When Religion Becomes Legal Identity
At the end of the Suharto era (1990s), the Indonesian public sphere was marked by religious sentiment and racial intolerance. Being non-Muslim or Chinese and, therefore, perceived as non-native Indonesian, was hard at that time. These sensitive issues were at play in the 1998 riots which triggered the “Reformation” that brought Suharto’s New Order to its end. Racial discrimination toward Indonesian-Chinese – stipulated as...