The Indonesian Crisis: A Human Development Perspective

8. Population Mobility and Social Conflict: The Aftermath of the Economic Crisis in Indonesia

Population Mobility and Social Conflict 213© 2003 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore m n RIWANTO TIRTOSUDARMO Migration is a dream gone sour in Indonesia, with scenes of weary refugees dominating nightly news broadcast. (Far Eastern Economic Review, 8 April 1999, p. 26) Introduction An unprecedented reversed stream of population movement characterizes the pattern of Indonesia’s demographic configuration today. Thousands of migrant families were forced to leave their homes as rampant conflict erupted in several provinces that were previously major destination areas of the state’s transmigration policy. Social conflicts, among others, were manifested in the form of violence between migrants and the local population, apparently marking the shattering of the New Order’s political order. Soeharto himself, the New Order’s main pillar, was hesitantly pushed down, after more than three decades at the apex of power. The interconnection of population and conflict is not a new phenomenon, as Choucri (1984) has argued, “…conflict is a central feature of all political behavior, at all levels of human interaction, and the prominence of population variables in shaping political behavior places population issues and conflict in close proximity”. The incidence of social conflicts in Indonesia in 1999 and 8 213 POPULATION MOBILITY AND SOCIAL CONFLICT The Aftermath of the Economic Crisis in Indonesia Reproduced from The Indonesian Crisis: A Human Development Perspective, edited by Aris Ananta (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2003). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles are available at . 214 Riwanto Tirtosudarmo© 2003 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore 2000 shows that, given the archipelagic nature of the country and its ethnic and religious plurality, the most serious population variable that has a strong link with social conflict has been geographical population mobility. As the conflict is often strongly loaded with an ethnic tone, the lack of information on the ethnic background of the migrants has resulted in difficulties for social demographers and social scientists in general to comprehend the conflict. The demography of Indonesia has long been the object of the ruling élite’s engineering schemes that have resulted in the establishment of current political-demographic construction. Besides its explicit social and economic objectives, strategic and political goals have always been at the centre of the state’s demographic engineering practices.1 Populating the empty areas in the outer islands through colonial emigration policy and post-colonial transmigration policy has been a major demographic engineering initiative for almost a century. After independence, national integration was the ultimate goal perceived by the national leaders as the major justification to continue engineering the country’s demographic configuration. Ethnicity was apparently manifested in disguise within the state demographic engineering process as the national government suppressed the expression of ethnicity to avoid the danger of national disintegration. Magdalena (1996) has defined ethnic groups as people who express a distinctive and enduring collective identity based on shared experiences and cultural traits, fortified by a myth or history. People define themselves, and may be defined by others, in terms of some of the following traits: religious beliefs, language, physical appearance, region of residence, and a history of conquest and repression by other people. Yet, given that the majority of transmigrants are Javanese, it is only logical that Javanization is, by and large, implanted within the transmigration policy. It therefore came as a turning point in the history of the state’s migration policy in Indonesia when a reversed migration stream occurred following social conflicts in the outer islands in the aftermath of the economic crisis and the collapse of the New Order regime. This chapter, consisting of four major parts, is an attempt to analyse the current demographic situation in Indonesia from the perspective of political demography. The first part is a brief historical review of the nexus of politics and demography since the colonial era up to the present period. The chronological evidence show that the notion of political dichotomy between the centre (Java) and the region (outer islands) had been socially constructed since the colonial period and fostered after independence. In this context, the state’s demographic engineering Population Mobility and Social Conflict 215© 2003 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore process that had been conducted for almost a century has played an important role in emphasizing...