An American friend and I were traveling in North Sumatra, and that night when our bus arrived in the city of Medan, I started angling for the cheapest transportation to our hostel. We started asking people on the street which minibus (angkot) line would take us to our area. One particular young man was eager not only to tell us what color minibus to take, but also to take us to where we could find one. My suspicion aroused, I told him we were grateful enough for just the advice, but he tagged along and refused to leave until the minibus arrived. We got in, confirmed with the driver that his bus would pass our destination, and asked him what the fare was. But before the driver could respond, our unwanted guide blurted out a price (20,000 rupiah for the two of us, around $1.50) that was far higher than the going rate (about 4,000 per passenger). Evidently, he wanted a cut. As the minibus driver would later explain, he had no power to resist the young man, who was a member of one of the city's powerful gangs.
This experience was not abnormal. Just a few days prior, we had been ripped off much worse when we were tricked into paying 100,000 rupiah (around $7) each for a bus ride that should have cost 20,000. But this time, I didn't just sigh in defeat; I went off. I shouted at him for almost a minute about how terrible it felt to be extorted and how—as a white foreigner—I felt like a walking target in his country, because of people like him. We still paid 20,000 rupiah, but I had said my bit, and the driver pulled away.
In the moment, I felt victorious. But over the three years I've had to reflect on that night, it's become harder to see myself as righteous and vindicated in that scenario. There I was, a wealthy white foreigner, shouting at a young man who wanted a few thousand rupiah in return for his help. For me, it wasn't about the money; it was about the principle. But I now cringe wondering whether he had the comfort and privilege to make that same prioritization.
My experiences over two years in Indonesia were constantly colored by my whiteness, in ways that I often didn't immediately comprehend. It gave me immense privileges in a society where white supremacy is an internalized and seldom questioned norm. It also contributed to the anxiety caused by constant reminders that I neither fit in nor belong.
White Imperialism and White Supremacism in Indonesia
I write this post as a personal reflection. I mention below many uncomfortable aspects of being white in Indonesia. I'm not seeking the reader's sympathy, but simply trying to convey to family, friends, and anyone else on the internet who might be curious, what it has felt like for me to spend two years being a privileged Other in someone else's country.
But let's first contextualize my experiences within the larger history of Western political, cultural, and economic domination and exploitation of Indonesia. By the end of the 19th century, the Dutch had successfully subjugated most of territory comprised in the modern state Indonesian. Their rule was especially invasive on the Island of Java (where I've spent around 19 months), where a policy of "cultivation" (cultuurstelsel) commercialized rural economies, extracting cash crops and forced labor from their colonial subjects. The colonial regime spread an ideology of white supremacism, with European-style education engendering an Orientalist worldview and a inferiority complex into the early formations of an Indonesian conciousness.
The Dutch surrendered all claims to authority over its East Indies Colony in 1949, but the ideology underlying their colonial rule didn't disappear. In a newly post-colonial world, many Indonesians continued to look (often uncritically) to the West for progress, education, and entertainment.
Within two decades of Indonesian independence, America managed to pick up the Netherlands' imperial baton in Southeast Asia. Indonesia's first president, Sukarno, a leader of the Non-Aligned Movement and host of the Bandng Conference, proved threatening to the interests of American power and global capitalism. The US first sought to destabilize the regime through support for insurgents, and then later embraced the more successful strategy of wooing the Indonesian military elite, setting the stage for American support of one of the worst atrocities in post-colonial history. It's still unclear (as far as I can tell) whether the CIA was involved in instigating or staging the alleged communist coup in 1965, but the agency played key strategic roles in supporting Suharto's counter-coup and the ensuing anti-communist politicide. This extermination of the communist party (with very rough estimates of about 500,000 victims), carried out under the compliant new Suharto regime, was instrumental in the pacification of the world's 4th most populous country under American imperial power and capitalist domination.
As an American in Indonesia, this history of white empire and capital shaped my daily life. The engineered disparities of the postcolonial global economy are a major part of the reason I had the privilege to travel there. That gangster I yelled at inherited an economy pillaged by Dutch extraction and then ravaged by American global capitalism, and that money I didn't want to give him was similarly a product of centuries of Western economies growing on the backs of coerced black and brown bodies.
I have no pretensions of being a historian or economist, so feel free to look into the linked articles for more on the Indonesia's imperial history. But the legacy of white white supremacy and empire also loomed large over my social interactions, and that's the real topic of this post. No, I was not hated or stereotyped as a colonizer; unfortunately, it was quite the opposite.
The Ubiquity and Anonymity of White Celebrity
At times, my whiteness conferred almost a celebrity status. Wherever I went (except a few spots frequented by foreigners), my presence as a white foreigner (bule, pronounced "boo-lay") invited stares. Everyone wanted to take a selfie with me. I was idolized. But unlike real celebrities, no one knew who I was. They didn't need to; I was great simply because of my whiteness.
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| Me talking to students at a high school where I was doing research. |
Getting a photo with (or if not, of) a bule is a popular goal for Indonesians at tourist attractions. In a popular online article entitled "What You Should and Shouldn't Do When Asking to Take a Picture with a Bule," readers are told that they must: (1) know which bule they're going for; (2) bring their camera; (3) ask politely; (4) make small talk before asking; (5) make sure their camera is ready before asking; and (6) get their best pose ready. They are also advised to not: (1) invite a bule who looks busy; (2) take too many pictures; (3) crowd them; or (4) get touchy. The only stone left uncovered in this type of article (of which there are many), is: why the hell someone would want a picture with a random white person anyway?
Alas, in Indonesia, white is beautiful. When an Indonesian marries a white foreigner, they are said to have "improved their offspring" (memperbaiki keturunan), because their future children would have lighter skin. Like in Bollywood and other post-colonial cinemas, Indonesian celebrities are almost all light-skinned, often with mixed Dutch ancestry. Women are praised for paleness or pushed to seek it, and "black" is nearly synonymous with ugly. Eastern Indonesians are the biggest victims of this fetishization of whiteness, as they tend to have far darker skin than natives of Sumatra, Java, or nearby islands. I would shudder when relatively light-skinned Javanese people lamented their "black" (hitam) skin in the presence of Papuans (who's skin tone resembles sub-saharan Africans).
I—being the object/idol of this fetish—was constantly praised for something I had no pride in. People told me I was attractive, noting nothing other than my light skin (and occasionally height, but the same colonial factors are at play there). Now clearly, it's fun for anyone's ego to be praised, but there's a yucky emptiness to it when it's a product of white supremacism.
Beyond physical appearances, being a bule confers a certain coolness and invites people's admiration. Whiteness is both an inherent virtue as well as a sign of other assumed virtues—intelligence, power, progress, education, wealth, etc. As the object of this praise, I felt overwhelmed and yet simultaneously unappreciated; rarely did people acknowledge the traits I truly value in myself, as they were lost in the blinding and amazing light of my spectacular white mediocrity.
The Celebration of White Mediocrity
I have an American friend who spent a year in high school as an exchange student at an Indonesian culinary vocational school. While her classmates were cooking full meals, throughout her enrollment, she never did more than chop a few carrots. Whenever she attempted to carry out the tasks given to other students, her teachers and classmates would insist that she does a wonderful job slicing vegetables, and they would invariably cheer and compliment her when she did so.
Indonesians praise white mediocrity. Any white person studying the language who can muster a terima kasih (thank you) will be told they're "fluent" (wah, sudah lancar!). Indonesians are amazed by white people who can perform basic tasks, like riding a motorbike or eating with one's hands.
This is, of course, infuriatingly patronizing. People treated me like a child, expected me to be debilitatingly incompetent, and were simultaneously amazed by this mediocrity.
People often explained the most basic concepts to me, assuming that as a white person I couldn't possibly understand. Among close friends I started referring to this as "Indosplaining."
Indonesian man to me while Im eating tempe that I ordered: "this food is called TEM-PE," spelling it out nice and slow for me #Indosplaining— Sawyer Martin French 🦅 (@FrenchSawyer) March 1, 2017
This type of behavior was most common with strangers or people I just met. Friends usually learned how to treat me like a normal person, and those who couldn't didn't become my friends.
But this celebration of white mediocrity has more important consequences than tourists dealing with patronizing comments. White supremacy is alive and well in Indonesian academia, and citation of white last names are often thrown around as if they close a discussion. White men, particularly, are assumed to be learned and authoritative sources. I was frequently asked to speak on panels that I'm sure I would never have been invited to if I were not white. (Once, one of the faculty at my university asked me to join a panel of nationally-respected scholars at a large conference because they had already called the conference 'international' but had no bule speakers. I owed her a favor, so I begrudgingly obliged.)
If white men continue to be seen as authority figures, the natural result will be the continuation of white patriarchal socioeconomic dominance and the persistence of white supremacist worldview among Indonesians. (Jadi, bagi pembaca dari Indonesia, jangan anggap rujukan kepada ilmuwan bernama bule itu sesuatu yang otoritatif pada dirinya!)
Being White: Being Different
The bule is a figure which is almost always either praised or mocked; generalizations about "white people" (orang-orang bule) are frequent, and they often tell either of how advanced and civilized they are or of how socially inept they are in Indonesia. People would frequently tell me (and others) stories about all of the silly things they had seen some bule doing. I was equally bothered by both; the common thread is that bules are supposed to be different.
As a bule in Indonesia, I was visibly different in a way that I could not possibly overcome.
When I first moved to Yogyakarta, I could feel people staring at me wherever I went and I hated it. For a while, when I rode my bike, I would cover up in long sleeves, gloves, pants, shoes, and a face mask, just so that I could roam freely without attracting attention. I stopped doing this eventually, mostly because it was also really hot outside, but it took me much longer to stop trying to fit in. I became obsessed with "assimilating" to Indonesian culture. I wanted to do everything right so that no one would have any reason to stare at me anymore.
Eventually, however, I realized that there is nothing I could possibly do that would make the average Indonesian think I belong there. If I ate with a spoon, someone would comment on how I must be incapable of eating with my hands since I was white; when I ate with my hands, there would be jeers of "wow, a bule can eat with his hands!" Eventually, I realized that I could act like a crazy foreigner or exactly like an average Indonesian, and I would get stared at just the same. It still bothered me, and I still hinged my pride on acting Indonesian enough, but I stopped deluding myself that I could ever actually fit in.
Living as such a spectacle really forced me to overcome some issues I had with social anxiety in crowded settings. It also helped me become a more confident public speaker; when everyone is staring at you on an average day, speaking in front of an audience doesn't seem so different.
Unlike for Malaysians, Chinese, or Arabs, there is no such thing as assimilation for white people in Indonesia. As much as I tried to fit in, I realized that the average Indonesian would always see me as irreconcilably different. Although Indonesia is ethnically and linguistically diverse internally, very few foreigners live in the country, so this attitude towards foreigners makes sense. This fact is one of the biggest reasons I couldn't see myself living in Indonesia in the long term. I love the country, but I could never live as a permanent outsider. (This is nothing like the experiences of refugees or those under social or economic pressures to migrate to the West, for whom return to a place of belonging can be burdensome or impossible, and who face systemic discrimination after arriving.)
Reflections on 'Reflections on Whiteness'
I have attempted to write this blog post tactfully, but there is an inherent flaw in any writing that centers white experiences in a discussion of imperial and racial power dynamics. But alas, I wanted to write on the important issue of the white supremacism in contemporary Indonesia, and my experiences proved to be the only/best vehicle at my disposal through which to do so.
This was one of the hardest blog posts I have written. I have little practice with this type of writing, and my academic habits certainly make for less engaging narrative prose. But more importantly, I'm still not sure whether the takeaway will come off as "I'm so privileged, woe is me," which was obviously not the objective. This piece (hopefully) successfully avoided veering into white guilt or self-pity, while also offering a window into my life in Indonesia. But I imagine different readers might have different takeaways.
So, to any white people (or Indonesians, or anyone else) who might say "I'm sorry you experienced this," or something of the sort: please save your pity. The comfort of the descendants of colonizers in postcolonial societies should be somewhere near last on our list of priorities. On the other hand, destroying white supremacy should be somewhere near the top.
