Indonesia's Singkawang - with its ethnic Chinese population - is Muslim-majority nation's most tolerant place

Singkawang in Indonesia's West Kalimantan province - which has a sizeable Chinese population - was the most tolerant place in the nation in 2021, a Jakarta-based research and advocacy non-governmental organisation found.

Singkawang is home of more than 235,000 residents and maintains its status of being among the most inclusive places in a country of more than 270 million people in recent years.

Setara Institute for Democracy and Peace late last month launched its Tolerant Cities Index 2021 - the fifth since it was first released in 2015. It listed Indonesia's 10 cities with the highest and lowest tolerance scores each out of 94 cities surveyed nationwide.

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Singkawang scored 6.483 out of seven based on eight indicators such as regional development plans, discriminative policies, intolerance incidents, civil society dynamics, public statements by city governments, concrete actions from city governments, religious heterogeneity and socio-religious inclusion.

During the index launch, Setara Institute for Democracy and Peace credited the success to Singkawang's "breakthrough" regulations enacted last year on community tolerance. This became its guidelines to prevent and take action on every act of intolerance that "could disturb the peace and public order" in the city.

"Singkawang has also applied the principle of inclusivity to the planning of city activity programmes," the executive summary of the index, referring to family and children-focused programmes said.

"Through those activities, preservation and dialogue of harmony is established," it added.

In five consecutive indexes, Setara Institute for Democracy and Peace has found Singkawang to consistently rank among the most tolerant cities - placing third, fourth (tied with three others), first, second and first, respectively - in a country of 34 provinces.

The Tolerant Cities Index 2021 found other highest-ranked cities including Manado and Tomohon in North Sulawesi, Ambon in Maluku, Kupang in East Nusa Tenggara, as well as Salatiga and Magelang in Central Java.

Meanwhile, the same index listed Depok in West Java, Banda Aceh and Sabang in Aceh, Cilegon in Banten, as well as Pariaman and Padang in West Sumatra as some of the lowest-ranked Indonesian cities for last year.

Singkawang Mayor Tjhai Chui Mie, who assumed her post in 2017 and is ethnic Chinese, said at the index launch in Indonesia's capital Jakarta: "Singkawang is a multiethnic city, we have 17 [ethnic] associations and we are a miniature of Indonesia."

"If all of Indonesia can ... keep its people tolerant, I believe Indonesia will become a strong Indonesia, an advanced Indonesia," she said.

Indonesia - the world's largest Muslim-majority country - officially recognises five other religions: Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism.

Singkawang in West Kalimantan, where the province shares a land border with Malaysia's Sarawak state, is widely known as the "City of a Thousand Temples", with Chinese temples of various sizes across the city.

Singkawang's iconic Tri Dharma Bumi Raya Vihara and Masjid Raya Singkawang (Singkawang Grand Mosque) in the city centre also stand side by side, a symbol of religious tolerance.

According to the city's 2020 census results, it has some 235,000 residents. More than 40 per cent of them are ethnic Chinese, whereas Dayaks, Malays, Javanese and others make up the rest.

Harryanto Aryodiguno, an international relations lecturer at President University in Bekasi regency, near Jakarta, said many Indonesian-Chinese in Singkawang were descendants of gold miners from the now-defunct Lanfang Republic. This was established by Chinese immigrants in the mid-18th century and collapsed more than a century later - in what is now known as West Kalimantan province.

West Kalimantan native Harryanto, who also studies ethnic Chinese communities in Indonesia, said many ethnic Chinese there got "married to local Dayak and Malay women, and uniquely almost all of their descendants use the Hakka language, even though they are assimilated descendants".

"This is what distinguishes Chinese descendants from other areas in Indonesia such as on the island of Java, where Chinese descendants who have been assimilated generally use local languages," he said.

Harryanto said the ethnic Chinese population in Singkawang comprised Hakka, Teochew and Hokkien groups. However, he said other communities "became Hakka by themselves due to the large number of mining communities that spoke Hakka".

Harryanto said there was "almost no" sense of ethnic superiority among Chinese descendants there.

In an interview with This Week in Asia, Setara Institute for Democracy and Peace's research director Halili Hasan said the index involved 12 researchers and 10 subject experts. They had to read government documents and analyse self-assessment questionnaires filled out by local governments.

Halili said the governmental and civil societal aspects "stood out in Singkawang" compared with many other cities in Indonesia.

"In Singkawang, there is no one sociocultural entity that is really dominant," he said.

Aside from Singkawang's achievements in maintaining the city's tolerance, challenges remain in Southeast Asia's largest democracy.

"One of the biggest threats to building tolerance in Indonesia is the politicisation of identity because the politicisation of identity will form polarisation and social segregation," Halili said.

In recent times, Indonesia saw a rising trend of identity politics during Jakarta's 2017 gubernatorial election. This made international headlines - between then-incumbent Basuki ''Ahok'' Tjahaja Purnama, former education minister Anies Rasyid Baswedan and contender Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono. Anies won the race, while Ahok was convicted for blasphemy in a case that already emerged before the poll.

An official at Indonesia's Home Affairs Ministry hoped the index could inspire authorities to improve their cities' tolerance.

Suhajar Diantoro, the secretary general of the ministry, said at the index launch that SETARA Institute for Democracy and Peace's findings could be "a best practice for other mayors to follow".

Meanwhile, some residents of Singkawang agreed with the institute's assessments.

"Throughout my time living in Singkawang, I have felt for myself the society is harmonious and peaceful," said Multi Siahaan, a 33-year-old travel blogger who was born in Medan in North Sumatra, but moved with her parents to Singkawang in 1994 and has lived there ever since.

"The way I see it, Singkawang's tolerance is very good, especially [that] Singkawang has various ethnicities and cultures. One of them is mine, I am from the Batak tribe. Communal harmony in Singkawang is very well-maintained," she added.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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