Defiant memories in confronting the Chinese stereotype in Indonesia: the politics of memory of Souw Beng Kong

ABSTRACT This study considers Batavia’s first Chinese captain, Souw Beng Kong (1580–1644) as an example of the memory politics of urban Chinese Indonesians in Jakarta. It explores how and why he has been remembered in the contemporary era. While the stereotype of Chinese Indonesians has its roots in the Dutch colonial period, this study takes the Dutch institution of the captain as a framework to examine what is remembered as a way to bind group members together in a shared community of memory. This study argues that remembering Souw represents an implicit but defiant response to a long-standing negative stereotype that the ethnic Chinese in Indonesia are perennially alien outsiders.