Questioning Tanjung Balai Riot

The riot that contain SARA (tribal affiliations, religion, race and societal groups) occurring in July 29, 2016 in Tanjung Balai city, North Sumatera, that made 3 monasteries, 8 Pagodas, and 2 offices get a horrible damage was a shame despite before the riot happened, the situation of the city had been really conducive.

However, the riot in Tanjung Balai shows that our people are still unwise in using the social media, including the existence of exclusive radicalism group in some regions that often causes security instability.

Based on the tribe structure or the ethnography, people of Tanjung Balai are relatively heterogeneous. Moreover, the region was within the transit route of Malaysia, Singapore, and Batam. The tribes in Tanjung Balai are such as Batak Toba, Javanese, Malay, Batak Karo, Batak Simalungun, Tionghoa, and others. Meanwhile, the composition of the people based on the religion is dominated by Muslim (92%), followed by a few Christian and Buddhist.

The SARA-nuanced riot that happened in Tanjung Balai began with a quarrel between a person who manages the praying house and a person from particular ethnic, then this trivial issue was provoked by some interest groups through the social media when the resolution of the problem was still processed by the law enforcement officers.

The exclusive radicalism group which tends to be narrow minded and intolerance has so far been given enough space of democracy in Tanjung Balai. They often raise sensitive issues like trade control by certain ethnic both by using their bulletin and other channels spreading to their communities.
The activities of the intolerance groups are intensifying lately in Tanjung Balai that mostly bring SARA sentiment that were responded immaturely by the people  making them get easily provoked by that intolerance group.

Been a long time

The negative sentiment on some ethnics has existed for a long time in North Sumatera. The intolerance radicalism group has shown their bad intention since 2005 when dealing with the praying house land dispute between the housing developer and the interest group which used to use that place as the base of their organization activities to provoke the people.

Besides, the rise of SARA sentiment being accused to some ethnics is not only related to the social and the economic aspect, but also the politics especially during the legislative election, presidential election, and of course the regional election (pilkada).

Accusation of the intolerance group to some ethnics that they try to divide the people based on their religion by destroying and evicting the praying house, in the economic sector by dominating the economic activities as well as by showing an exclusive life style, reflects the failure of acculturation within the society.

This condition will lead to getting provoked easily and causes friction amongst the people like what happened in Tanjung Balai city. Should it continue, it will trigger a revenge that eventually threaten the social integrity, social cohesion and damage the unity.

The riot in Tanjung Balai is a reflection of the lack of dialogues among religion prominent figures and the prominent figure in society to prevent the development of SARA nuanced issues, including the lack of guidance for social and religious tolerance in Tanjung Balai especially and North Sumatera in general in which both are the region that are prone to conflicts because of their heterogeneity.

Having learnt from the mass rage in Tanjung Balai, people of Tanjung Balai especially and Indonesia in general have to remember that many countries in history like Balkan, Kashmir, Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Sudan were shattered because of ignoring the pluralism and diversity.

For Indonesia, the base of diversity have actually been tied strongly by a slogan "Bhinneka Tunggal Ika" meaning that the existing diversity is to bind us together rather than trigger any conflict. What happened in Tanjung Balai must warn us that the spirits of Bhineka Tunggal Ika is threatened in the era of social media. The diversity is often used as the political weapons and propaganda material by some intolerance groups to damage the unity and cause social friction.

Scrutinizing the Tanjung Balai riot, nowadays Indonesia is still facing problems in promoting tolerance in every sectors, even though tolerance is an inseparable part of human life, because successful tolerance will create social transformation.

Meanwhile, the law enforcement officer and Ministry of Communications and Information need to intensively take strategic measures such as conducting cyber patrol to delete the content of social media that damage tolerance, promoting media literation related to the existence of social media, cooperating with the server of social media (YouTube, twitter, Instagram, and others) to get the access for government to block and obtain data of writers or submitter of the destructing contents to assist the law enforcement process, like in some countries such as China and India.

*) The author is The Alumni of Padjajaran University (Unpad), Former Director of Mass Communication in Lembaga Analisa Politik dan Demokrasi, Jakarta.