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Cina Benteng seeks to keep its historical roots
Tangerang’s Cisadane river bank has become an area where Indonesian Chinese reside as well as preserve their cultural heritage
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angerang’s Cisadane river bank has become an area where Indonesian Chinese reside as well as preserve their cultural heritage. Therefore the local administration should take this invaluable heritage into consideration before going further with its eviction plans, experts say.
For the sake of winning the Adipura award for cleanliness and orderliness, the Tangerang administration plans to tidy up the river bank that is also home to Boen Tek Bio temple of the Cina Benteng (Chinese of the fort) community and the old mansion of a Kapitan (captain), a title created by the Dutch VOC authority that ruled over the Indonesian archipelago until 1799.
VOC control was maintained via a form of colonial authority based on co-opting leaders of ethnic groups.
“They do not want to be separated from these historical sites,” Muhamad Isnur, one of the residents’ lawyers from the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI), said after a recent discussion on Cina Benteng with the YLBHI and the Association of Journalists for Diversity (Sejuk).
The Cina Benteng community are the offspring of those who fled from old Jakarta during the 1740 Chinese massacre. The word “benteng” comes from the fact that Tangerang was home to many Dutch forts.
The administration’s demographic data reveals that there are about 1,000 squatters living on 10 hectares of land stretching along the river bank.
The local government was scheduled to clear the houses of 350 families since April 13 but failed as violent clashes broke out between public order officers and residents.
Usman Kansong, head of the news division of Media Indonesia daily, said that evicting the residents would forcibly remove them from their cultural roots.
“So even if they are moved to subsidized apartments [rusunawa] they may find it uncomfortable as they will no longer able to raise pigs as they can freely do at the [present] site,” Usman said.
Muhamad said the residents had yet to receive any information on when the eviction would take place, although they did not expect it.
The administration had promised to provide compensation to the residents as stipulated in a letter of undertaking originally agreed by the municipal administration in 1999.
“But they have yet to receive it so far,” he added.
