verification session” to learn about the construction of etnik Cinafigure as a “victim” of racial violence. Even though I did not discuss it in the talk, Iwould argue that the New Order state has unsuccessfully attempted to categorize anddomesticate the Chinese as an ethnic citizen in the national fold. The discursive
construction of the riots narratives always returns to this elusive figure, and as theOther, it has always came to haunt the New Order state’s political sovereignty anddrive the state to what Begona Aretxaga calls a “maddening state”. Highlighting theChinese (etnik Cina) as a social figure in the riots is a discursive tool employed by theNew Order state to reinstitute the boundary of the “Other” within the national fold,
and only a properly manintained categorical distinction would keep the state from“maddening.”